Steve Yastrow

Say it: “Are you here?”

“Cause all you see, is where else you could be …”

-    Death Cab for Cutie, Your Heart is an Empty Room, from the album Plans

Isn’t it frustrating when you fully commit yourself to an interaction with someone, but you can tell that they aren’t fully engaged with you?

This happens all of the time – people’s eyes wander while you talk with them, their answers to your questions betray that they have lost the thread of the conversation, you hear them clicking away on their computer keyboard while you talk on the phone.  Ugh.

Don’t feel like you’ve done something; it’s usually not your fault.  As Eckardt Tolle said, the present is a place most of us visit only infrequently.  Non-engagement is a symptom of our over-scheduled, over-saturated lives and the myth that we are able to multi-task.

But, it’s a big problem: The first requirement for a relationship-building encounter is that you and the other person are both fully-engaged in the moment.  Without full engagement, you will have a relationship-diluting transaction.

Here’s my challenge to you for the upcoming week:  Call people out when you see they are not engaged.

Ok.  It’s a bit uncomfortable.  But think of it this way:  You are devoting valuable moments of your life to an interaction with someone, and they are not equally willing to commit to the encounter.  You are there, and they aren’t. What a waste of your time.  What a waste of a slice of life.

Go ahead. Say it.  “Are you here with me?”   “Do you want me to wait until you finish whatever it is you are typing, and then we can continue talking?”  “Is something else distracting you? Do you want me to wait a minute while you take care of it?”

You are not the one who should feel uncomfortable.  My associate, Caroline Ceisel, and I work together most every day.  Caroline has no trouble telling me if she thinks my mind is elsewhere when we are talking about something.  The result?  I am especially conscious of giving her my full attention when we talk.

Do it. You will have an opportunity today. You will be speaking with someone and you will discern that their mind is wandering. Call the other person out.  And then, watch what happens.  They will not only engage more fully in the present moment, they will also engage more fully with you in the future.

Posted in Customer Encounters | 9 Comments »

Caroline’s Ice CRM clarity

What does mint chocolate chip ice cream have to do with CRM?

One of my “rant buttons” is the way Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is usually discussed as a software-oriented, direct marketing, customers-in-the-aggregate, technology tool. Shouldn’t we focus, first, on how to manage human relationships with individual customers, and then look at how the technology can support those one-on-one relationships? In practice, it usually doesn’t work that way. Here’s a recent post I wrote on tompeters.com that sums up these thoughts.

Last week, during a presentation to 200 employees of one of our health care clients, my associate, Caroline Ceisel, made a spontaneous comment that put customer relationship management in usable, human terms. Caroline was leading a discussion on how to use information we learn about an individual patient, at one point in time, to personalize the patient’s relationship with the practice at a later point in time. Caroline said, “It doesn’t matter if you know your girlfriend likes mint chocolate chip ice cream if you don’t ever get her some.”

From where I was standing, near Caroline at the front of the room, I could see the faces in the audience. They practically glowed with understanding.

Sure, technology is very helpful in remembering those “nuggets” about individual customers. But those nuggets only matter once you pull them out and use them to give customers what they want. Think of all of the nuggets about individual customers that are sitting in your CRM database. Is your company using that information only to execute more streamlined direct marketing campaigns, or are you using that information interact with individual customers in ways that are relevant to each customer?

Remember, it doesn’t matter if you know it. It only matters if you use it.

Posted in We relationships | No Comments »