Critical thinking and a great customer experience can be hard to master – learn to reflect on art and your business!

SLOW DOWN! Reflect on the art & on your customer service!

What did you say? When the San Francisco Legion of Honor Museum reopened during Covid, they had intermingled Wangechi Mutu’s exhibit “I am speaking, are you listening?” with the very traditional art work. It was a phenomenal! And, the title alone seems to be so relevant now with service.

Slow down! Art teaches us to think critically about service and overall!
Isn’t this perfect? Mother Nature in action! We keep trying to rein in all the ever-changing business factors. And guess what, so do our customers! The future will require us to think critically (creatively and broadly) and as of right now, customers are having to do that very same thing. “Can I get my customer service issue fixed or am I wasting my time? What can I substitute when I can’t find something (day care, urgent care, a flexible part time jobs, brown gravy, strawberry jam, a shower curtain liner, etc..)

SLOW DOWN! Reflect on the art & on your customer service!
Just like this broken glass turned into art by Symon Berger, what do we do now about service to fix it? Just this morning, I went to the grocery store and had to bag my own groceries while an unfriendly cashier just stood and watched (and it wasn’t Aldi’s). And then there’s this… AARP actually has a COVER STORY about service called “Beat The System! Get The Fair Treatment And Good Service You Deserve” by Allan Roth, September 2021. This name says it all. What can we do to set a new framework for service and create a version of service that is not so shattered, just like Berger did with his art?

SLOW DOWN! Reflect on the art & on your customer service!

Art teaches us! Even back in 2015, Antoine Geiger depicts what we definitely see today (Colossal article “The Attention-Sucking Power of Digital Technology Displayed Through Photography by Antoine Geiger, by Kate Sierzputowski, November 11, 2015). His art depicts people of all ages with their faces completely lost in their technology as if the rest of the world around them does not exist.

SLOW DOWN! Reflect on the art & on your customer service!

Art teaches us! Everyone is still talking about their experience and the comment I hear the most is “IT WAS JUST OK”. We can’t imagine that customer experience management could be more complicated. One road block replaces another. All that effort for “Just Ok”?

SLOW DOWN! Reflect on the art & on your customer service!
Art teaches us! Slow down and think about your service. Like this artist posing and taking photos up high, does your overall customer experience platform leave your customers hanging without the service they need?

SLOW DOWN! Reflect on the art & on your customer service!

Art teaches us! This one is easy. Just slow down a minute and see if your service stands out as better than the rest or do you just blend in with your competition? In this photo, you can barely see this leopard who heavily depends on being the ability to blend in to his surrounding to capture the next meal. The artist noticed how hidden the leopard was and captured it perfectly.

SLOW DOWN! Reflect on the art & on your customer service!

Art teaches us! Maybe the artist or the art itself. This Konig Gallery immersive art installation has attached 10,000 “I Hope” letters from around the world. So, what is your hope? My hope? Is for you to “Be Brave” about service. With the constant change “Alotta wrong can happen”. So, be brave and check around to make sure your new strategies, streamlined channels exceeds what your customer needs.

Art teaches us! If we just stop long enough to think about service. Lawrence and Ann Argent changed up the color to blue from sandstone but kept the main bear concept the same. What a great change! Do the same. Change whatever you need to do BUT make sure to KEEP your commitment to great service – it just has to be there as the foundation. You might be going all virtual, or touchless, or starting new products, but make sure there are still far-reaching ways you can WOW your customers. Just like the sandstone color would have been bland, don’t automate so much that your service is bland too!

Art teaches us about great customer service! What does that even mean? Blog after blog, maybe this concept had been hard to understand. So let me try to explain. I believe that great service is an art not a given. And, artist pay careful attention to their craft too? So, what can we learn from them or their art? Slow down and think about your service strategy!

“Spy in the wild” teaches us that there is always some thing new to learn. Is it time to rethink how to view customers? By using ultra realistic robots scientist have been able to see things not visible with just cameras. The artist/robot specialists weave in the hair one at a time for a very realistic effect. What if you could take a fresh look at customers now and see things in a new way too? I’m not sure how you would do that but think new!

Will customers come back and not say “I’m not going back there”? Art teaches us. So many thoughts arise when you see this Jason deCaires Taylor underwater Cancun museum. Can we get customers to leave their Netflix? If they come once, will they feel unsafe...