Through the Eyes of the Customer

Who should you listen to? Your customers or your consultants?

The New York Times recently published an article about a popular Salt Lake City, Utah restaurant called The Red Iguana.

The Red Iguana faced a dilemma that most restaurant owners might eat a real iguana to have; there were too many customers.   After being featured on the Food Network’s  Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, popularity soared to the point where customers would wait 90 minutes for a table for dinner.  Long-time customers told the owners that they didn’t like the long waits.

So, what do you do when you need to accommodate more customers?   You expand production.  In this case, the Red Iguana decided to open a new location.   Their big decision was where to locate the new restaurant?

The conventional wisdom preached by the industry experts said that the second location should be located a good distance from the first location to avoid cannibalizing the existing business.  A location farther away would also expand the geographic coverage of the brand by introducing it to new customers. 

But the owners felt that opening the second location farther away wouldn’t solve the problems that his existing customer base had expressed.  His customers spoke, and he listened to what they said.

They opened Red Iguana 2 a mere two blocks from the existing location, despite the advice from the experts.   According to the Times article, the owners  explained to their consultants and financiers that their daily anecdotal evidence was that they had a large customer base that was no longer coming in “because we had gotten too busy, too crowded, too successful and that they would indeed fill the new restaurant,” Mr. Coker, one of the owners said.

The owners' counterintuitive decision proved to be correct.  Annual revenue has grown to more than $6 million today from $4 million in 2009, and both restaurants are regularly full.

Here’s the point:  The owners listened to, and acted on the expressed needs of their customers, despite the contrary recommendations of the industry experts.  And by doing so, they succeeded.

So, back to the question: 

Who should you listen to?  Your customers, or the consultants?

A) Listen to your customers, and ignore your consultants.

B) Listen to your consultants.

C) Ignore everyone, and go with your gut.

D) Listen to the consultant who advises you to listen to your customers.

What do you think?

 

3 Restaurant Practices that build a better Customer Experience in any Industry

This past Saturday night, my wife and I had dinner at a popular local restaurant.  When I first made the reservation, I was told they could seat us at 8pm, in "the chef's corner."

I didn't know what the "chef's corner" was, but being desperate for a last minute reservation at a popular restaurant on a Saturday night, I agreed to sit there.

"The chef's corner at eight sounds great.  We'll see you then."

The chef's corner turned out to be four stools at a granite counter-top, overlooking the grill and the food prep area, just a few feet from the chefs.   These seats gavie us a fascinating perspective on the live creation of a dining experience.   If you're a baseball fan, this was the dining-out equivalent of watching a game from inside the home team's dugout.  From where you're sitting, you can learn a lot about the details that make the entire event successful.

Throughout our meal, we were able to listen in on the short but highly communicative conversations between servers and chefs about customer preferences.  Everyone had a job to do, everyone worked at a fast pace, but nobody worked in a silo - all jobs were tightly-connected through constant communication.

Point #1:  Remove the walls between your functional employees to facilitate more open communication between different functions.  This will increase the alignment between what you deliver, and your customers' preferences.

As we dined, we were able to watch several different entres from the menu be prepared by the chefs. During a rare lull in the action, I asked a chef how often the menu changes, and if it's a challenge to learn each new recipe.   His response was very telling:

"One of the great things about working here is that we have a lot of say in what makes it onto the menu, and also how we can prepare it.  Basically, the owner gives us a lot of flexibility to do it the way we think the customers will like it."

Point #2: Empower employees to make more decisions, and use their own judgement.
This formula appears to work for David's 388.  They have loyal customers, and it's often difficult to get a reservation.  The servers have personalities, and they're not afraid to use them.  The kitchen staff is creative,  and they're free to apply use their creativity to please their customers.  Management recognizes this, and they leverage it quite well.  We enjoyed how our meal was prepared and served, and we plan to return.

As the mood became more subdued later in the evening, one of the chefs asked a server to change the music that was playing.  "Go to play-list 17,"  he said, as he glazed a creme brule.

I asked him what that was about; he explained that they'll change playlists a lot throughout the evening, to suit and create a mood in the restaurant.  "It's kind of a balance thing, and we always try and figure out what works best as the crowds change each night."

Point #3: There are a lot of touchpoints that exist between your business and your customers.  Know each touchpoint, how they impact the customer, and continually adjust them to optimize the experience.

Dining in the chef's corner gave my wife and me a deeper understanding of the elements that contribute to a wonderful dining experience.  Many of those, including open communications between functional departments, empowered employees to exercise judgement and decision-making, and continual refinement of customer touch-points can be applied in virtually any industry.  

Do these things consistently, and your customers are bound to return for seconds.  

Sitting in the Chef's Corner allowed us learn the recipe for a better customer experience.

How Marketing Myopia has Killed the US Postal Service

Times are tough for the U.S. Postal Service, and there’s much concern among Americans over the fate of the US Postal Service, and how to fix what’s broken.

When we look at the USPS, we need to look at it in a larger context.

The USPS began moving mail from sender to recipient in 1775. In that larger context, the USPS was in the communication business.

Roughly 100 years later, the telephone was invented, and gradually provided an alternate means of communication.

About 100 years after the invention of the telephone, email was invented, and provided yet another major means of communication.

Around that same time, Federal Express (now FedEx) was founded as an express courier, who promised to deliver your mail a lot faster that the USPS.

As people and businesses began using these other forms of communication, there were far fewer pieces of mail that needed to be delivered, so the USPS began to see a steady decline in revenue.

But the USPS still considered itself to be in the mail delivery business, even though its customers were communicating began communicating through different channels.

If the USPS saw itself as being in the communication business instead of the mail delivery business, it might have evolved into a very different enterprise than what it is today.

To understand this "myopic mission" of the USPS, it helps to think of the railroads:

Before the Interstate Highway system was built in the 1950’s, people more frequently travelled by railroad. Back then, railroads were a much bigger industry; many more towns had a train station, and daily train service.

Transportation occurred largely by rail. But the big railroad companies didn't consider themselves to be in the transportation business; they considered themselves to be in the "railroad business."

When alternate modes of transportation were developed (highways & affordable air travel), fewer people chose to travel by trains, and eventually, passenger train service all but disappeared.

The Railroad industry failed to evolve and adapt to newer modes of transportation. Hence, it downscaled dramatically.

Similarly, the USPS has failed to evolve and adapt to newer modes of communication. Hence, it is now downscaling dramatically, by closing many of its brick-and-mortar branches.

So, how do we solve the problem?

We solve the problem by eliminating the USPS' non-profitable services, and focus more on those services that the USPS does well.

What else do we do to save the USPS?
We cut back on daily mail delivery, and go to every-other-day, or we outsource USPS mail delivery to another company that already has a fleet of delivery vehicles on the same roads (and in the process, reduce the carbon footprint!)

And we re-define the business in a way that aligns with 21st century communications.

And when the sun sets, if the USPS has gone out of business, its customers and the private sector will adapt, as they always have, with more effective and more efficient solutions.

The message here for any business that ever feared facing extinction is this:  Define your business according to the problem that you solve, and not the product or service that you deliver.  And once you’ve done that, never stop thinking of new ways to solve that problem.

So ask yourself:  What business are you really in?

 

The Bird in Hand, and the Value of Existing Customers

 Has this ever happened to you?

You’ve been a loyal customer of a service provider for many years.  The service provider announces a great promotion for new customers – 3 months of free service, if you sign up now!

The promotion can vary, but you get the idea.  It seems that many companies will often give big incentives to attract new customers, while those of us who’ve been sending payments to that same company for years, are made to feel like we’re being taken for granted. 

Don’t these companies know that a bird in hand is worth two in the bush?

There’s often more attainable growth within an existing customer base, that there is through new customers.  But why do so many business owners spend a disproportionate amount of their sales resources chasing the birds in the bush?

In an August 18 article in the New York Times, Jay Goltz, the owner of five businesses in the Chicago area, explains how a business can grow its revenues twice as fast if it focuses more of its sales and marketing efforts on customer retention – keeping and growing the customers that it already has.

Every business needs to bring on new customers, to grow beyond its existing market.  But while trying to acquire new customers, too many businesses miss out on the additional revenue opportunities that can be found within an existing customer base.

So, what are 3 things a company can do, to attain more growth through the customers that it already has?

Look beyond the need you’re already serving.
What other needs does your client have, that you’re equipped to solve?  Just because the need exists, and the client knows you, doesn’t mean that they’ll automatically make the connection.  Take more time to understand your client’s entire business, so that you’ll be able to uncover these additional needs and revenue opportunities.

Provide some human touch and caring.
The reason that many service providers offer “3 months free” to new customers, is because it works – customers are willing to leave their current provider simply because they don’t feel a strong relationship with them.  There’s no strength of connection; no sense of obligation to maintain a relationship.  Nurture the relationships with your current customers by reaching out to them outside of the sales cycle, in order to build a genuine relationship.  In a word, show them that you care.

Ask for feedback, and act on it.
Survey your customer base.  Not all at once, but perhaps a handful at a time, to keep it manageable.  Ask them for specifics; things that you can do differently, that will improve the relationship.  Then if those things are feasible, do them!  Improve you level of service to the customer, in ways that the customer will perceive value.  The mere act of asking a customer what they think can go a long way toward building loyalty, and stemming the tide of defection.  But don't forget to act on what they tell you, or at least respond to it.

There’s a lot of excitement in landing new customers – that’s where the fun is, in growing a business, right?  But there’s also a lot of growth within the “old” customers.  It may not be as fun and exciting, but at the end of the day, a dollar is a dollar, regardless of the source.

 

How FedEx Delivers a Better Customer Experience

Last month, I wrote about how my customer experience was compromised, because my telephone service provider failed to share some basic information with me.

Then last week, my faith in service providers was restored, thanks to an email from FedEx.  I'll explain in a minute...

Last month's beef with Fairpoint Communications was that they made me wait around my house for over 8 hours, for a technician to arrive.  In fairness, they said, "he'll be there by 6pm this evening" when I placed the call at 9:45 am.  They wouldn't be any more precise than that, so I couldn't leave the house all day, for fear that the technician would show up while I was gone. 

But FairPoint doesn't own the market on the failure to proactively communicate with customers.  Other service providers share in the guilt:

When I recently arrived at my doctor's office (after a hurried drive through traffic to get there on time), the receptionist informed me that the doctor was running late. 

"Wow, it would have been nice to know that, before I rushed to get here on time."

"I'm sorry sir, but we had no way to notify you."

Actually, any business that schedules pick-ups, deliveries, or appointments of any type does have a way to notify nearly all of its customers.  In fact, there are two ways:

Email and text. 

According to Asymco market intelligence, over half the U.S. population will use smartphones by the end of this year.  That means that most of us will be able to receive email and text messages from our service providers.

FedEx knows that, and they use it to their customers' advantage.  Back to that email that I told you about...

The email said, "Most of us want to know about service delays right away, but checking email isn't always convenient. So, we're considering adding text messaging to our existing service delay emails. Would you find a text message helpful? "

Of course I would!  In fact, I'm even OK with an email, but thanks for giving me the choice.  I appreciate the fact  that you're sensitive to my time, and making the effort to proactively notify me of mis-haps that may affect it.

So, what's the point?

1. Proactively share information with your customers, to make their lives easier, and to be a better business partner.
2. When feasible, offer your customers a choice - paper or plastic?  email or text? 

Thank you FedEx - you're constructively sharing information with your customers, to make our lives easier, and give us a better customer experience.

Fairpoint and Dr. Runninglate, I hope you're paying attention!

 

Why Employee Satisfaction is the Key to Customer Satisfaction.

There’s a great debate going on in the LinkedIn Group for Customer Experience Management.  The question that started the debate is:

"Does Employee Satisfaction Come First, or Customer Satisfaction?"

The answers have ranged from:

“Customer satisfaction should come first because the survival of the business and the satisfaction of the employee (pay cheque) depend on the customer. When a customer becomes a company brand ambassador everybody in the organisation wins.”

to…

“I heard a comment that hits a nerve for me, and I would love to hear others’ views. The comment was around understanding or differentiating between internal customers and external customers. My personal view is that there is only one type of customer – the external one who buys your organization’s products or services.”

to…

"ESAT=CSAT...You have to remember what it is like on the front lines in order to best support the experience."

to…

“You cannot wait to get the employee experience right, because this is all to do with culture, and this can take years to change. You must work on both. You cannot deliver a great customer experience without delivering a great employee experience, they go hand in hand. It is not really a question of what comes first.”

Since this is my blog, I get to have the last word (until you leave a comment!), and the last word is this:

Customer Satisfaction is inextricably linked to Employee Satisfaction.  When Employees are eager to go to work in the morning, engaged when they’re there, and excited about the work that they’re doing, they’ll transfer those positive emotions to every customer with whom they engage.

For statistical proof, read the examples of Zappo's and HCL on the Spoken Communications blog post.

Call it Karma if you wish, but it’s real, and it works. Happy employees make for happy customers.

What do you think?

 

Two Ways to Stand out, Get Noticed and Be Remembered.

 
The other night, I had a cool coffee-shop experience.  But this time it was different...

In Bar Harbor, Maine, there's a coffee shop that's unlike any other coffee shop I've been to.   It's a coffee shop that's not about the coffee.  It's about antiques, memorabilia and opera music.  Sure, they serve cappucino, latte's and great coffee, and they offer wi-fi and plenty of computers if you don't have your own. 

But  the thing that makes them memorable is the funky, weird, catch-you-by-surprise atmosphere.   The Operahouse Internet Cafe is different.  And because they're so different, they're memorable.  And they get talked about.

I've probably been to hundreds of coffee shops in dozens of states and cities, but few stand out the way this one does.    So, what exactly makes this coffee shop memorable?

At a high level, they're what Seth Godin has termed a Purple Cow.  They've made their coffee shop so differernt from most other coffee shops, that you can't help but notice, and talk about it.  Weirdness has its benefits.  Weirdness can make you remarkable.

What, specifically, has the Opera House Internet Cafe done to be so remarkable?

First, they've introduced some elements into their coffee shop, that you don't normally find in a coffee shop, elements that make it a different experience.   The opera music catches you pleasantly offguard, unlike the cool jazzy music that you'll hear in a Starbuck's. 

Instead of the polished wood, and the newness that you're used to seeing in hip coffee retailers, the inside of the Opera House reminds you of your grandmother's living room, and other parts, her attic.  There's so much cool stuff, interesting furniture, and fascinating photos and fixtures throughout, that you'll feel like you're in a museum.  And you'll want to browse around for a while and discover it all.

Second, they've wrapped the weirdness in a name that sticks:  The Opera House Internet Cafe.  The name is as memorable as the experience.

You may have to go to a far corner of the country to find it, but once you do, you won't forget it.

  

When does aggressive marketing hurt your brand?

Bangor Savings Bank recently opened a retail branch on Middle Street in Portland Maine’s Old Port.  The "Old Port" is a charming 18th-century seaport, with its brick storefronts, cobblestone streets and brick sidewalks.  There's nothing "big boxy" about it.

Whenever a new business opens in the Old Port neighborhood, it takes great care to tailor its appearance to retain the charm of the Old Port.

Bangor Savings did a great job of adapting their Middle Street storefront to the style of the Old Port.  An understated wooden sign above the door, tasteful décor all around, and event a creative tie-in to Maine tradition by offering free Whoopie Pies to patrons and passers-by. 

Bangor Savings clearly made an effort to be a good neighbor, by modifying its appearance to  the tasteful  style of the Old Port.  And they did a very good job.

But walk around the block to Fore Street, and you’ll see an entirely different view of Bangor Savings Bank.  There on the sidewalk, between the entrance to a parking garage and more retail storefronts, sits an an ATM station whose style is better suited to a suburban mall parking lot, than Portland's Old Port.  Just when you thought the bank was being a good steward of the neighborhood, it dropped an eyesore on Forestreet.  Based on the size and style of this ATM building, it's clear that Bangor Savings was more focused on shouting out its name, and standing out in a crowded retail banking market, than retaining Old Port charm.

Maybe I'm being too sensitive, and too emotional.  But when I see a company promote themselves at the expense of something that I hold near and dear, I suddenly don't like that company.  I don't like their brand.  And I probably won't  like their Whoopie Pies.

This begets some questions about style, branding and image...

Can a company put too much emphasis on "in-your-face" branding, at the expense of other factors that impact their image and reputation in the market?

When should you cut back on branding, to enhance your image?

And where do you draw the line between standing out, and becoming an outcast?

What do you think?

 

2 Core Principals that Drive more Customers to Self Service Support Channels and Lower the Cost of Support!

Companies love when customers go to the Self Service Portal for support. 

Companies love it because resolving an incident through self service may cost $1, compared to $7 via email, compared to $15 or more, with a live agent over the phone.  There's money in self service, if you can just get your customers to go there. 

So what’s the secret?  How do companies who are successful at coaxing customer away from the phones, and into self service, make it happen?

There are essentially two factors to consider:

1. Make it easy for the customer.

2. Make it valuable for the customer.

Easy begins by making the self service portal easy to find.
Don’t bury access to the portal deep on your website.  In fact, treat it like a marketing “call to action.”  Make the link to the portal as clear as day to see; and place it in more than one place on your website, so that the customer can’t miss it!  Obvious, right?  But too many companies get it wrong!

Make it easy to navigate.
A site that’s hard to navigate is a sight that won’t get much traffic.  When designing your self-service sight, design with the theme of making the customer’s life easy.  Finding your way around the self-service portal can be a big part of the customer experience, so do it right!

Make it easy for the customer to find their answer.
This means putting the right content in the portal; Identify those 20% of the solutions that solve 80% of the problems, and make them very findable.  Employing a “recommendation engine” can also help.   If the customer has to manually search for the answer, you'll lose too many at hello - too many won’t invest the time or effort, and the'll go straight for the phone.  But if the search can be automated – by interpreting some key words from the customer’s question, or using other search algorithms to find and present precisely relevant content, you’ll have made life a lot easier for the customers, by saving them the hassle of searching.

OK, so you’ve made the Self Service Portal easy to use.  But remember that line from the movie “Field of Dreams?”   Just because you build an easy Portal with easy access to the right answers, doesn’t mean that the customers will come running.  They won’t.  Customers want value, and customers want convenience.  The more reasons you can give your customers to go to the portal, the more they’ll go there first.

That leads us to the second factor – Make it valuable for the customer.

 

Making it valuable means making the Self Service Portal the "go-to" place for the customer - the default source for anything and everything that they might get from your company.

Example:
A particular software company (real story, by the way) wanted to increase the percentage of customers utilizing their Self Service Portal.  So, in addition to Knowledge Base content and other support tools, they relocated other resource to the portal: software downloads, sales chat, and their customer forum to the portal.  Weekly reports were previously delivered through email, but clients now could access their reports anytime, through the Portal (which was easier for the clients to manage).

Within six months, the percentage of support requests initiated in the Portal increased from 12% to 69%, and the customers loved it!

So, by making Self Service easy to use, and by focusing it on more of the customers' interests (beyond simply support), more customers to come to your on-line support party.

  

 

How Functional Silos Can Kill the Customer Experience ... and 3 Steps to Avoid Catastrophie)

 
I hate to sound negative in a blog post - after all, nobody likes to listen to a whiner.

But my recent infuriating experience with FairPoint  Communications was caused by such blatant disregard for the basics, that I'd feel  irresponsible if I didn't call them out.

Here’s how it began…

I had no dialtone on my office phone.  So, I called Fairpoint Customer Support at 866-984-2001.

A recording instructed me to call a different number -866-984-1611 - if I needed technical support, or wanted to report a problem.

 STEP # 1:
Even if you operate out of functional silos, don't make it ugly for your customers by making us take extra steps.  Connect your different departments through seamless phone transfers, and simple information sharing.  Make it easy for me, by linking that second number to the first, so that all I have to do is “press X” for technical support.   Fairpoint is a phone company after all, so they should be able to do that, right?

Matt, the tech support rep, was a nice enough guy, who quickly told me that there were no outages reported in my area, and that therefore, there may be an isolated issue around the utility pole  outside my home.   He told me that I would need to speak with the repair group, and he would transfer me there immediately.  (Great, he’s going to transfer me.  At least I don’t have to dial a third phone number, myself.)

After a brief silence, Donna answered the phone.  Here first question to me was:

“Sir, can you tell  me what phone number you’re reporting an issue with, along with your name and address?”

My response:  I just gave all that information to  the last person that I spoke to.

She:       “I realize that sir, but I need to have that information as well, because I don’t have any of the information that you gave to customer service.  We’re a different group.”

Do whatever you can, to appear like one single harmonious company to the customer, even if you don’t operate that way internally!

STEP # 2:
Don’t force your customers to repeat their stories.  Every company on the planet should know by now that customers hate that.  As customers, we don’t want to have to think  that we’re dealing with multiple companies.  The fact that you don’t share information internally shouldn’t be the customer’s problem.

Invest in some very basic CRM or Call Center technology so that you can share customer information across your functional silos. 

The first two minutes of my conversation with Donna was spent re-telling all the details that I explained to Matt.  Each time Donna asked me for more information, I reminded her that I already gave that information to the last Fairpoint representative I spoke to.  Sure, Donna probably thought I was a pain.  But she was very blunt about it not being her fault, and couldn’t I understand that?  She had a point – the fact that I had to re-tell my story wasn’t her fault.

STEP # 3:
Donna was forced to do her job with inferior tools.  This made life ugly for Donna, and ugly for her customer.   But instead of denying responsibility, Donna should have simply commiserated with the customer, by showing some empathy:  “I apologize, but our systems are not able to transfer that information to me, so I’m going to have to ask you to repeat it.”

Nothing elaborate; just  a simple acknowledgement to let me know that she appreciates the inconvenience I’m subject to.   If your systems and processes cause any inconvenience to your customer, train your customer-facing employees to openly acknowledge it, and show some empathy. 

A little empathy goes a long way to create good will, and clean up a customer service mess.