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"
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
BDs chain solicits guest feedback with electronic comment cards
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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