The Secret Behind Exceptional Customer Service With Jose Juarez

Great customer service isn't about having the perfect script or solving problems faster than everyone else. It's about creating a culture where every member of your team feels empowered to take ownership, build relationships, and genuinely care about the people they serve. When that kind of culture exists, customers notice. They stay loyal, they tell others about their experience, and they become one of your greatest competitive advantages.

In this episode, Jennifer sits down with entrepreneur Jose Juarez, founder and CEO of Victory Solutions and the award-winning BarbaCuban, to discuss what it really takes to build a customer-focused culture. Jose shares why leadership sets the tone for every customer interaction, how trust and empowerment create confident employees, and why authentic relationships will always outperform scripts and policies. He also explains the hiring philosophy that's helped him retain team members for decades, how he coaches employees through real-life conversations instead of role-playing, and why understanding what truly motivates your people is the key to creating a thriving workplace.

Whether you're leading a team of two or two hundred, this conversation is packed with practical insights on leadership, company culture, employee engagement, customer loyalty, and building a business that people genuinely love to work for—and buy from. If you're ready to strengthen your culture from the inside out, this episode is full of ideas you can start putting into practice today.

Visit us at jenniferannjohnson.com and learn how Jennifer can help you build the life you dream of with her online academy, blog, one-on-one coaching, and a variety of other resources!

Transcript

Jennifer Johnson 0:38

Great customer service isn't just about having friendly employees or fixing problems quickly. It's about creating a culture where every team member understands that exceptional service is everyone's responsibility, not just the customer service department. When you build this kind of culture, it becomes your competitive advantage. Customers feel the difference, they stay loyal, and they become your best marketing team by telling others about their experience. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Jose Juarez. Jose is the founder and CEO of Victory Solutions, which is a direct marketing and follow-up company specializing

Why Service Culture Wins

Jennifer Johnson 1:15

in the motorcycle industry. He is also the founder of Barbecuban, woo-hoo, which is a specialty sauce company, which is in over 500 public stores in Florida. In July of 2015, you guys, this is an impressive thing. In July of 2015, Jose was on ABC Live with Kelly and Michael in their show doing a grilling contest. He won the competition that was judged by food network stars Alex Garniscelli and Iron Chef Marcus Samuelson. Jose won the title of America's next grill star. And he has since appeared many more times in that show. So we're going to explore how to build and maintain a culture where outstanding customer service isn't a policy. It's a way that your entire team naturally operates. Welcome, Jose.

Jose Juarez 2:10

Thanks, Jennifer. Thanks for having me.

Jennifer Johnson 2:16

I'm so excited. This whole thing with the with the food or the uh America's Next Grill Star and the Barbecuban sauce and everything. But going back to you starting your other business, your first business, the and I know maybe it's not your first business, but your victory solution and talking about customer service, when I was thinking about this topic, I knew exactly who I wanted to talk to, and it was you. Just because we've had conversations about this before, and I was so thoroughly impressed. I'm like, we need to dive deep into this. So my first question is what does true a true customer service culture look like?

Jose Juarez 2:59

Well, it's it's it's really empowering your people. And and and a lot of this that we're going to talk about is that it is it's a it's a culture where you you're you actually care about what the customer says. Uh where you're not just going through the motions, you're not just you know repeating whatever's on the wall, whatever statement is. It is I truly care about you. I truly want to understand

What Real Customer Care Looks Like

Jose Juarez 3:27

what you're looking for and how I can help you achieve that. You know, I I started this business, whatever it is now, 23, 24 years ago. And the whole idea uh that came to me, I was in the car business at the time, was you know, how how do we how do we set something up where we have business intelligence, right, directly to a consumer so that they understand what is going on in their in their store. You know, how and the only way to do it was by being able to, you know, to connect with folks, finding out what they're really looking for, you know, what how they really feel about the store, where they're where they will open up and um you know and be able to share with you.

Jennifer Johnson 4:10

Right. Because a lot of times they don't until it's too late.

Jose Juarez 4:14

Right.

Jennifer Johnson 4:15

Right?

Jose Juarez 4:15

Yeah, and and and if you have if you don't really if if you have a culture out there that just kind of goes through the motions and and and number one, they're not empowered to to do that, that's what's gonna happen. Or or if you have a culture that says, you know, everything that somebody tells me I'm gonna take personally. You know, they have an issue, so I'm gonna take that personally. When when a lot of times when somebody has an issue, what they really want to do is they want to talk about it. You know, they they want to, you know, they want to explain to you where they're at. And and you got to be able to open up and listen to them and not take it personal. Um, you know, that and that that was, you know, that was one of the things that as we've gone on through the years, it's kind of interesting. You can give you can give some folks information on what you know what is going on in their in their organization. And I used to run into issues, especially in the service department area, where uh they would, you know, the service manager would get upset, um, couldn't understand, like, well, why would they say that? They never said it to me. Well, they're not gonna say it to you because of exactly how you're reacting to this information. And you're not gonna get better unless you address it.

Jennifer Johnson 5:29

Do you think that's the biggest reason why businesses are not consistently delivering that exceptional customer service? Or do you think it's that they really don't think it's that important until all of a sudden they start losing sales?

Jose Juarez 5:44

Well, they they all acknowledge it's important, but but then the actions aren't there. So what ends up happening is um they may put statements on the wall, they may do this and that, but it but in in at the end they really don't care. Um and that is shown by by lack of action, you know, lack of of really understanding the

Why Good Intentions Still Fail

Jose Juarez 6:05

customer. Yeah, they start losing sales, and you know, they're their frontline people are never in power. They can't answer. You know, one of the things I hate is, you know, um, you know, that I'm not able to do that, or that's beyond my pay grade, or you know, or that's not our policy. Oh, can't stand that. That's not our policy, you know, and that's what ends up happening a lot of times is that is that we hear that, you know, um, and we don't, you know, don't listen to the customer. I I I recently just ran into an issue where uh a dealership needed training, not a motorcycle store, but it's actually uh uh an automobile dealer, you know, where uh I have a vehicle, I have a I have an issue, and I'm like, hey, I um, you know, I'll drop it off, but I need a loaner. Oh, we we don't do that anymore. Um we're not allowed to do that. We're not this, we're not that. If you want to wait on it, you know, those are the kind of things that just turn you off right away. It's like, you know, they sell you something, but then they don't want to service it.

Jennifer Johnson 7:06

Right. So what role do you believe leadership plays in modeling the right behaviors and um and setting that tone?

Jose Juarez 7:16

Oh, a hundred percent. It has to start at the top. It can't it can't start anywhere else. You know, if if you walk the walk, you know, and and they see you uh, you know, acting in a certain way, that that is key. Without that, you're never gonna get there. You know, and and it and it also starts with, you know, again, empowering your employees to to let them know that, hey, you're gonna make mistakes.

Leadership Sets The Standard

Jose Juarez 7:43

You know, I and I had that, you know, one time early in my career. Um I was a um, I think I was a sales manager at the time for two divisions for a company called Mark III. And the um the the president of the company, I would always go to them because the culture before that was one of 100% control, right? So, so micromanage, micromanage. I couldn't make a move anywhere unless I cleared it, you know, with with the boss. And I used to go to his name is Clark Fatulli. He's been retired since, but Clark came in one day to me and he said, I trust your judgment. You're gonna make mistakes, and that's okay. So just use your judgment. You don't need to go, you know, to me on everything. That to me was huge. It was empowering. You know, I had that now I had the ability to be able to make the decisions that I felt were right. And we have to do that same thing. If we're if we're leading and we're saying, hey, we want this culture of customer service, it it starts there, but then empowering the folks to say, you know, um, take care of the customer. Take care of them as you would your friend, take care of them as you would, you know, your spouse, um, your family member. Treat it like that. You know, treat those folks that way in the same way that you would, and and it'll, you know, it'll translate.

Jennifer Johnson 9:10

Right. Right. It's all about empowering, like you said from the very beginning.

Jose Juarez 9:14

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's really the that's really the key, you know. Um yeah.

Jennifer Johnson 9:22

So when when you're looking at hiring people, how is it possible? And if it's possible, how are you able to hire people that you know will naturally fit into that culture of nurturing customer service?

Jose Juarez 9:38

You don't always know. We we've been very fortunate. Um, we have employees here that have been here 18, 20 years doing the same job, which is really difficult in the you know, in the in the telephone and the customer service and in that area. So you you can interview people uh, you know, and do the very best you can. Are they

Hiring For Care And Fit

Jose Juarez 9:59

friendly? Do you know, do do, you know, I I never use like with our our our company, um, I don't use preemptive dialers, never have. Could I make more calls an hour? Absolutely. But what what our whole training is before you make that phone call, read the notes, understand the customer that you're gonna be following up, find out a little bit about themselves, you know, and and every time you're talking to them, find out a little bit another nugget on them, find out something else so that you really truly have a relationship. And and and we've had we've had, you know, throughout the years, it it we've had situations that's it's kind of interesting. Um uh women, honestly, they do the best job at listening. Us guys, we don't, we don't do a very good job. We have to work on us harder. Uh, that's the truth, you know. Where that's what I found is is that is that you know, um, more caring and and and really listening to the customer. You know, when I first started, it was one of those things like uh my whole goal was like we got to get 50 calls an hour, we got to do this, we gotta do that. And that was the wrong approach. The approach needs to be spend as much time as you need to with the customer. That's okay. And if you only talk to five customers in an hour, but you have this this great quality, that I'd rather have quality versus quantity. You know, and early on in the in in in our company is I purposely kept it as a boutique company for 23 years. We've had companies come in and out of this industry that you know, all the way through. I've always kept it to about 100 to 110 clients, and I wanted every one of them to feel like you're the only one. You know, you're you you can reach me at any time. You can, it doesn't matter when it is. You know, uh here's my cell number. That's the other thing is I I give out my cell number. You know, here it is. Call me anytime. I'm interested. I, you know, and if you need something, we're folks have that same mentality where you know they can reach us um with a phone call. We're gonna call back. And I think that's what you gotta have is treat every customer as if they're the only customer you have.

Jennifer Johnson 12:07

It makes them feel important.

Jose Juarez 12:09

Yeah, for sure.

Jennifer Johnson 12:12

So how do you train this? Is it something that you, you know, a system that you've set up, you know, like a handbook of this is how we're training our employees on this, or how is that something that you can train? I know our listeners are probably listening, okay, well, that sounds great, but how the heck do I train people to do this?

Jose Juarez 12:32

Well, you know, like in our particular situation, um I I don't record calls, but um, you know, we we're we're there all the time listening and and and you

Training With Live Coaching

Jose Juarez 12:48

know, at managers that are listening to the conversation and we'll coach on that. I call them you know teaching opportunities, teaching moments. And and you really learn by doing. You could go into a classroom situation, you know, even I do sales training for dealerships. And the one thing I've always hated is like, oh, well, we're just gonna do this mock-up, and you're gonna say this, I'm gonna say that, and at the end of it, I'm gonna close the deal. And it's like, that's not real life. You know, real life is you finish your as you're training, you're making phone calls, right? And when you and then when you get off that call, you say, Let me ask you something. Why did you say that? What did the customer say? What was what was the deal? And then we have every, you know, well, I'll look at completed interviews on a daily basis. I scan through them. I'm I'm very involved in the business in that way. That you know, I'll go through and I'll look at hotlings, completed interviews, what information did you gather? And then, and then part of the training is you got a team member that that gathers all this information and then you bring them together and say, How'd you do that? Tell us how you did that. How how were you able to gather this information? How are you able to contact more people than you know that than over here? We want to we want to learn from you. And and that's and that's really you start off and the best person possible, depending on what the scenario is. And then you you you know, you basically inspect what you expect. So you're you're you know, you're you're you're training real live fire, I call it. Live fire. We do sales training, we call customers up. And we don't, you know, it's uh our training is like, okay, there's the telephone, here's the customer, here's the information, let's give them a call. And let's just see what happens because sales is liquid, I call it. You know, there's no scripted area. It moves around. And, you know, and and anytime you're getting into, you know, if we're talking about customer service, that's what we do. They they hire us to to basically be there there, gather information and improve their customer service. Where we're thanking them for coming into the store. We're asking them questions, and they're the first three questions are scripted. Everything else is free-flow. You know, I'll have dealers go, Can you give me your script? I'm like, well, everyone's different. My script is thank you for coming in. How professional was your salesperson? And did we have the product in stock? That's the script. Three questions. Well, how do you gather all this information? Because we truly care about the customer. So the you know, one of the things we do is is we'll sit there and they say, Well, I'm just looking. Everybody just everybody's just looking. That's that's how you that's how you get rid of uh 99% of the salespeople. Just looking. Well, just looking means you haven't earned the right to ask any questions, you know, and and you've got to connect within 45 seconds, you know. If you don't connect right away, so what when we hear just looking, we say, Oh, that's great. Is this is this your first motorcycle? Oh, well, most of the time it isn't. No, no, no. Uh, you know, I you know, what was your first bike? You know, oh my gosh, my first bike was this, and and I was eight years old. They always remember the first, and we start a conversation to really understand the customer. And by the end of that conversation, we know exactly why they didn't buy that day. We know exactly what they're looking for, you know, and we feed that information back. That same salesperson, the reason that we have survived 23 years with never doing a contract. My contract is I have to perform for you daily, weekly, and monthly. If I can't perform for you daily, weekly, and monthly, you have the right to fire me. Just give me a 30-day notice. I don't want to do a contract, I don't want to hold a piece of paper, I have to perform. I have to, I have to show you. Our team has to show you, and we have to be worth what you're paying us. And if we're not, you should not be held by a contract. You know, it's a handshake deal, and I've never been burned, you know, in all this time. Um, is it a fit for everybody? No. And there's been time, there's been times when I have called customers and said, this isn't working. Because we give you this information to try to help you change the culture, and you don't want to change it. And I'm all I'm doing right now is just taking your money on, you know, and and and it's just not working. Because I'd rather do that than for you to stick with me nine months or a year and then tell everybody, oh, they were terrible, they didn't help us. If I if I realize you're not teachable and we can't get there, it's okay. It's just not for you. You know, I mean, that's probably the that's a great way to look at it. Yeah.

Jennifer Johnson 17:19

You know, it you're not, and that's honesty, right? That comes down to that. That's showing who you are as a person to your customers, and that just builds more trust.

Jose Juarez 17:31

Yeah. And and the interesting thing about our company is I've never advertised ever. Um, I don't even prospect. I don't prospect. I uh a hundred percent is referral from day one, a hundred percent is referral business that we get, you know, and for different areas, different um, and and we've built that reputation to be able to say, yeah, this is where they're at. And and I, you know, we even get to a point where when I know the ability of our folks when we do promotions, I'll tell I'll tell the dealers, here's the deal. If you can't if it doesn't pay for itself, you don't owe me anything. And I'll bill you at the end of it. You know, um, so you know, it's it's basically what do you have to lose, you know, at that point. So and we've and that's just you know, when I looked at doing business, and one of the things I always hated was, you know, the fact that, you know, and I'll get people that'll come to me and I'll I'll have, you know, we've got new dealers that we get all the time and they'll they'll be somewhere else. But then I hear, yeah, I got to get rid of this contract. I'm trying to buy out of this contract, trying to do, you know, whatever. I mean, if you stop doing business with me, you're not ever gonna say, well, it was because of, you know, they didn't treat me right or they didn't do that. And that's that's kind of like that's that's that's been our reputation from the start, but that's where the culture really start kind of starts there. And then and I've had, look, we I've had folks that that just weren't gonna make it in this. So we try to find, all right, is there another place on the bus? You know, is there another seat on the bus that you could fit in with this company? Because you're it's not gonna be in in the customer service area, it's not gonna be in that area, and not everybody's is is made for it, you know. Um, and then it you know, and sometimes you just have to say, this isn't good for either of us. You're not having fun, you're not enjoying it, you know.

Jennifer Johnson 19:25

So I go back to something you said, and it it basically sounds to me like you have really succeeded in the realm of having your your associates, employees, your team members create relationships with these people as they're talking to them. And that's what actually gets them to open up. Like you said, they care. And that's that that's hard to find, and that's why you've been so successful.

Jose Juarez 19:57

Yeah, I it's it's probably so it it starts with you caring about the employee too. You know, it starts with with with um, you know, it's your birthday, and and I'm I'm gonna ask you, what do you what would you like me to? I I have a kitchen in our uh from the start, I I do I put a kitchen in our place, you know, because food to me is is like where you know you it just draws everybody together, right? You and I'll sit there and say, well, I'd like you know, I'm gonna make you whatever you want. Uh or I'll come in earlier and have breakfast ready for everybody. Or, you know, whatever the case is. People, people get fed here pretty

Caring For Employees Drives Loyalty

Jose Juarez 20:34

well. So, you know, or you just come in and say, you know, gas prices have been going up like when they were or whatever, and just you know, come in and here's a $50 get uh gas card for everybody. Thanks for coming in. I really appreciate you. I know it's costing you more to come in, you know. Um, hey, uh, you know, here here, I know that you may not spend money going to the movies. I know you love the movies, so so I uh you know little birdie told me that. Here, here's here's a here's a gift card here. Here's that. It's it's these things that you know we're we're in this business, it's a huge turnover business. We haven't had that.

Jennifer Johnson 21:09

I'm sure.

Jose Juarez 21:09

You know, and and and we've had different situations throughout, you know, where I've had to learn, you know. I I came I came from when I started this thing from my motivation, you know, in the car business was was really money-driven motivation. Um, you know, there there was there was motivation on on title, money, hitting goals, wanting this, wanting that. And then I first came into this thing thinking, well, everybody's motivated by money. No, they're not. You know, there's some people that you know that that are not at all motivated. You gotta have enough money to make a living, but they're more motivated by you know, somebody going, hey, you know what? Um, when you go on vacation next time, what I want to do is is, you know, I I want to I want to buy a dinner for you. You know, so here's a gift card, because I know you're going here, I know you like to do this, or you know, here, here, hey, I found this thing here that you're really into, and I have a

Jennifer Johnson 22:57

Mm-hmm. You know, I remember people remember bosses like that. I remember my one of my first bosses. He was the same way. And when I had kids, even after I didn't work there anymore, I brought my kids in and they were always like, I want to see Lloyd. Because he played this trick with the with the coin behind his ear. And it's how do you make people feel? It's the whole Micah Angelou quote, right? It all harkens back to that. They want to feel like you they matter to you. And that's really important. That's really wonderful. Uh, one of my last questions for you is we have a delay, I think. It does absolutely. It's it's I it's how I feel, and that's really, really important. Um what is your strategy for handling a difficult customer while still supporting your team member? Because I see this all the time. I see a customer coming up, and in fact, uh, I did this recently. A customer was saying less than kind words to an associate, and you know, we have to have their back. How do you handle something like that? Right. Can I use that? Can I borrow that? That is great. That is wonderful. As we start to wrap up, if business owners realize their customer service culture isn't where they want it to be, what's one first step that you would recommend they take? Always a story. Yeah, there's always a story, right? We are in the portion of our podcast where we're gonna do the final four. I love doing the final four with all of my guests, and it's four questions that I ask everybody that's on my podcast. So you ready? First question is what is your favorite book that you've read and what made it stick? Oh my goodness. I know what that is. Yes.

The Final Four Questions

Jennifer Johnson 31:43

It is, it was it was a very it was a long one, but it was good. Yeah. Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice that you find yourself coming back to again and again? Great advice. I love it, that's great advice. What is oh yes, what is one habit or practice that's genuinely changed your life. Great advice, great advice. Last of the four questions. If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? How can they do so? Awesome. Thank you so much, Jose. Thank you so much, Jose. Thank you, and thank you to all of my guests.