A Review of Shep Hyken’s “Moments of Magic”

One thing I have learned in the process of writing this blog is that there are tons of great books written about customer service.  Like any profession, there really is no excuse for customer service professionals not to be constantly learning from experts in their field.  That being said, I recently had the privilege of tweeting my way through Shep Hyken’s (@Hyken) “Moments of Magic” and want to spend just a few moments sharing some insights I’ve gained from this fantastic book.

The concept of the “Moment of Magic” is really quite simple.  Every time a customer encounters your product or service is an opportunity for a moment of misery or a moment of magic.  You truly have an opportunity to make or break someone’s day.  Hyken covers everything from attitude, to appearance, to prompt responses, to appreciating customers, to lifelong learning as key components in creating moments of magic.  (I left out a few there but you get the idea.)

What I love about this concept is how simple the choice is.  In our customer service meetings, we now regularly share moments of magic that have occurred over the last 24 hours.  Sometimes we create them for a customer and in other cases, customers create it for us.  If you read the mission of this blog, at our core we blog about moments of magic and moments of misery with the intent on creating moments of magic.  I can tell you that moments of magic get addicting and have the dangerous ability to affect an entire staff in a good way.

Early on in the book, Shep Hyken shares a story about a cab driver, Frank Nelson whose mission is to “provide limousine service and cab rates.”  I won’t retell the story but Frank achieves this by paying attention to a number of key details.  He does things like provide his passengers with a newspaper to read, cold beverages, a phone to make calls and even a scenic detour without charging anything extra.  Frank ices the cake by sending thank you notes and Christmas cards to the people he drives.  Who does that let alone a cab driver?  The best cab driver in the world.  Consistently create moments of magic for your customers and they will sing your praises to anyone and everyone.  Sometimes seemingly small details make a huge difference.

Since reading “Moments of Magic” I have come to the realization that to reduce this concept to just the customer’s interaction with customer service representatives would be to sell the book short.  Customer service is merely one cog in the wheel of the much greater customer experience.  At Phone.com we have come to this distinct realization that to create true moments of magic, we must focus on the entire customer experience.  If a potential customer comes to our website in search of phone service and the site is too complex or cryptic to understand they may walk away without ever touching customer service.  In that moment we have created a moment of misery.  To truly create moments of magic, our website and system must be simple and easy to use and our support must be ready and easily accessible to continue the magical customer experience.

As one cog in the wheel of the customer experience, our customer service team is finding “Moments of Magic” to be truly inspirational.  Customer service is not an easy job by any stretch of the imagination but books like this have the ability to inspire teams to do their jobs better and understand that creating moments of magic for people really makes a difference in our own lives.  If you haven’t read “Moments of Magic” read it and then comment on this blog post with some of your favorite insights from the book!

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