Reputation management relies on circumstances knocking on your door and how you handle them.
Reputation creation relies on what you do to create specific results.
It’s funny to think about a brand that wants to be known for excellent customer service because to become that they need to have a series of issues that customers call them for service for.
Better, I think, to be a brand that holds strong to values they can create rather than react to.
It’s the actions we take proactively that are more powerful and resonate more than the actions others look to us to make after the fact.
A person buying a bottle of wine brings it to the grocery store clerk. The clerk rings it up and sees that it’s a $70 bottle of wine. The clerk is flabbergasted at the price someone would pay for a bottle of wine. The clerk cringes and nervously says the total out loud, nervous of the reaction the customer will have. “Maybe she grabbed the wrong bottle,” the clerk thinks.
There’s tension there. There’s storytelling in that moment (every word of which is from the clerk’s side so far). But none of that narrative is the guest’s.
“Here you are,” she says while handing over her credit card. And without prompt, “My friend is flying in from Italy this weekend. I haven’t seen her in years and this is the wine she has talked about missing most. I can’t wait to see the look in her eyes when I bring it out to her and the guy she is visiting with. I’m so glad you had it!”
The clerk exhales, realizing how this wine is suddenly worth much more than $70.
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We can’t impose our stories unto others when we’re there to serve them.
Just as we need to leave egos at the door, so to we need to leave our perceptions of how we would act as the recipient of what we’re serving.
There are friends you have that if you text, you know will text you back right away.
There are coworkers who you know that if you email, you’ll have to follow up again in a day to get a response.
There are people who bring out a younger version of yourself every time they talk to you and others who make you think deeply with challenging life questions.
You know these people because they’ve been consistent with how they interact with you.
Others have expectations of you, too. You’ve built them up over time.
Alas, it doesn’t take too long to change perception. Surprise someone a few times with the opposite of what they expect and they’ll start to expect that from you.
We’re works in progress and there are certainly behaviors that we’d rather be known for that what we currently are.
