Monday, July 31, 2006

Do you want kid's in your restaurant?

The number one item posted on the last 4 surveys I have read about bad service is - not surprising to me! - rude behavior of children in the dining room! And I agree! This is even noted above and before rude service from an employee!

I think the day is coming - and not to soon for me - that restaurateurs will begin to find ways to crack down on rude behavior from children. Would you allow that kind of behavior from adults? Not in the least. So why tolerate it from children?

I always coach clients that you make more money from adults who wish to visit you because you do not allow insensitive behavior from the children of obtuse parents. Unless of course you are Chuck E Cheese or a business that is geared toward children. It's sort of along the lines of the arguments against going smokeless. And once we make the transformation, we will all kick ourselves at not having done it sooner!

Read this writer's experience! Sound familiar?

Thursday, July 20, 2006

The Little Detail that Matters for Small Retailers

In this guest column, popular guest writer John Wyckoff says no one ever talks about the condition of the restrooms as a key to growing a retail business -- but maybe they should. Restrooms give customers clues as to how you run your business and the attention you pay to the details.

Read more here!

Wake up already!

Press Releases: Zagat.coms Message about Service

zagat.jpg

excerpts:
Chicago
Service - The Weak Link: As with most cities Zagat surveys, service is the number one dining irritant of Chicago’s restaurant goers, cited by 77% of all surveyors. In comparison, noise (8%), prices (4%), and poor food (4%) come in far behind.

Atlanta
Service The Weak Link: As with most American cities, the vast majority of Atlantans found poor service to be the most irritating factor in the local dining scene. Sixty-three percent of all dining-related complaints were about service, compared to only 14% about noise, 6% about prices, 6% about food, and 4% about parking and traffic.

Texas
ServiceThe Weak Link: As with most American cities, an overwhelming percentage of Texans found poor service to be the most irritating factor in the local dining scene. Seventy-eight percent of all dining-related complaints were about service, compared to only 8% about noise and 4% about prices.

sources:
“Zagat Releases 2006/2007 Chicago RestaurantsGuide”(ABC7Now.com,Jul.20,2006)
“Zagat Releases 2006/2007 Atlanta Restaurants Guide” (Zagat.com,Jun.21,2006)
“Zagat Releases First Statewide Texas Dining Guide” (Zagat.com,Apr.7,2006)

Abe Lincoln's Customer Relationship Philosophy

"I don't like that person -

I think I need to get to know him better."

- Abraham Lincoln

Is that your attitude when it comes to customer relationships? You can see why Lincoln was a skilled politician...his attitude was right on target, even when it came to people he might not necessarily be drawn to right away.

In sales, as in politics, shunning a customer or a prospect because 1) you don't like their personality, 2) don't think they have the money to do business with you, 3) are in the "wrong part of town", or 4) rubs you the wrong way...all of them are bad motives.

There is something good in everyone, but you need to look hard for it sometimes. But that's not a reason not to do business with them.

However, I've seen more than my share of sales professionals walk away from good potential business relationships simply because they don't "like" the other person. Hey, guess what: This isn't high school. You aren't passing notes in your home room, and your customer isn't going to ask you to the prom. It's a professional business relationship, and you need to grow up and act your age when it comes to being patient with your customers, even when they don't return the favor to you at first.

Source: http://www.landingthedeal.com/2006/07/abe_lincolns_customer_relation.html


One of the country’s top restaurateurs on the difference between service and hospitality.

Q: I’d like my restaurant to provide great customer service, but staffers don’t seem to grasp the concept. Can it be taught?

The most important thing you can do is make the distinction between customer service and guest hospitality. You need both things to thrive, but they are completely different. Customer service entails getting the right food to the right person at the right time. Hospitality is the degree to which your customers feel that your staff is on their side…”

source: “Ask Danny Meyer” by Danny Meyer (Inc. Magazine, Jul.2006)

75 Percent of Mystery Shoppers Say Customer Service Has Not Improved With the Addition of Summer Help

With the summer season in full swing, many retailers and restaurants across the United States have hired part-time summer help. Overall, this extra help has not resulted in an improvement in customer service, according to more than 75 percent of mystery shoppers who attended the Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA) Third Annual National Educational Conference for Shoppers held July 7-9 in Chicago.


Source: http://www.restaurantnewsresource.com/article23203.html


Tuesday, July 18, 2006

WOW! Service is bad? No way!

There's a large serving of irony in the fact that at this point in our lives, when there's so much to celebrate and we can easily afford restaurant meals, staying home has become the classier choice. In a community of dining spots -- each advertising avidly for our dollars -- we stay home and dine in.

Read Article

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Shameless commercial!

If you have service issues you need resolved, call me at 1-877-GameOn1 to talk about how we can help you build a better service model!

The first one who does this in your market is going to win big. It might as well be you!

Also, check out my online store and see what products and services you can use to help you coach yourself to a better business!

Impressions

This weekend my family went to our neighborhood pool for a late afternoon swim and dinner. Our pool complex has a restaurant that sells great burgers, pizza, salads, soft drinks and ice cream. I have always thought it to be cool having such an amenity at the pool, although this was the first time we have ever ordered dinner at this establishment. Neighbors had proclaimed that the food is good...


Read more here!




Thursday, July 13, 2006

Comcast - a tale of poor customer service and screwed up management decisions

So a guy has problems with his cable modem and spends time in Comcast's online customer service hell (he also happens to be the biggest champion for the movie snakes on a plane, even though the movie makers newer acknowledged that). Then Comcasts decides to send a technician out to have the modem swapped out. When the technician calls Comcast to activate the modem, he ends up in the same customer service hell hole as most customers end up in and spends an hour on hold - and falls asleep on the customer's couch. The customer videotapes the incident and puts it on YouTube. Next thing you know it gets picked up by mainstream media outfits like the NYT, Forbes, and even airs on MSNBC's "Countdown" program, just to name a few. More than 300,000 people view the video on YouTube.

Another good customer service story - right? This must have been a great wake-up call for Comcast management to start fixing their problems...

What do you think happened next?

Comcast FIRED the technician!
...now talk about a wrong-headed management decision.

What do you think?

Take the poll Free Poll by Blog Flux


Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/EmergenceMarketing/~3/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emergencemarketing.com%2Farchives%2F2006%2F07%2Fcomcast_a_tale_of_poor_cu.php

Friday, July 07, 2006

Communicating Your Expectations To Your Employees Enhances The Customer Service Experience

Two guys walk into a bar Whoops! Wrong story. Lets try again. One of my co-workers walked into one of her regular restaurants with a friend and ordered a meal. Sitting next to the wall, they had a birds eye view of a cockroach crawling down that wall. When they brought it to the attention of the manager, she removed the roach but attempted to change the subject to ask how they liked the meal.

Keep reading here.

Max’s Laws Revisited!

  1. This restaurant is run for the enjoyment and pleasure of our customers, not the convenience of the staff or owners.
  2. You get gree round of drinks if anyone on our staff comes up and says, “Is everything all right?” When we aske questions, they’ll be helpful ones.
  3. You must get your mustard and ketchup before your burger, sandwich or fires.
  4. We hate soggy fries. If yours aren’t crisp, they way you like them—-send them back—-maybe the kitchen will get the message.
  5. Corned beef and pastrami are good because they contain some fat. If you want something lean, how about our turkey?
  6. Our turkey is always fresh. Period.
  7. Our iced tea is table brewed. Just pour it over a big glass of ice.
  8. Soft drinks come in bottles or cans. No bar guns here.
  9. San Francisco bakers don’t bake on Wednesday and Sunday. Our breads are fresh all other days. The pastry we make is fresh every day.
  10. Our ice cream sauces are a point of pride. They’re made in New York by a certified chocoholic who refuses therapy. They are simply the best in the country. And we don’t boast idly.
  11. We use only Kozlowski’s jams—-what else!
  12. We bring pastrami and ice cream sauces from New York City, mustards from Oregon, hot sauce from Jersey. Eat here. Save the airfare.
  13. This is a bad place for a diet and a good place for a diet.
  14. Our desserts are excessive because nothing succeeds like excess. We encourage sharing if you’re not super hungry.
  15. Substitutions are okay by us, don’t be bashful, you’ve got a mouth, use it.
  16. We cook hamburgers 2 ways: medium rare or well done; anything else is at your own risk!
  17. Please do not take the menus, they will cost you $10 cash (we’ve got miniatures for free).
  18. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone using the word, “nouvelle.”
  19. We use cholesterol free oil for frying and sauteing. Eat your heart out, Mr. Surgeon General.
  20. Our to-go containers are Serco-Foam products and contain no CFCs, they they will not harm the environment.

Friday, June 30, 2006

Dining on the road an eye-opener about service!

Read complete story here.

Customer entropy partially to blame for poor customer service

Come to think about it, customer entropy (or customer apathy) is partly to blame for the state of customer service. The reason most companies deliver bad customer service is because they can - not enough customers complain or abandon brands after a bad customer service experience.

If more people were to talk back to companies or report customer service abuse to their local local consumer affairs departments, the overall state of customer service would improve.
What do you think? Is there a way to foster consumer activism so that we can finally get the service that we deserve, the right return on providing our personal information as part of buying transactions, and intelligent humans to interact with when facing post sale issues? Or is it like voting - enough people are generally happy enough so that the only thing we can expect is status-quo?

You would expect that a new entrant who delivers outstanding customer service would change the playing field in that sector - but is that really happening? Could it happen?

Service exceeds mere obligation!

Compiled by Mona Shoup
Houston Chronicle


Camille Iglehart says she and four friends went to Lupe Tortilla Mexican Restaurant, 2414 Southwest Freeway, for a girls' night out.
"We were about to finish our meals and margaritas, which were wonderful, when an incident occurred that we all knew was beyond the restaurant's control.

Read Story.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Help!

Hey! I need material to write about!

Do you have questions you need the answers to right now? Email them to me and I’ll answer them in the blog.

I am sure there are a lot of others who are going through the same situation and would appreciate the response also.

Naturally I will keep your name and information confidential.

Send them to Jeffrey@GetGame.Biz

Sunday, June 25, 2006

The bar to deliver customer service "delight" is ridiculously low

In the last week I joined an army of people who recently had bad experiences with airlines. It is fascinating to see how low the bar to "delight" customers through customer service has gone in the airline industry (and many other industries) in North America.

My story started with a trip to the West Coast on American Airlines. Since I had ordered my ticket late and had no seat assignment, I went to airport extra early to get a good seat. When I checked in they gave me a center seat and said that the gate agent would be able to switch me (customer service tip: pass the buck). Next I sat in an airport security line for 45 minutes. They had one security line servicing at least 30 gates. First class passengers had their own, and much shorter security line, which ticked off many passengers as TSA (Transportation Security Agency) employees who manage airport security are not American Airlines employees but government employees paid with our tax money. When I finally got to the gate, the agent did not even faint trying to help me - she rudely told me to take a seat as the flight was full (customer service tip: screw the customer).

What happened next is the best part. I boarded and realized that my seat was broken. I promptly informed the flight attendant of my problem - after all, who would want to be on a six hour full flight in a broken seat that cannot be locked in its upward position? The aggressive and non-friendly response from the agent was: "I am not sure that they can fix it, and because YOU now reported this problem they may have to take you off the plane and not fly you to California today!" So she was implying that it was my problem, since I had reported one of their defective seats (customer service tip: blame the customer). If only I would have sat up-straight and pretended that nothing was wrong with the damn seat, that would have been a much better solution for HER! I put up a stink and they reluctantly gave me another center seat so that I could make it to California.

Then came the weekend, when I had to fly United Airlines to Vancouver. 3 hours prior to my flight I get a call from one of their automated machines informing me that my flight segment from Chicago to Vancouver was cancelled and that perhaps other arrangements had been made for us. When selecting the option to speak with a representative I got a fast busy tone, so I called the main United 800#. After being in a queue for 35 minutes, during which I discovered that my flight was the last one out of Chicago to Vancouver that day and that there was another alternative flight route through Toronto, I finally got a "somewhat" live person on the phone:

United: may I help you?
Me: your automated service just called me to inform me that my flight segment from Chicago to Vancouver has been cancelled and that other arrangements may have been made
United: they did call you and told you that?
Me: yes
United: well, they tell you stuff before they tell us, I see no such thing in my record...
Me: well, can you at least see that the Chicago to Vancouver was canceled?
United: hold on...oh yes, you are right, the flight was canceled
Me: so what should I do?
United: fly to Chicago and see what they say
Me: but it is the last flight out of Chicago today, it makes no sense for me to go there...
United: hold on...oh, yes, it is the last flight out of Chicago
Me: so
United: you should go to Chicago and they will help you there...
Me: there is an alternative through Toronto on Air Canada - your partner
United: oh I see...let me check
United: there is no flight out of Chicago to Toronto that will get you to Vancouver...
Me: no, but there is one out of Boston that will get me there
United: oh, I see...let me check...this was the last flight out of Chicago..
Me: yeah...but this is Boston...
United: oh I see...I can "protect' that flight for you
Me: great! So you are confirming that I know will fly from Boston to Toronto and then on to Vancouver
United: yes.
Me: do I just check in at United or do I go to Air Canada?
United: that I do not know...try both...
Me: thank you very much

This was not an exchange on Saturday Night Live or some other comedy channel...this was real (customer service tip: hire real cheap labor and try cutting cost on training and IT!

No wonder JetBlue has such high praises from customers. In a market where the bar is so low, it does not require much to delight customers!


Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EmergenceMarketing?m=428

Friday, June 23, 2006

A Comcast Technician Sleeping on my Couch

Really Cool Restaurant Marketing!
Real world ideas and information on the only area of your business that will make you money!
Hire me as your Chief Marketing Officer for less than $10 a day!
Call me at 877-GAMEON1 (toll free!) to discuss how we can build you a better restaurant!
Or visit us on the web at www.GetGame.Biz


A Comcast Technician Sleeping on my Couch

OK, so I'm hoping no one is vidoe taping you sleeping on the job, but then again, are you sure? What if you were video taped during your workday. Would you want it posted on YouTube?
This video says it all!

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

2 days that could just change your life!

I always ask the question; "What are you willing to do today to become more successful tomorrow?"

Next month, on July 17th & 18th you and I will get the opportunity to work on your restaurant together and create a GamePlan for moving it to the next level! I will be conducting my first "whiteboard session"!

A "no holds barred" chance for you to get together with a couple of whiteboards, 14 other owners and operators along with myself here in Dallas to create a GamePlan for moving your business forward.

There will be no agenda other than the one you create from the areas of your operation you want to discuss over the two days. Also, since small groups accomplish more in a shorter timeframe, I am limiting it to only the first 15 people who respond. It can be you and your GM, spouse, partner, whomever.

But I will only accept 15 people. The price for the two day sesion is $299 per person. If you're a coaching client your price is only $199 I have had so many requests for this that I seriously expect the slots to be filled by the end of today. Right now, I have no plans for another one any time soon. I am just way too busy traveling the country coaching clients.

Visit the link for the sessions here!

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

New Self-Service Study

Not sure if you like reading reports, but a new report is out entitled "Hospitality Industry Self-Service Technology Study - Redefining Customer Service" (Hospitality Technology, 2006). Lots of insight into self-service inroads being made.

excerpt:"The depth and range of self-service solutions in the hospitality industry has grown over the last year. Consumers are more interested and motivated to use self-service kiosks and both hotel and restaurant operators are making significant strides in respect to rolling out solutions. While self-service solutions still have limited availability in hotels and even fewer restaurants, the number of roll outs planned will increase markedly over the next four years.

…While it may not be surprising, it is still significant that the companies driving self-service represent the largest hotel and restaurant companies and that large hotel companies are also playing an important role in driving self-service at their restaurant locations as well. These large operators are poised to play a significant role in shaping the pace and range of self-service solutions in hospitality."

You can download the report in a PDF from here.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

"Because you didn’t do the right thing when it was the right thing to do, mister."

Ok, the last place I want to go to for advice on service is a lawyer. But I really like this guy. (Shoot me now?). This is a post by Douglas Sorocco over at Rethinkip. It involves him, an airplane filght with a mother and two kids, and how we need to challenge behaviors or else they will take over.


http://www.rethinkip.com/archives/whatever_happened_to_manners.html

Friday, June 16, 2006

What are the stupidest mistakes service professionals make when they are dealing with angry guests?

"There are 3.5 forms of mistakes service professionals make with angry guests:

1. Making excuses and defending what happened. Guests do not want to hear what happened. Guests want to know how you are going to resolve their problem…now!

2. Blaming other people and other circumstances -- instead of taking responsibility yourself. Guests do not care whose fault it is. They want to know how you are going to resolve their problem…now.

3. Arguing and trying to tell the guest what they cannot have, rather than trying to resolve the situation. Guests do not care about your policy, your procedures, your situation or your problems. All they want to know is how you are going to resolve their problem…now.

3.5 Failure to resolve the situation in a manner that leaves the guest feeling as though they were listened to, responded to, and grateful for doing business with you because you helped them. Guests want to feel that you care about them personally. That you are investing in the angry guest’s resolution. Your understanding and your empathy, combined with your actions, will not only lead to a favorable resolution; if done correctly, it will lead to a positive story, a loyal guest and maybe even a referral."


Thank you JG!

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Balance Efficiency and Service

BusinessWeek has a great article in this week’s issue about customer satisfaction. They highlight some companies that are losing customers through poor customer service. In contrast, other companies have succeeded in creating great customer experiences. Where do you think your business would fit?

In highlighting customer service failures at Dell, Home Depot, and Northwest Airlines, the BW article states that: each has fallen victim to a seductive fiction: that customer service and operational efficiency are mutually exclusive … [They] are all cases in which executives have lost track of the delicate balance between efficiency and service.

Can you have both an efficient company and great customer service? BusinessWeek says: Smart companies — Southwest Airlines Co. and Costco Wholesale Corp., to name two standouts — have it both ways. Well-trained workers equal fewer complaints. That means lower costs, a workforce free to make more sales, and happier customers willing to spend more money and tell their friends about it later.

Everyone Contributes

Customer service is not a desk at the back of your store. It isn’t a department isolated from the company. You and every employee of the business are customer service representatives. All your interactions with clients and prospective customers represent the company as a whole.
Unfortunately, many companies entrust their customers to poorly trained staff. This leads to bad consumer experiences that then undermine whatever corporate mantra your CEO is currently touting.

Give your workers the training and tools they need so that they are empowered to solve problems and effectively interact with customers.

Strike the Balance

You can have a great balance between efficiency and service. Don’t let the bean counters run away with the company for short-lived financial benefits. Long-term business success requires happy customers.

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ReturnCustomer?m=149

Att-i-tude!

Old story. But never an old story. I went to Whole Foods and Starbucks back-to-back yesterday afternoon. No holes: Every (EVERY—perhaps 6?) staff member was pleasant, chatty, informed, etc.

I remain amazed.

Posted by Tom Peters

Source: http://www.tompeters.com/entries.php?rss=1¬e=http://www.tompeters.com/blogs/main/008970.php

Thought of the Day: To Get Service Give Service!

Sounds a bit like the Golden Rule—and I guess it is. This is obvious: If I treat EVERY service provider as my CUSTOMER (even when they are having a bad day) ... then I radically increase the odds of getting good-great service from my "customer." This notion is a first-class "Duh," but it struck me anew yesterday. I went into an electronics shop and badly needed help. The only clerk in the store is in no danger of winning the "employee of the month" award. Yet I showered him with love & affection, as it were, and got an unfair share of his time-attention; in the end he offered pretty damn good advice. (Moreover I didn't let the little prick ruin MY day! And he actually wasn't a L.P., he was mostly left holding the bag by his manager—perhaps a B.P.)

Hence my "golden rule" du jour: My service provider is my customer. To get good service give good service to those who service you.

As I said: Duh!

Posted by Tom Peters

Source: http://www.tompeters.com/entries.php?rss=1¬e=http://www.tompeters.com/blogs/main/008971.php

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

...One more time!

When did we decide that it was no longer rude to ask a guest if they required change when paying their bill with cash? My response is always..."yes, and all of it too please!"

BTW, get rid of those tip jars near your cash register too!

Get out of jail free card?

If I am accosted by one more server who greets my table with "Hey Guys!" or "(insert anything here, followed by..) Guys!". I'm gonna need someone to post my bail!

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

WOW Server! Goofball manager!

Had a really great experience last week. Service was absolutely awesome! Food was great! Then our time together enjoying the experience was ruined by the floor manager constantly interrupting every 30 minutes just to get his table visits in!

I finally told him that his server was doing a great job and that is wasn't necessary to keep interrupting every so often just to get those table visits in. Besides, I had heard him talk to the table next to us and the one after and recommended to him that saying the same thing to each guest just to be able to say you talked to every table was counterproductive.

Read your guests and use common sense when interacting with them. If I had as great a server as this manager did, I would stay the heck out of his section unless he needed something! Let your service pros do their job! Especially if they are much better at it than you are!

Thursday, June 08, 2006

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Hey Friends!

Just a note to let you know that we are back from our first vacation in 2 years and you will start to once again see my postings about every issue concerning our businesses on the website as well as each blog.

I have a ton of articles, information and downloads to share with you so check back daily – or better yet sign up to receive my posts via email!

I hope you are all enjoying increasing success!

Jeffrey

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

BDs chain solicits guest feedback with electronic comment cards

Excerpt:"Wright added that although it was difficult to measure the direct impact of the electronic surveys, the real-time access to detailed server and restaurant performance information provided by the system is paving the way for enhanced service.

"Servers, grill staff and managers know they are accountable for their performance, and they act on that," he said. "Just as significantly, we can praise employees as well as coach them on a more individual level to address certain issues. For example, if we see from a report that a server isn't consistently offering dessert before dropping the check or that grill staff aren't interacting with customers, we can ask why and try to change these behaviors."

Sources at BD's said the chain was benefiting from a programmable "alert" feature in The Informant system. That capability means that managers are notified immediately whenever a guest indicates in the electronic survey that he or she does not plan to patronize the operation again or has never dined there before. Notification is made through a wireless radio paging system.

"The alert affords managers a chance to go to first-timers' tables to establish real rapport with them and give them an extra nudge to come back," Wright said. "And when there's a problem, we can address it right there, hopefully salvaging the customer and the relationship"

Source: "BD's chain solicits guest feedback with electronic comment cards" by Julie Ritzer Ross (Nation's Restaurant News, May 9,2006)

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

WOM's economic effect

This from Steve Hershberger.

Reicheld correctly segments 'good profits' and 'bad profits'. Good profits are generated when a brand is in alignment with its best customers. If a brand stays in synch with what its best customers are seeking, constantly improving...in real time...incrementally based on their feedback, the brand can essentially draft of the inertia created by these customers in the marketplace and amazing things happen. Southwest, Apple, Enterprise, Jet Blue, BMW and a number of other brands that get it. News Flash: Most brands don't and some, believe it or not, don't really care. Why don't they? Because they see Wall Street as their customer, not you and me. Because they don't care, they suffer and the cost of doing business actually rises. They can suffer like WorldCom, Enron, etc. or they can struggle mightily to keep customers from leaving daily and for every customer's dollar like GM, AOL and United Air Lines.

Here's an example of what I mean. A good friend of mine in the town in which I live runs a very successful small business. We were having a drink and this entrepreneur was tearing apart his bank...loudly. Here's the situation. The business employs about 35 people around the state, has well over a million dollars sitting in a retained earnings account at the bank, in addition this executive runs about 200k a month through the bank, uses their bonding service, has a six figure line of credit, etc. My friend also has the family's accounts at the bank. This executive is very financially minded and requires essentially zero of the bank's attention and this person has referred at least half a dozen like executives to the bank unprompted.

Never mind the fact that this executive has never received a thank you for the business or referrals, the executive asked the bank for a couple hundred dollar contribution to a local charity. The bank said no. Furthermore, the executive had run a check from a seldom used account reserved for certain 1099 temp worker vendors. A dozen and a half checks, each for about $300 each were written totaling about $5,400.00. The executive had $10,000.00 transferred into that account at about 1pm by an assistant. The temp workers cashed their checks the same day as the transfer. The next day he got a notice from the bank for $900 in overdraft fees. Needless to say the executive was enraged. During our time together, he told his story and influenced maybe a dozen people at the place we met. Most well-heeled people who simply shook their heads and said, "What rotten service". Others said, "Hey that happened to me once."

A couple of day's later; I called my friend and asked him how things were going. He told me that he had called everyone he had recommended to the bank and indicated that if they were also unhappy to move. He had found a new bank that 'got' service. For those that did move, he'd take everyone out to dinner so that they could collectively celebrate better service.
I asked how much that might cost the bank. Pausing, the response was "North of 50 million if everybody moves." That is a big hit for a bank. All because of a short sighted desire to reap $900 bucks.

Somebody in this bank's corporate suite is going to see a spreadsheet with a big blip on it and ask what the hell happened and a junior executive will have a nice answer that has little to nothing to do with the truth. Know what? This will happen again and this bank will always have to work harder than it has to to make an acceptable profit.
Advocates can also be detractors. Economies big and small ARE impacted by what these people can and will do.


Source: http://evangelisteffect.typepad.com/womu/2006/05/post_script_wom.html

Monday, May 15, 2006

Are You Being Creepy?

This guy was, trying to be unusually nice and creating an awkward situation in the process.
But those types of situations aren't exclusive to restaurant help.

Crossing professional and personal lines when you see guests away from work.

Being "too personal" in the way you try to connect with your guests.

Asking personal questions when making small talk which could be viewed as being "none of your business".

Those are the little things that can turn an otherwise promising business relationship upside down.

Source: http://www.landingthedeal.com/2006/05/are_you_being_creepy.html

Friday, May 12, 2006

Service Tip #1

Tip #1: Building new habits requires planning.
It happens to each of us. We participate in training; get all excited about using the new skills we learned, but then stay in our old habits. Why is that?

Here is a list of common reasons why people forget to apply the service skills that they’ve learned. Look for one or two that apply most often in your situation.

Reasons People Forget to Use New Skills

· I become distracted by administrative tasks and responsibilities.
· I can overhear my co-workers talking, which distracts me.
· I let a customer’s behavior pull me into a less than helpful frame of mind.
· I find it difficult to move on from my last customer interaction.
· I’m expected to begin all of my service interactions in the same way, so I fall into a routine.
· I get preoccupied with issues outside of work.
· I’m tired at certain times of the day.

Now, write down at least two actions you can take to overcome these obstacles and ensure you use your new service skills with each customer.

Is Everything OK?

Is your restaurant striving for OK?

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But it happens every day in foodservice operations around the world. It is a pet peeve of mine when a manager comes striding to my table and asks the inane question, "Is everything OK?"

What's wrong with this picture, you ask? Hmm, let me see...

Everything? Is the manager asking if I am satisfied with the political, economic, ecological and sociological status of humanity? Or maybe the manager thought that I was about to burst out crying and was attempting to offer help?

What about the word OK?

By definition OK means the minimum acceptable level. I doubt seriously if the mission of any restaurant is to strive for the minimum level of customer service! So when the eager manager excitedly receives the expected "yes", knee-jerk answer to the knee-jerk question, the manager goes away pleased. But should the manager be pleased?

I think not.

I don't blame the manager. He or she was trained that way. Indeed, it was probably pounded into him or her to visit every table. 100% table visitation. Asking everyone in the restaurant if "Everything is OK" is like a prime directive in most restaurant chains.

What's so wrong with wanting to get the opinions of all your customers?

First of all, when you ask 'Is everything OK', you're not giving the customer an opening to respond. Instead, it becomes a formality, like the greeting of "How are you?" You don't really expect an answer, except for the polite "Fine".

Of course, visiting every table in most restaurants doesn't give you any time to actually stop and listen to the customers! By running around and asking "Is Everything OK?" you can quantify the experience, and give yourself a false sense of accomplishment by making your 100% table visitations.

It is like the owner of a hotel demanding that the hotel manager keep the hotel full. All the hotel manager has to do is keep reducing the price of the room until the owner's results are accomplished. Never mind that the hotel is losing money. It may be full now, but it sure won't be around for long.

Don't get me wrong; the concept of customer feedback is right, but the execution and results are dangerously wrong. By getting a stock response from a hastily asked question, you've learned nothing about the customer's experience that night. And what if everything actually WAS just "OK"? In today's market, will a so-so "OK" experience guarantee that the customer will come back? Of course it will not..

Here are four rules to follow when asking about your customer's perceptions of your service:

1. Allow time to listen, don't just go through the formality of asking.
2. Ask specific questions, not general, sweeping statements.
3. Use a superlative that you want to be identified with to the customer. Was your service excellent? Fantastic? Outrageous? Set your sights high not low. Never OK.
4. The quality of the effort is worth far more than the quantity of effort.

It's time that the hallowed expression "Is everything OK?" was finally laid to rest.

4 Steps to Spectacular Customer Service

A simple, four-step process can help you create the type of business that draws customers in again and again.

April 11, 2006
By Paul Levesque

Most towns have at least one "flashpoint" business--a place that's famous for its turbo-charged workers and lines of eager customers. These are the local hot spots that are "always jumping," places in which employee motivation and customer satisfaction fuel each other in a flashpoint of contagious enthusiasm.

But flashpoint businesses don't just happen by lucky accident. They have to be made to happen. If there aren't many such businesses, it can only be because so few owners and managers understand the simple four-step process for creating a flashpoint culture in their own workplaces.

Not convinced such a process could be that simple? Not sure any such process could ever work in your own business setting? Here's a quick and easy way to find out.

Step 1: Invite your employees to come up with some ideas for improving the customer experience. For this process to work, the ideas for changes in behavior or procedure need to come from the workers themselves. The old way is to dictate in memos or training programs the kinds of behaviors management wants employees to adopt, and then try to legislate these new behaviors into the workplace--a way that's never worked. Employees will only get behind a change if it's one they believe in. And employees are always more likely to believe in a change if the idea for it comes from them, instead of their bosses.

Step 2: Choose one employee idea and help your employees implement it successfully. The objective here is to make the employees who came up with the idea look like heroes in your customers' eyes. If there are costs associated with the idea, helping with implementation will mean providing funding for it. (Think of this cost as an investment in positive word-of-mouth, the most effective form of advertising on the planet.) If the idea requires changing a policy or procedure, do everything possible to make the change. Eliminate all obstacles to successful implementation of the employees' initiative.

Step 3: Make it easy for customers to give positive feedback about the new initiative. It's always good business practice to find out and listen to what your customers have to say--but few businesses make it convenient and easy for customers to give feedback on a regular basis. To test this process, make a point of soliciting feedback that relates specifically to the idea your employees implemented. Use various methods to collect feedback, especially that most powerful method of all: simple face-to-face conversation with your customers themselves.

Step 4: Let your employees bask in the motivational effect of the positive feedback. This is where the magic begins. Let's say an employee came up with the idea of installing a bench so senior citizens would no longer have to stand while waiting in line. When delighted seniors begin to rave about the convenience of the bench, tell them, "This bench was actually Terry's idea. In fact, Terry, could you come over here for a moment? These folks would like to tell you something about your bench."

Then watch the effect this feedback has on Terry. You're seeing the first spark of the flashpoint effect: customer satisfaction driving up employee motivation, and employee motivation driving up customer satisfaction.

Once you've seen how well the process works, apply it again. And again. Keep the ball rolling by holding regular employee brainstorming sessions to come up with a rich supply of new ways to delight customers. Break a typical customer transaction down into its individual steps, and get employees thinking about ways to add a "wow factor" element in each step. You probably won't want to implement every idea, of course, but make sure enough are implemented to keep the positive customer feedback flowing in. And give your staffers opportunities to hear this feedback directly from their customers. Immediate, positive feedback from delighted customers is the primary motivational fuel all flashpoint businesses use to keep the fires of employee enthusiasm burning hot and bright.

Biggest Customer Service Blunders of All Time

These five common mistakes trip up a lot of businesses. Our customer service expert offers his tips on correcting the problems.

March 21, 2006
By Paul Levesque

While howls of protest over poor customer service continue to be heard worldwide, there remain some businesses that manage to consistently deliver superior customer service year in and year out. These are the places where turbo-charged employees pursue customer delight with a passion, places that ignite a flashpoint of contagious enthusiasm in employees and customers alike. Foremost among the lessons to be learned from such flashpoint businesses are the blunders to avoid--those fatal mistakes that trip up just about everybody else.

Blunder #1: Making customer service a training issue. Businesses of all kinds invest huge amounts of money in training programs that do not--and simply cannot--work. The function of such training is to identify the behaviors workers are supposed to engage in, and then coax, bully or legislate these behaviors into the workplace. At best, this is almost always a recipe for conduct that feels mechanized and insincere; at worst, it intensifies employee resentment and cynicism.

Instead of dictating what your employees should be doing to delight customers, the better approach is to give your workers opportunities to brainstorm their own ideas for delivering delight. Your role then becomes to help employees implement these ideas and to allow workers to savor the motivational effect of the positive feedback that ensues from delighted customers. This level of employee ownership and involvement is a key cultural characteristic of virtually all flashpoint businesses.

Blunder #2: Blaming poor service on employee "demotivation." Businesses looking for ways to motivate their workers are almost always looking in the wrong places. Employee cynicism is the direct product of an organization's visible preoccupation with self-interest above all else--a purely internal focus. The focus in flashpoint businesses is directed outward, toward the interests of customers and the community at large. This shift in cultural focus changes the way the business operates at all levels.

The reality in most business settings is that employees are demotivated because they can't deliver delight. The existing policies and procedures make it impossible. Instead of "fixing" their employees, flashpoint business set out to build a culture that unblocks them. Workers are encouraged to identify operational obstacles to customer delight, and participate in finding ways around them.

Blunder #3: Using customer feedback to uncover what's wrong. Businesses often use surveys and other feedback mechanisms to get to the root causes of customer problems and complaints. Employees come to dread these measurement and data-gathering efforts, since they so often lead to what feels like witch-hunts for employee scapegoats, formal exercises in finger pointing and the assigning of blame.

Flashpoint businesses use customer feedback very differently. In these companies, the object is to uncover everything that's going right. Managers are forever on the lookout for "hero stories"--examples of employees going the extra mile to deliver delight. Such feedback becomes the basis for ongoing recognition and celebration. Employees see themselves as winners on a winning team, because in their workplace, there's always some new "win" being celebrated.

Blunder #4: Reserving top recognition for splashy recoveries. It happens all the time: Something goes terribly wrong in a customer order or transaction, and a dedicated employee goes to tremendous lengths to make things right. The delighted customer brings this employee's wonderful recovery to management's attention, and the employee receives special recognition for his or her efforts. This is a blunder?

It is when such recoveries are the primary--if not the only--catalysts for employee recognition. In such a culture, foul-ups become almost a good thing from the workers' point of view. By creating opportunities for splashy recoveries, foul-ups represent the only chance employees have to feel appreciated on the job. Attempts to correct operational problems won't win much support if employees see these problems as their only opportunity to shine.

Flashpoint businesses celebrate splashy recoveries, of course--but they're also careful to uncover and celebrate employee efforts to delight customers where no mistakes or problems were involved. This makes it easier to get workers participating in efforts to permanently eliminate the sources of problems at the systems level.

Blunder #5: Competing on price. It's one of the most common (and most costly) mistakes in business. Price becomes the deciding factor in purchasing decisions only when everything else is equal--and everything else is almost never equal. Businesses really compete on the perception of value, and this includes more than price. It's shaped by the total customer experience--and aspects such as "helpfulness," "friendliness" and "the personal touch" often give the competitive advantage to businesses that actually charge slightly more for their basic goods and services.

Those businesses that deliver a superior total experience from the inside out (that is, as a product of a strongly customer-focused culture) are typically those that enjoy a long-term competitive advantage--along with virtual immunity from the kinds of headaches that plague everybody else.