Are your service norms outdated?

Prefer to listen?

Your phone is outdated. Time to upgrade to a new one. 

The satnav in your car is outdated. Upgrade the software. 

Your winter coat is outdated. Give it to charity and buy yourself a new one when you get that next promotion. 

Updating things often goes unquestioned: it seems straightforward and requires little effort. 

It’s not so straightforward when you recognise that you need to update yourself – that your ways of thinking, ways of working, ways of serving and ways of treating people are outdated. 

It can be harder to recognise, harder to accept and much harder to change or update yourself. It can feel personal, messy… and it can stink of effort. It’s so much easier to stick with what is comfortable and familiar. 

But if you don’t change or evolve, even just a little bit, the consequences can be harsh, and you may be left behind. 

Let’s say a customer feels you are old news, outdated and that your brand or business just doesn’t fit anymore. They don’t feel seen or heard. They don’t feel that you understand them. Eventually they will replace you. They’ll choose something more relevant, more agile, more understanding, more efficient, more empathetic, more loving, more valuable. 

Because I never write or ask someone to do something I am not willing to do myself, let me wrap this blog up by sharing with you some outdated service norms of my own. 

Outdated norms Updated norms  

What might your list look like of outdated norms that need to be updated? 

Whether you or I like it or not, we must keep updating ourselves: otherwise we may be replaced.