Customer Service That Astonishes

Why am I Blogging?

admin — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:01:00 +0000

So I have decided to start blogging about the customer experience stories I am hearing about or personally experience. I have thought about this for some time and finally decided to take the plunge.

My objective is to stimulate a dialogue about why customer service is so critical to developing a strong brand.I believe that no matter how much time and money is spent on traditional outbound branding techniques, the ultimate decision about your brand is based on the experience that takes place between your customer and their point of interaction with your company. For a service based organization, this is your employee.

The interactions are called your Moments of Truth, and if they are not on-brand, then nothing you do with your traditional marketing activities will help.

So, please join the conversation and share some of your own stories.

Cheers!

Bell Canada

admin — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:36:00 +0000

So I thought I would start with a recent experience with Bell Canada about my satellite TV. I had the occasion to contact Bell for the 3rd time this week because my satellite TV isn't functioning correctly. Imagine my surprise when each time they answered the phone "How can I provide excellent customer service today". Boy were my expectations set.

So what was my problem? Well the satellite box wasn't saving the TV Guide, so I couldn't tell what was playing unless I scrolled through every channel. The first time I called I was told to re-boot and then call back if that didn't work and they would send me a new box. After all, this one is a rental.

The second time I called I was assured they would fix the problem from their end, so no need to get a new box.

Obviously, since I was now calling a third time, the problem was still there. So imagine my frustration when I was transfered to 4 different people before getting resolution. And the worst part was I finally had to threaten to cancel my subscription to get what I needed.

So what did I learn from this experience?

Make sure that you are not over-promising. When we set customer expectations we have the opportunity to meet and exceed them. However, an over-promise can set an expectation that is impossible to meet, even with the best intentions
Empower your employees to look after the customer the first time. Don't transfer the customer to get resolution -- particularly when common sense dictates the solution.

Cheers!

Tim Hortons

admin — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:49:00 +0000

So I imagine by now everyone has heard about the situation at Tim Hortons that resulted in the firing of an employee for giving away FREE Food. The employee's crime? She gave a FREE TimBit to a regular customers youngster.

Within 2 days this event was reported in every national newspaper, was on all major online news feeds and was being discussed on our local All News radio station. This is a perfect example of how the employee, in this case the manager who fired the employee, owns the brand.

By this single action the manager was communicating to the entire Country how Tim Hortons treated their employees and by default how they viewed their customers -- definitely an off-brand Moment of Truth.

Tim Hortons had rightly established a policy that it was inappropriate to give away FREE Food. The issue here was that the manager had not been given (or felt they had not) the ability to interpret this policy against a strong, well-communicated set of brand value that would help them interpret the policy in a manner that was consistent with the brand values.

I think common sense would tell us, that firing someone for giving a free TimBit was not the intention of the policy. But it was totally correct based on the policy.
The positive ending was that the employee that was fired was quickly re-hired by Tim Hortons at another location. Tim Hortons recognized that they needed to respond quickly and they did.

The question is, will they recognize the root cause of the problem and take steps to instill a strong, well-communicated set of brand values/service principles across the organization so their policies are interpreted appropriately.

I always say, "An organization needs a short list of expectations, versus a long list of rules."

Cheers!

Tasco Appliances

admin — Sun, 18 May 2008 15:02:00 +0000

My wife and I are in the process of re-modeling our kitchen. One of the major expenses is all new appliances and anyone who knows me, knows that this requires significant research to ensure we get the best appliances for the best price.

So, we visited a number of appliance locations for advice and pricing. We ended up deciding on KitchenAid and coming back to Tasco because we really liked the sales person (the customer service experience) even though their prices were higher than a couple other locations.

We explained that a competitor had a special offer when you purchase a full set of KitchenAid appliances -- they would include a stand mixer ($500 value). We wondered if he would match their price and promotion?

He spoke to KitchenAid and then offered to match this stand mixer offer, PLUS add in a set of special pots to work with our new induction cooktop. Together, these 2 promotions meant the overall price was now better (by approx $150) on a $15,000 purchase. Everyone seemed very happy.

However, when we were informed that the stand mixer we were getting was slightly cheaper because of the colour (black or white) versus the Chrome version we had originally seen -- and the one that would match our $15,000 worth of stainless steel appliances we had just purchased I offered to cover the difference in cost, so that the stand mixer would look good in our kitchen. The cost difference based on MSRP -- $30.00 on a $500 stand mixer.

So what do your think the answer was? NO! So, for $30, on a $15,000 sale, this store has left a very bad final impression. Now rather than us raving about the great experience and deal I got from Tasco, I am blogging about their refusal to work with me the customer to get us the stand mixer we really want. And we haven't even got our appliances yet.

I am not sure who made the decision about the difference in stand mixer, KitchenAid, The Tasco store manager or the sales person, and really don't care. I now have to go out and purchase a stand mixer from a store and someone will be getting a really nice gift somewhere in the future.

More importantly, Tasco failed to create a raving fan and left me with a sour taste in my mouth. All for the sake of a policy or rule and $30.

Cheers!

Harveys

admin — Sun, 18 May 2008 17:30:00 +0000

I was out running some errands with my daughter today when we decided to stop for a quick lunch at Harvey's. We decided on Harvey's because I have purchased a discount coupon from a local charity that gives me 15% off every purchase at this particular Harvey's. The local manager has invested money to advertise in their community and drive business to their location. A typical type of promotion organized by "corporate" types to build the business. So let's see what happens at the actual Moment of Truth.

When I ordered I neglected to mention my coupon until I had finished telling the cashier the order, but before I had paid. I asked the cashier to adjust the total to reflect the discount. She told me she couldn't. When I asked why not, she indicated that she had already rung in the order, so it would mean she would have to re-do the order. I suggested that possibly the Manager would allow this.

Guess what? She then proceeded to revise the order to reflect the discount. Apparently she was empowered to make this minor adjustment without a Managers permission, she just couldn't be bothered.

Now, let's compare that to the young lady who filled our order. I asked for a small glass with a few pieces of ice to put into my daughters soup to cool it down. Her response was "No problem", she provided me with the ice in a separate cup. No mention of additional charge for the extra cup.

I guess the observation here is that both employees knew "what to do", they just had different attitudes towards "how to do it". Yet they worked 4 feet apart in the same location under the same management.

This is a perfect example of training that deals with the process of what you need to do -- how the cash register works, how many pickles to put on a burger etc.

But clearly the training that talks about what the customer experience should be like has not be communicated.

Yet what is the part of the experience that I remember. the food was fine, even the service of person who prepared our food was fine -- yet the final impression by both my daughter and I was "why did the cashier give us a hard time?" And why did we only get our discount when we wanted to complain to the manager? A classic example of an employee not embracing a customer-focused attitude.

The bigger question that remains is; Has Harvey's even taken the time to develop a set of customer service principles, or are they just hoping that things go well at the counter?

Let me know what you think based on your experiences.

Cheers!

Hiring The Right People

admin — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:40:00 +0000

One of the critical success factors for developing a great consistent brand experience is hiring the right people. I believe that involves looking at 2 key areas when hiring; competence and character.

Competence is the skills, knowledge and experience to do the job. Either they have these skills already, or you believe that with the correct training, they have the potential to learn to do the job well. This is often what most interviews and most training is geared towards.

However, even more important than competence is character. You should be looking for people who can get on board with your vision. People who get excited about your company vision and values -- who love working with and looking after customers.

I recall a story about the great Ritz Carlton hotel chain. Whenever they interviewed someone for any aspect of their business, they shared a meal with the prospect and accidentally dropped a napkin while eating. They were looking to see if the person naturally reached to pick the napkin up.

The purpose of this little test was to see whether "helping" was a natural characteristic or one that was just on display for the interview.

Of course this was just one method of digging in to find their character. They had many other techniques. But the real lesson here is that they clearly understood the kind of character they were looking for in their organization, and had specific elements within their hiring process to unearth these characteristic.

My experience is that if you have to chose between competence and character -- choose character every time. If you have the right person, you can always train for competence. it is almost impossible to change a persons character.

The best examples of this is the legion of stories of people who started at the bottom of the organization and who rose through the ranks to become a senior executive. These are always people who had the right character, just not yet the right competence.

So ask yourself, does your hiring process have elements built in that delve into the character of the potential employee to ensure that their character aligns with the results you want. If not, shouldn't it?

Cheers!

Spend Time with Customers.

admin — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:30:00 +0000

I recently came across an article in FORTUNE Magazine where Charlene Begley President and CEO, GE Enterprise Solutions was asked "What was the best advice she had ever received?"

Her answer was that Jeff Immelt, before he became CEO of GE, told her: Spend a ton of time with your customers. Especially when you're new, the first thing you should do is go out to customers and ask them how you compare with competitors, how your service is, what they think of your products.

At most companies, people tend to get enamored with your title, and people want to look good in front of you. Customers will give you the reality. They don't care about your title, they just want value. You'll never get anything straighter than from a customer.

Clearly Jeff makes a great point, but I would suggest that it is probably more important when you are no longer new.

When we are new at a job we are usually more open to new ideas because we are naturally in a learning mode. However, once we have been around for awhile we tend to settle into a belief that we "know the business".

Now it's even more important to make sure that we are constantly listening to our customers so we find our how their needs are changing before the "new guy" at the competition finds out and steals our customers through a more relevant service offering.

Customers needs are always changing, and our services should always be evolving to reflect those changes and the continuous improvements we are making -- so regular intentional listening to our customers is critical no matter how long we have been in a role. Otherwise we risk becoming out of touch with the people responsible for our pay cheques.

Cheers!

Tim Hortons 2

admin — Sat, 24 May 2008 11:33:00 +0000

Wow, what a run of bad luck Tim's is having these days.

First, firing an employee for giving a child a FREE TimBit, and now, not allowing a pregnant homeless women to eat her breakfast in the restaurant.

The important learning is that it doesn't matter that Tim Hortons has a basis for either of these actions. What matters is that customers across Canada are not happy with the corporate behavior.

But in neither case, was this corporate behaviour -- it was a specific individual acting in what they felt was a totally appropriate manner. Can these be any louder warnings for us about the critical importance of working with our employees on the customer service experience they are providing.

Tim Hortons has been a good corporate citizen. They are a big sponsor of local community activities in sports, culture and the arts -- yet all of that money is being totally over shadowed by "unpaid media" that suggests the company is uncaring. Plus, I would guess, considerable time and money are now being spent to minimize and undo the damage created by there 2 recent situations.

How much better to have spent this time and money making sure employees understand and internalize the corporate culture.

So when the value of spending funds to create a customer-focus culture in the organization is questioned -- remember these examples.

It doesn't matter how well the head office gets it or how much you spend on training "what to do", if your employees don't embrace your customer service experience and understand how to interpret the policies in the context of the brand values you have developed, you will continually be fighting fires likes these.

It's the difference between hiring and training for competence versus character.

Cheers!

Catch Employees Doing Something Right

admin — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:13:00 +0000

I like to treat employees like children!

Before you start calling me names, let me explain.

When we teach children a new skill, we don't wait until they perfect it before we acknowledge their success. We praise them for each step they take as they progress towards their final goal.

For example, when a baby starts to walk, we are thrilled when they stand, then again when they take their first halting steps and so on, until they are finally able to walk across a room. Each and every time they show improvement towards their final goal of walking we provide positive encouragement and praise.

We need to take the same approach with employees.

When we see them doing something right, we need to recognize this behaviour immediately. Successful performance feedback must be immediate, specific and linked to desired behaviours that you want to see repeated.

Don't wait to acknowledge effort until it is done exactly right. You may be waiting a long time.

Cheers!

Something For Nothing

admin — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:46:00 +0000

I had 2 very interesting experiences this past week while out shopping for materials to make some repairs around the house.

The first was to repair a step on our deck. I was looking for a 2 short pieces (less than 3 feet) of cedar which were both different widths (6 & 8 inches). The problem was that every lumber store I went to would only sell me 8 foot lengths -- at a cost of approx $20.00 each. So for my little step I needed to spend $40.00.

Being the frugal fellow that I am, I decided to drop by one of the local deck companies (Forest Deck in York Region) to see if they would sell me a couple shorter pieces they might have left over.

I spoke to the owner, who took me back to his yard and personally helped me select 2 good pieces that were the correct size. When I offered to pay, he declined with the comment "what goes around comes around".

A second trip was to Brofasco to purchase some washers. I found the perfect washer and ordered 30. In this case, the clerk explained they had a minimum purchase threshold of $10.00, so I was welcome to them with their compliments. The interesting thing is, the clerk was not the owner, but he sure acted like one. He understood that the financial loss of 30 washers (probably around $2.00) against the goodwill he created on behalf of his employer was worth the investment.

WOW -- both of these Moments of Truth teach us a lesson.

Thinking like an owner gives you a different view on the policies. It makes you think longer term that just following rules like a robot. It also gives employees a sense of worth and importance within the organization.
Small investments can made a big impression. Customers remember small things because of the emotional value. In both cases, the cost was very little -- but they demonstrated the type of company that I was dealing with. Since that time (aside from this blog) I have already told a number of people about my experiences.

So make sure your employees undersatnd how they can affect the overall business picture. Expect them to think like an owner, and act like an owner. Give them an opportunity to use good judgement -- you will be surprised by how well they do.

Cheers!

Empowering Employees

admin — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:02:00 +0000

I have set a goal to read (or reread) 1 business book every 2 weeks. I was recently at the Canadian Franchise Conference, so I decided to re-read "Customer Mania!" by Ken Blanchard since it is the story of how YUM! Brands --owners of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's and A&W Restaurants in the US -- is building a Customer-Focused company.

I was rewarded by having a couple concepts refreshed in my own mind; one was empowering employees.

In this book Ken tells the story of how Ritz-Carlton gives every front-line employee a $2000 discretionary fund to solve a customer service issue -- without manager approval.

David Novak, CEO for YUM Brands! liked this idea so much he implemented a similar policy, except the value was $10.

Although the values are quite different, they are actually very similar. Both amounts are significant in the context of the products available at the company.

In both cases the employees feel respected and empowered. They have the ability to address customer issues immediately and appropriately based on their first hand knowledge of the issue.

This discretionary fund becomes a competitive advantage because the person closest to customer -- and the problem -- feel they can make decisions and solve problems. This in turn develops an ownership attitude and customer service that creates fans!

Cheers!

The Secret of Enduring Greatness

admin — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:18:00 +0000

I thought I would take a break today and let Jim Collins (Good to Great) speak. I recently came across an article he wrote for Fortune magazine in which he talks about the importance of culture in great companies.

In the article, he was responding to the concept that great companies can't endure based on the work of Joseph Schumpeter, the great economist who wrote about the "perennial gale of creative destruction" wherein technological change and visionary entrepreneurs give birth to new things that obliterate old things, only to see those new things become obliterated by the next generation.

You can imagine that Jim took exception to this notion as an all encompassing point of view.

What I found most interesting in his article was that when giving examples of great companies that endured, he repeatedly made references to their cultures. "These companies trained leaders who could evolve and create a portfolio of flywheels - from candles to Pringles, from medical plasters to Tylenol, from light bulbs to jet engines - yet they also held tight to core values that have remained fixed for 100 years or more."

He used the example of Wal-Mart and Ames to illustrate his point. In the early 70”s these 2 companies looked very similar, yet one thrived and the second disappeared. When examining the reasons for their differences, Jim points to internal conditions versus external influences.

He sums it up beautifully, “Companies do not fall primarily because of what the world does to them or because of how the world changes around them; they fall first and foremost because of what they do to themselves.”

When he talks about what they do to themselves, he specifically talks about internal culture as one of the key influencers.

“When you've built an institution with values and a purpose beyond just making money - when you've built a culture that makes a distinctive contribution while delivering exceptional results - why would you surrender to the forces of mediocrity and succumb to irrelevance? And why would you give up on the idea that you can create something that not only lasts but also deserves to last?”

As you can see, he makes the point far better than I, so I encourage you to read the article in its entirety.

Cheers!

6E's for Easier Implementation

admin — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:25:00 +0000

I recently visited a website devoted to developing Character Communities (http://www.charactercommunity.com/), a significant initiative in the schools and businesses in my local community.

The thing I was struck by was the many similarities between developing a Character Community and developing a Customer-Focused organization. I guess that's because both are based on a clear vision of what kind of culture you are trying to build.

I thought I would share a list of 6E's developed for emphasizing character in schools.

Example: The way we behave provides examples

Explanation: Character development is not a program of do’s and don’ts but rather a dialogue to gain understanding and appreciation of the benefits

Exhortation: This is about urging and praising desired behaviours

Environment: This is all about relationships, which provide safety, synergy, and a stage for achievement

Experience: Providing students with experiences and reflections that would balance the bombardment of experiences from media and entertainment

Expectation: High expectations for students and staff

These are the 6 steps being used as strategies to build character throughout our local schools. If we keep these 6E's in mind, we will be well served in developing our own culture as well.

Cheers!

The Customer Speaks

admin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:15:00 +0000

I am sure you have heard about the recent "layoff" of an Owen Sound Ontario employee who shaved her head to donate the hair for a Cancer fundraising. It would be almost impossible to miss unless you were on a deserted island.

In spite of the fact that the events took place in a northern Ontario community, I have read coverage on all the major US news feeds and even in the UK. Clearly this situation got people's attention.

However, I think the most telling quote was from the owner, "the public outcry has been devastating to the restaurant and has upset the other employees". He goes on to say that he wished they could have sorted something out before she went to the media.

I guess he still doesn't get it. It should have been sorted out before he made the statement. He sees the problem being that his behaviour was actually held up for scrutiny, not that his initial behaviour was inappropriate.

How often do we hear about companies that talk a good game, but when the rubber hits the road, they don't walk the talk.

If this company culture was one that put people first, do you think his initial decision would have been to send her home for the summer. The initial decision is the one that gives us the insight into the culture, not the belated apology.

Now, the people have spoken and I am sure that the business will pay the consequences. Would you go to a restaurant that treats its employees with such disrespect? Would you expect good service from employees who are treated so poorly?

So even if the product was great, the experience can overshadow the product to such an extent that it defines the brand.

A real life example we should all reflect on from time to time.

Cheers!

The Importance of Goal Setting

admin — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:42:00 +0000

A critical step to achieving exceptional performance is goal setting. Clear goals and corresponding measures, ensures employees understand what is important to succeed.

Ken Blanchard, in Customer Mania!, tells the story that when he was a college professor he used to give the final exam at the beginning of the course, and then spend the rest of the course teaching students the answers so they would know how to be successful on the final exam at the end of the course.

Real life should be like that. We should know what the final expectations are in advance, so we can develop the skills necessary to be successful.

Goals are set at the top and cascade down through the organization. Personal goals must be clearly linked to organizational goals. There should be a clear line of sight between the goals at the top of the organization to each individuals goals and activities. Every employee should be able to see how there daily activities align directly to and are supportive of the overall organizational goals.

For example, if an organizational goal is to increase sales, as a server, I must be able to see how my daily activities deliver excellent customer service and translate into a happy satisfied customer who will return often and tell their friends about their experience.

Only when each employee sees the importance their daily activities play in achieving overall goals will they internalize the organizational goals and recognize how valuable their contribution is to the success of the organization.

Cheers!

When a discount offer does more damage than good

Bill Hogg — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:07:00 +0000

As a subscriber to the Mirvish series, I received an email today, inviting me to a special presentation to meet the final 10 contestants for the title role of Maria in their upcoming production. I expect the purpose of this offer was to add value to my subscription and make me feel like an insider -- hence increasing my loyalty and emotional connection to the Mirvish company. This sounds like a good idea. However, added at the end of the email was the following message. REMINDER: Order extra tickets for The Sound of Music at 15% off of the regular price before they go on public sale tomorrow. Call 416-593-4225 or 1-800-771-3933. This sounded like a good idea so I called to book an extra ticket to take my young daughter. However, when told the final price I was told that the 15% discount was only available on certain performances -- the performance that I already had my 2 subscription tickets for was not included. When I questioned this in the context of the actual message in the email, which communicated no such conditions, I was told that this was a reminder of a previous email and in that original email they had explained the offer was only available to certain performances. My option was to trade my existing 2 tickets (5th row, 2nd Friday night of the run) for another mid-week night later in the run. Now as a subscriber for almost 15 years, this treatment didn't make me feel like an insider. In fact, I was more disappointed about the outcome than if I hadn't been made the offer at all. I paid the full price, but with a bad feeling about how I had been treated. The onus was put on me to track the offer through multiple emnails to ensure I knew the deatils of the offer. Clearly when the Mirvish team was crafting this offer they were not thinking from their customer point of view, but were simply looking for a means to sell more tickets. Net outcome, I now have less loyalty, because they have not demonstrated loyalty to me, their long-term customer. Further, when presented with the problem, they made no real effort to recuperate when I highlighted the disconnect between their messaging and their rules. So be careful when making an offer to an existing customer (or any customer). Make sure you are looking at the offering from their perspective, not just your own. Treat them like gold, since it cost 5 times more to get a new customer than keep a old customer. Cheers!

Restocking Fees

Bill Hogg — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:44:00 +0000

I recently received an email that is being circulated around the web about the 15% restocking fee at Best Buy in the US (Best Buy Canada does not charge this Restocking Fee). I thought it raised an interesting point about serving the organization versus serving the customer. This particular customer was upset because they had been required to pay $45 to return a GPS when they decided to return it in favour of another brand. They were further angered because since the amount was over $200 and they had paid cash, they had to wait for a cheque to be issued from head office in 7 to 10 days. When Best Buy US was contacted, they confirmed that when certain non-defective items are returned (i.e Notebook Computers, GPS, Digital Cameras, In-car Video Systems, etc.) they do deduct a 15% restocking fee. Their rationale is that people might borrow these items, use them and then return them to Best Buy like a lending library. The restocking fee is to discourage people from purchasing items before a weekend, special event or trip and then returning them afterwards. Resultant, the store ends up subsidizing this customer because they now have an obviously open package, potentially causing future buyers to avoid purchasing unless discounted. Their basis is that this way the customer who "changed" their mind bears some of the loss associated with this opened product. When you compare this policy to some of the stories we hear -- returned tires at Nordstrom when they don't sell tires, or fur coats from Macy's used for a weekend benefit ball and returned -- you can clearly see the difference in their customer-focus. While I don't agree that customers should take advantage of companies who put customers first, I think we must consider what message our policies are sending. For example, do we insult 99% of our customers with a policy of no more than 3 items into a change room to prevent the 1% who is intending to steal? Have a look at your policies and ask yourself -- are they for the organization, or are they for the customer? Something to think about! Cheers!

Service plays even bigger role than last year

Bill Hogg — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:42:00 +0000

Recent data released by TD Canada Trust found that 95 per cent of consumers say their experiences with a company can make or break a relationship with the firm or its products -- up 10 points from a year ago. In fact, when asked which form of appreciation they are most interested in, 49 per cent ranked "just good customer service" as No. 1, followed at a distance second by rewards or loyalty programs at just 18 per cent and 17 per cent gifts. But as we know, even more importantly, good service doesn't end with one customer but spreads to other potential customers, as happy customers become advocates. The survey also found that 89 per cent say they share their positive experiences with friends and family. Compare this to the recent study on the airline industry. J.D. Power and Associates 2008 North America Airline Satisfaction Study indicated that overall satisfaction for the airline industry has declined in 2008 to its lowest level in three years. Now you might expect that this would be driven by increased pricing, but the decrease in satisfaction with people factors is more than twice as large as the decline in satisfaction with price factors. The study finds that satisfaction with “people” factors—including knowledge, courtesy and helpfulness of reservation and gate agents, check-in staff and flight crew—has declined dramatically since 2007, and is the leading contributing factor to the overall decline in customer satisfaction with airlines in 2008. Sam Thanawalla, director of the global hospitality and travel practice at J.D. Power and Associates said, “In this unstable industry environment, it is critical that airlines invest in their employees as a means to enhance the customer experience, as there is a strong connection between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Those airlines that focus on keeping their employees informed and motivated will be better able to change negative consumer sentiment and truly differentiate themselves.” Whether banking, airlines or any other business, I couldn't have said it better. Cheers!

Wait Times: How Long is Too Long

Bill Hogg — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:51:00 +0000

I recently came across an article about the Kronos Retail Shopping Frustrations Survey that takes a look at shopping frustrations across all retail store types and the effect that a poor shopping experience has on the retailer’s reputation. Some highlights include:

84% of shoppers are frustrated with lines at checkouts
74% of shoppers would actually leave a store without making a purchase if lines are too long
81% of respondents are likely to share a poor shopping experience with friends and family
49% of respondents say they have walked out of a store with long lines at the checkout without making a purchase
25% have walked out and taken their business elsewhere to find a store with shorter lines
51% indicated long lines with unopened checkouts as the biggest frustration

Yet at the same time, customers felt that having to wait was acceptable.

17% of respondents happy to have one person in front
44% of respondents agreeing that a maximum of two people is acceptable
23% of shoppers think its fine to have a maximum of three people in front of them
7% of respondents think it’s acceptable to have up to four other customers in front.

Commenting on the findings from the survey, Simon Macpherson, Operations Director EMEA Kronos, says: "Shoppers are happy to shout it from the rooftops when the service provided is not up to scratch, leaving retailers with dented reputations. Unopened pay points, long queues and out-of-stock products are almost without exception the result of staff not being in the right place at the right time to provide the best possible customer service. Retailers need to address this issue if they are serious about improving one of the prime differentiators between their competition - the customer experience.” You would think that every retailer would aspire to having happy customers 100% of the time. Happy customers mean loyal customers and greater loyalty brings bigger profits, yet many retailers still fall short when it comes to providing a great customer shopping experience. Cheers!

Treat Customers Like They Matter

Bill Hogg — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:26:00 +0000

Recently I had to go to a local collision repair shop for an estimate for some repair work on my car. I was sent to this particular shop by my insurance company for a quote, but was told I could have the actual repair done at any accredited collision repair shop. The first thing I noticed was a sign on the back wall that stated "Quality starts with great service". I was greeted quickly by the receptionist who took some basic information and then asked me to take a seat indicating an estimator would be right with me. Well, I sat for 5 minutes watching 2 people sitting at desks working away at their computers. One of them took a phone call and the second commented to the receptionist that she would be awhile. At no time did either acknowledge me. Suddenly the one who took the phone call stood up and indicated that I should follow him outside to my car. I guess he was one of the estimators. After asking me some questions and taking some pictures, we returned to his desk where he filled out the forms on the computer and after 10 minutes printed out the sheets and handed them to me. The whole time I sat at his desk, he said not 1 word to me. So what should I think about the quality of this organization? What do we learn from this example? They did a good job of setting expectations with their sign. The receptionist was friendly and efficient. But then the problems started to show. Here are some simple things that I think would have gone a long way to improving the customer experience.

Telling me that the 2 estimators were currently finishing a claim and giving me an indication of my wait time would have gone a long way.
If the estimator spoke to me rather than the receptionist (I was actually closer) it would have made me feel like a valued customer versus an inconvenience that needed to be dealt with.
Introducing themselves when they asked me to come outside to do the estimate.
Explaining what the estimator was doing on the computer would have made me feel part of the process instead of a bystander.

As a result of this experience, I will probably take my business elsewhere rather than dealing with this company in spite of the fact they had been specifically referred by the insurance company as a trusted supplier. The funny thing is, they already had me in their shop and there would have been no cost to displaying some simple customer service behaviours. No one was rude or treated me badly, yet, the customer service experience pushed me away. Too often we get so busy that we forget the simple things. None of the things mentioned would have cost either time or money, yet because they were forgotten, they lost a $3,000 repair bill. The worst part is they probably have no idea what they did or why they lost my business. I am sure they think they are doing a good job. Something to think about. Cheers!

Are you measuring what counts?

Bill Hogg — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:08:00 +0000

I was reading Seth Grodin’s blog this morning and he talked about the importance of measuring the quality of traffic that is coming to your site or blog versus the quantity. His point being that it is better to have a smaller number of qualified prospects/customers versus a lot of people who will never purchase. He summarized with the comment “Just because something is easy to measure doesn't mean it's important.” It reminded me of the same principle that should be employed when trying to measure 1) customer satisfaction, and/or 2) employee engagement. Too often we get caught up in designing dashboards and metrics that may measure lots of things, but if they are not actionable or possibly aren’t measuring the stuff that gives you insight into the health of the organization, then they aren’t very useful measures. So ask yourself, are your measures giving you advance notice of changes in your business, or are they lagging indicators of issues that may have been around for awhile? I have been doing some reading on this topic lately, so I will share some of my observations over the next little while. Cheers!

Always go the extra mile

Bill Hogg — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:10:00 +0000

Recently MarketingProfs sent out a note about going the extra mile. In it they referenced an article (Giving Firms an 'E' for Effort: Consumer Responses to High-Effort Firms) by Andrea C. Morales, assistant professor of marketing at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. Their research indicated that customers reward companies that are seen to go the extra mile -- even if they don't personally benefit from that effort. In fact, customers are willing to pay more for a product, frequent one store rather than another, and, in general, have a more positive impression of a company or brand that is perceived to put in more effort. Andrea's explanation is that customers recognize that effort is a controllable behaviour, and as a result, feels gratitude toward firms that work hard. It reminds me of a review an advertising agency got from a client (our customer) where I worked many years ago. In that review the client was very critical of the creative product and lukewarm on the media and production. However, they were very positive about the account service team because, in their words, “we worked so damn hard”. They acknowledged that they were not always getting the level of service they expected, but were willing to be somewhat forgiving because of the obvious effort their daily account team was expending on their account. They gave us time to address the issues while putting senior management on notice that something had to be done. According to the researchers, customers can view a company's outstanding efforts as either general or personal.

A company's actions are considered to be general when they benefit the universe of customers, such as creating new products
However, a company’s actions are considered personal when the action is deemed to benefit a specific customer (such as outstanding customer service), even if they are not the customer receiving the benefit.

We all know that personal wins because of the emotional connection. However, the interesting notion is the halo effect created by doing a good deed for someone else. My sense is that it is driven by the belief that the company (or person) would do the same for us in a similar circumstance. I think this concept applies to personal behaviour as well as company behaviour. So demonstrate you are making the effort even if you can’t satisfy your customers need. They will recognize your efforts and appreciate and reward you for your attempt. Cheers!

Is your company Customer-Focused

Bill Hogg — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:41:00 +0000

When speaking with companies about whether they are using their customer service experience to differentiate themselves from their competition we often must address the question “How to tell if our company is truly customer-focused?” It is easy to say a company is, but are they walking the walk or just talking the talk. So I thought it would share a process that I take clients through called a CAT Scan (Customer-focus Audit Tool). The objective of this process is to help them answer that question in such a way that the senior management team has a clear, consistent view of where their strengths and weaknesses lie. The process starts with people across the organization answering a questionnaire comprised of 33 questions. It is important that the people answering the questionnaire represent a diverse cross-section of the company, not just senior management of a particular branch. This cross-section is critical because I am always amazed by the differences in the answers across the various groups. The questionnaire is broken into 6 key sections; Defining your Customer Values, Designing your Branded Customer experience, Delivering a Branded Customer Experience, Listening to the Voice of the Customer, Developing & Engaging Employees and Organizational Readiness. Once the questionnaires are completed, the data is compiled into a workable format and a half day workshop is conducted with the senior management team. It is essential the full team participate since one of the key objectives is to break down the silo mentality and have the full team embrace the fact that employee engagement and customer service is a shared accountability and that only when they work as a team will they achieve success. After the work session there is further analysis. Once these 6 critical areas has been examined, the company can then start to develop a specific action plan to address their areas of weakness and leverage their areas of strength. If you would like a copy of the full questionnaire, please drop me a line. Cheers!

Who’s in charge of your most valuable asset?

Bill Hogg — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:20:00 +0000

First you need to decide on what that asset is. Often people like to say their most valuable asset is their employees. They make statements like “Our most valuable asset goes out the door every night.” But I would suggest that the most the valuable asset is the one your business cannot survive without -- your customers. I say this not to diminish the importance of employees; actually my point is exactly the opposite. I think employees are extremely important because your employees deal with your customers’ every day. They are managing your most important asset -- the customer. But do we accord them the respect this important role deserves? Too often we don’t give them the authority to do their job, we give them lists of rules of what they can and cannot do; we make them get Manager approvals to make decisions. Yet because people (i.e. customers) are all different, the best solution to a problem is often different for each customer. By forcing a single solution for each customer, we may be spending too much on some and not enough on others. For example, if you have developed a compensation policy that costs of $100 to implement, with Manager approval, wouldn’t it be better to give your employees full authority to spend up to $75 to fix the situation on the spot (after providing direction on the types of things they can do based on their judgement). This option has 4 big benefits.

We all know that the quicker a problem is fixed, the happier the customer.
If most problems can be fixed immediately by the employee for maximum $75, you have saved money and created a more satisfied customer.
The employee can probably provide a more customized solution because they are closest to the customer issue.
The employee feels empowered and takes ownership of the situation.

So think about just how much trust you are placing in the folks who you have already entrusted with your most valuable asset. With a little guidance and some boundaries, they will usually make the right decision. And you will save money and have a more engaged staff. Something to think about. Cheers!

How to lose a customer -- without really trying

Bill Hogg — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:40:00 +0000

I received a phone call today from the Manager of a student run painting company that demonstrated with brilliant clarity what not to do when talking to a potential customer. It served as a great reminder of how we should be thinking when we are interacting with your customers. I had previously called this company and left a message to obtain a quote for some exterior painting. They were one of 2 student run companies that I called for a quote. The other company had already returned my call and provided a quote by the time this company finally returned my call a full week after the request. The Manager spent a few moments to clarify what needed to be quoted and a convenient time that they could come to look at the job (a reasonable 2 days hence). They then asked whether anyone else would need to be consulted before making a decision to proceed. Well my “spidey-senses” starting tingling. This sounded like they planned to offer an incentive to close the deal that night. Sales people will recognize this as a 1-step close, because it doesn’t require a follow up call. I indicated that as a married man, I would of course consult with my wife about this issue. The Manager of this particular franchise asked whether there would be a more convenient time when my wife would be available. I said, “No, this was a great time.” Not satisfied with this answer the manager indicated that because they had to travel a fair distance to get to the appointment (remember they are the “local” franchise) and they would prefer if both decision makers were available at the appointment because this would save the Manager time since they would have the opportunity to answer any questions that arose. Remember -- this is to paint the exterior windows, doors and garage doors. Not exactly subject for weighty discussion. Again they pressed me harder to change the date. I again indicated that this was the best time and offered that if it was inconvenient for them to provide a quote then we could just not bother to have a quote done at all. Their response (wait for it) -- “I guess that will have to do!” That will have to do? I am the customer for goodness sake. Sorry to inconvenience you and potentially require you to actually leave without a signed contract. Sorry I wasn’t prepared to accommodate your process. Sorry you might need to make a follow up call. Sorry I might want to have another company provide a quote to ensure that I am getting a quality job for a fair price. Well I saved them time -- I cancelled the appointment and called the other company and awarded them the job. The lessons here are many, but the big one was they were in business for themselves -- not their customer. They were not thinking from a customer perspective when they developed their scripting and training. Their entire process and all the resultant issues that arose were because they were not thinking about my needs -- the definition of a customer-focused business. The really unfortunate part is that this student Manager was probably following a script that had been provided by the master franchisor and didn’t know any better. Hopefully they will learn before it is too late. If they continue to follow that process, they will find themselves coming second on a lot of jobs -- simply because customers have the option to work with another company that puts the customers’ interests ahead of their own. And of course, their competition will be more profitable because they will get a higher percent of the jobs they quote against this company because of their differentiated customer service experience. Proving once again that customer-focus is a profit strategy. Cheers!

What is Garmin thinking?

Bill Hogg — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:41:00 +0000

I purchased a Garmin GPS for my car in April 2006. I have been generally satisfied with the performance until my recent experience to update the North American mapping. Something they encouraged me to do. My saga started with a visit to their website which was fairly easy to navigate. After about 10 minutes, I had identified the correct program for my model and started through the check-out process to download my new mapping software. After 20 plus minutes where it refused to accept my credit card, with no explanation, I finally gave up in disgust and called their customer support line. After waiting 40 minutes to speak to a CSR I was informed that it was impossible to download or even sell a DVD to people from Canada online. No explanation why, and more importantly, no response when I asked why this wasn't immediately communicated on the website -- before I spent time trying to make an online purchase. Something they encouraged me to sign up for when I purchased the unit. I was told me to go back to the location where I had purchased the unit (Best Buy in my case) because they sold the upgrades for the same prices as online -- $69. Not great, but rules are rules. So off to Best Buy. However, at Best Buy the upgrade costs $99 -- a 50% increase. Meanwhile, they are selling brand new units as low as $149 which already have the current maps installed. My decision -- don't buy the upgrade and wait to buy a new unit when they are on sale. But not a Garmin. If they were trying to drive away a customer, Garmin couldn't have done a better job. Wasted my time online with incomplete information and then to compound the issue give me bad information when I get to a CSR. Simple fix. Communicate early, often and accurately with your customers. Cheers!

Avis and their 3 Minute Promise

Bill Hogg — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:32:00 +0000

In the same vein as my earlier post Are You Measuring What Counts, the blog Customer Relations referred me to an article this morning where EasierTravel reported that Avis has launched its “3 Minute Promise” service, for Avis Preferred members in France and the UK. "The 3 Minute service begins when the customer enters the Avis premises and time can be measured by the renter with a stop watch provided at the start of each rental process. If the time elapsed is over the three minutes, the customer will receive an apology, and a few days later, a retail voucher worth €30/£20 in the post." Daniel McCarthy, Commercial Director, Avis UK explains: "It is our aim to enhance our customer service through best practice initiatives such as this, particularly focusing on offering a fast, efficient service." Daniel continues, "This is part of Avis' ongoing commitment to consistent benefits and standards across our network." (read full article) I thought I would offer a slightly different take on these kinds of initiatives. The Avis view (and one I believe shared by Customer Relations) is that this is putting the customers' needs at the forefront. So far we agree. I guess where I think we need to expand the discussion is based on the concept -- What gets measured gets done. My concern is that if time becomes the measurement, then others things, like quality customer service, may suffer. You need to make sure that your "time-based" measures have a corresponding measure of quality of customer service experience. I often say to clients with call-centres, "The easiest way to get a higher number of calls each hour is just hang up faster." The customer may not be happy, but if all you want is higher throughput then hanging up will deliver it. Now obviously, I am not serious, but it demonstrates the point. So make sure you don't get lulled into thinking that numeric measures alone will lead to quality customer service. Make sure the quality aspect is also built into your tracking. Something to think about. Cheers!

Have you identified your employees as a key target audience?

Bill Hogg — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:17:00 +0000

Much has been written about the need for communicating with employees. People are often put in charge of internal communications and spend their time creating newsletters and memos that get sent far and wide informing folks about what is going on in the organization. Often we designate the employees as one of our key target audiences or stakeholder in our planning documents. This is all a good thing. However, being the provocative person that I am, I have to ask, “Is that really what you want to do?” I would suggest that communicating usually means creating and delivering messages to an audience. Further, I would suggest that what you really want to do is facilitate a conversation or a dialogue with your employee community. For many, you are probably saying, “That’s just semantics -- that’s what we mean”, so let me ask, “Is that what is happening?” Are you facilitating a conversation? Do you have a process set up that stimulates a conversation or is your messaging primarily just being pushed out from the communications team? That distinction is more than semantics. It is why organizations struggle - and often fail - to generate meaningful employee engagement. We get blinded by the belief that because we are actively communicating, we believe we are engaging employees in a conversation. Bottom line, if it isn't two-way, it isn't communication. It's simply message distribution. Let me share how the internal newsletter we set up at ServiceOntario was envisioned. Rather than having someone in the Marketing team write the newsletter, they acted primarily as an Editor who worked with an Editorial Board who was responsible for generating the content. This Board was made up of writers from across all divisions in the organization. Level or function were not relevant, their only commonality was their interest in sharing what was happening in their areas of work. They also had pretty free rein on topics for publishing. The Editor compiled their articles and reviewed them for general appropriateness, spelling, grammar, etc. They did not re-write the articles. The Editor also included news that was relevant to the organization on behalf of the organization. Resultant we had a newsletter that reflected the wider organization while still containing important organizational communications/news. It was filled with topics (with lots of pictures) of things that were of interest to the people across the organization -- not just management. The result? People looked forward to receiving and reading it each month. Plus, people saw demonstrated behaviour that management was interested in hearing from them -- a very important signal to the organization. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a systematic approach to sharing information and gathering feedback/input. So ask yourself, is your internal communications really communicating -- or just delivering messages. Something to think about. Cheers!

Make it easy for your customers to talk to you?

Bill Hogg — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:06:00 +0000

Quick shout out to Eric at customerservicenumbers.com. He's recently launched a site where customers can quickly find company and product customer service telephone numbers. This places me in an interesting quandary. On one hand I wish him the best, because obviously it is a service that is needed. But isn’t it a sad state of affairs that a site like this is even needed. So make sure you are listed -- and then if you do a good job with your own customer service programs, no one will need to visit it for your numbers. Cheers!

Great Customer Service Doesn’t Cost -- it pays

Bill Hogg — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:02:00 +0000

The Ritz-Carlton hotel company is often referenced as an example of a company that gets customer-focus. In fact, every employee carries a pocket-sized fold-out card with the company’s Credo:

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel is a place where the genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission. We pledge to provide the highest personal service and facilities for our guests who will always enjoy a warm, relaxed yet refined ambiance. The Ritz-Carlton experience enlivens the senses, instills well-being, and fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.

Plus, in large, bold type, is the company’s motto: “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” Additional information includes three essential steps of service (greeting, anticipation of needs, fond farewell) and a summary of their 20 basics of good service. By my count, only 2 of the 20 basics of good service have a financial cost -- training and resolving customer issues. And even those don’t necessarily cost anything. Also, these 20 basics could easily be adopted by virtually any service business in the world. Yet I think you would agree each of these basics would improve your service experience. (Shoot me an email and I will send you a copy if you don’t have one) So it begs the question; why aren’t more companies doing it? Something to think about. Cheers!

Great Customer Service Doesn’t Cost -- it pays (Part 2)

Bill Hogg — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0000

I thought I would share a couple more gems learned from The Ritz Carlton that I think are “must do’s” at any organization looking at improving their customer-focus. The first one that really stands out I call hiring for character versus competence. I understand the initial hiring process at The Ritz Carlton is a telephone interview conducted by someone outside the HR department. This is done to ensure that the focus is on character versus competence (skills). They use a standardized set of questions that focus on character attributes such as; work ethic, self-esteem, empathy, and team-orientation. Only if they successfully pass this initial screening are they evaluated on the basis of their ability to do the job. I think this maybe the single most important step when building a culture of customer-focus. This ensures that members of the team are like-minded in their commitment to delivering an exception customer experience. John C. Maxwell is credited with saying, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I couldn’t agree more. The second gem is that each employee must sign an agreement that clearly sets out expectations. This is both cultural as well as job related. It is also signed by their Manager. I think this is important for 3 reasons.

It sets expectations which can be measured against and therefore exceeded. Something we generally agree needs to be done with external customers -- so why not internal customers.
It balances job performance tracking with cultural behaviour measures. Too often companies are good at the job measures, less disciplined with cultural measures.
An agreement indicates that both parties have responsibilities for success. Implicit in the signature by the Manager is their commitment to helping the employee be successful.

Third gem, employees are required to use the same standards when dealing with their colleagues as with external customers. I love it -- 3 easy steps that add no cost to improving customer service! Shoot me an email if you would like a copy of their 1999 application for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award - it’s great reading Cheers!

Great Customer Service Doesn’t Cost -- it pays (Part 3)

Bill Hogg — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Okay, one last quick post about The Ritz Carlton for awhile. Once they hire for character, here are 3 things they do to ensure competence.

Every employee goes to a mandatory 2-day orientation before they spend any time on the job. The focus is culture and expectations. As well, this is when they teach core job skills and take care of issues such as timesheets, uniforms, pay cycles, etc.
Each new employee is teamed with another employee who has demonstrated a high level of performance who acts as a mentor/coach. This is huge, because it not only ensures that the new employee learns from a high performer who sets the standard by their actions -- but it also provides recognition for high performers. It is an honour to be chosen as a mentor/coach.
Hourly employees participate in 250 hours of learning each year. Salaried employees participate in 320 hours. Much of this is self-directed or online.

Shoot me an email if you would like a copy of their 1999 application for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award - it’s great reading Cheers!

Do you have a Balanced Scorecard?

Bill Hogg — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Back in 1992, Robert Kaplan & David Norton introduced the concept of a balanced scorecard in the Harvard Business Review and their follow up book The balanced scorecard: Translating strategy into action. One of their points was that “hard” financial data was a lagging indicator, while the “soft” human performance data was a leading indicator. Specifically, identifying issues on the human side allowed companies to take action before sales started to drop off as a result of the problem. I’m going propose a different kind of balanced scorecard. If we generally agree that that happy employees = happy customers = improved business results (I have heard this referred to as the 3-legged stool of great customer service), then would it not make sense to measure based on those 3 categories. Rather than hard and soft data, why not employee, customer and business data. If each of these 3 measures (made up of a couple key indicators) are healthy, then business is good. When any one of these measures starts to show weakness, you can be sure there is a problem with the others. However, often employee data is owned by HR, while customer and sales data is owned by sales or marketing and operational data is owned by operations. I would suggest that these measures should be the responsibility of one department. I don’t mean compilation, I mean measuring, analysing and reporting. I think only when the full view is owned by one department do we get a clear picture. I realize that this may require re-thinking how data is gathered and shared, but given that the employee is usually the closest to operations and to the customer, tracking their data by a department that has limited experience to either doesn’t make sense. In the past I have worked with organizations that have a single team (Information & Insights) that manages all of this. This team must also have the authority to work with all aspects of the organization to identify changes needed to improve the employee/customer relationship. Let me know what you think. Cheers!

Satisfied is worse than Unsatisfied

Bill Hogg — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:54:00 +0000

How are you tracking customer satisfaction levels with your customers? Are you asking whether they are satisfied? If so, you are probably not getting a true answer. Today, customers are so conditioned that when we are asked questions like this, they just say “Yes”. Think about your own experiences. How often have you said things were fine simply because you couldn’t be bothered commenting? Unfortunately, lurking under all those “Yes’s” may be a list of issues you never hear about and resultant, never have the chance to correct. At least when you have a complaint, you have the opportunity to dig deeper to find out what the issue is -- and correct it, which results in a happier, more loyal customer. Plus you have the opportunity to change your process or service to better reflect the needs of customers. So, rather than asking “Were you satisfied with the service you received?” try “How could we have improved your service experience today?” Then really listen. You will be amazed not only by what you find out, but your genuine interest will delight your customer. Customers will tell you how to modify your experience so that it is in line with their needs and adds real value in their mind, sometimes in ways that will actually save you time and money. Then when they say “everything was great”, you can feel confident that the measure is a reliable reflection of the true customer feeling. Cheers!

Home Depot Does It Right

Bill Hogg — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:20:00 +0000

I wanted to share a great story about a customer experience I heard about recently -- here at my local Home Depot. It seems that a 6 year old boy wanted to get a part-time job, just like his older brother. Like many 6 year olds, he liked to build things, so he indicated he wanted to work at Home Depot. When his father suggested he write a letter he did, so his father dropped the letter off at the Customer Service desk. Dad thought he had heard the last of this. However, about 6 weeks later they were in Home Depot and the son reminded Dad that they had not heard from Home Depot yet and insisted on checking on the status of his job. Needless to say, Dad was thinking his son was in for a big disappointment. However, when Dad sheepishly went to the desk to enquire about the job for his son, the lady immediately recognized the young man and explained that they had posted the letter on their bulletin board and how the young boy was the talk of the store. Problem was that the letter had not included a last name, phone number or address, so they had been unable to contact the family. She then invited the young boy to be a special helper at the upcoming children's workshop. The day of the workshop he was presented with an apron, baseball cap and assisted the instructor handing out kits, aprons and tools to all the other children who attended. Upon completion each child was presented with a certificate signed by both the instructor and the young boy. Needless to say this single act made a huge impression on the young boy, as well as his entire family, their circle of friends, the subsequently the circulation of the paper I read the article in -- and now you. So does it pay to show a little extra attention to that unique situation? You bet! Remember, every customer is unique, so every solution should reflect that unique situation. If we blindly insist on a list of rules, we handcuff our employees and prevent them from using their good judgement on a unique solution that addresses that specific situation. Cheers!

TASCO Strikes again

Bill Hogg — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:03:00 +0000

I thought I would update you on the progress in our kitchen renovation and how the appliance company has fared since I last talked about them. It seems that one of the appliances we ordered in May is now back-ordered for a couple weeks past our delivery date of tomorrow. We found this out late last week when they called to confirm the delivery date and let me know I needed to have a certified cheque when they delivered the appliances. So here are the issues as I see them.

We placed our order in May with a significant deposit and finalized our delivery date in June. However, less than 1 week from delivery we are suddenly back-ordered. This was the first mention that there would be problem with delivery. This means we will have a kitchen partially complete until the back-ordered appliance arrives, plus we need to pay people to come back and complete the installation. It would seem that when a customer places a confirmed order tied to a specific delivery date, they should have product available for that order. If the product is back-ordered at the time of purchase the customer would have the option to make a new decision about their product selection. However, if the product is available at the time of the order, why does the supplier not ensure it has stock on hand to honour all committed orders before selling additional units?
I need a certified cheque with only a couple working days notice. A simple call a week in advance would have allowed me to drop-off or mail a cheque which could have been deposited and cleared prior to delivery. If I chose a certified cheque, I would have a few extra days to visit my branch and get it. Either way the customer has options.

TASCO is still thinking about their needs first. First, sell as much product as possible and hope that there is enough available to make their commitments, and second, make sure we get our money. In both cases, a slight adjustment in process provides the customer with options. Some timely communication with the customer would have also helped this situation. Are your processes designed to meet your needs or the customers? Consider reviewing your procedures to determine if a few simple adjustments could make them more customer friendly and still address your important business requirements. Cheers!

Employee Engagement vs. Customer-Focus

Bill Hogg — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:50:00 +0000

Like many of you, I have Google Alerts update me on new posts, news and information about customer service. I am delighted to see that customer-focus is being discussed in many non customer service blogs -- project management, HR, Brand Management, Marketing etc. I see this as a good sign that the importance of customer service is being recognized in all aspects of business. In a recent post on Product Management Tips, I spotted an interesting post that discussed the order of importance between customer, employee and competitor. An argument could be made for a number of orders, but I agree with the moderator that the order should be employee, customer and finally competition. I tell my clients that customer-focus should be an outcome -- not a goal. The goal is employee engagement, if we achieve that goal, then customer service will follow and resultant we will have a competitive advantage. However, be careful that just because you are employee focused that your processes don't become organizational-focused versus customer-focused -- that is an easy trap to fall into. When you talk about customer focus in your organization, do you consider it a goal or an outcome? How would this change the way you did things? Let me know. Cheers!

How to achieve the ultimate customer-focused company

Bill Hogg — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:41:00 +0000

In May 2007, Ranjay Gulati (Michael Ludwig Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management), wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review entitled “Silo Busting: How to Execute on the Promise of Customer Focus”. Gulati’s main point is as true today as it was then -- that while many companies claim to be focused on their customers, they are unable to deliver on these promises within their current company culture. His basis for this argument is that companies continue to focus on their own needs versus the customer needs. Gulati identified four values that companies must adopt in order to successfully be customer-focused. These are coordination, cooperation, capability and connection. Coordination: Most companies are organized around a specific function, product or geographical location. However, customers don’t think that way, and often the solutions they need do not fit within those boundaries. Gulati suggests that companies need to create processes or mechanisms that break these divisions - or silos - so that the customer gets the benefit of the entire company. Cooperation: Here the focus is two-fold. Separate business units need to cooperate to support each other’s activities to achieve measurable customer satisfaction, and employees who are closest to customers need the authority to make decisions that benefit the customer. This kind of cooperation ensures the customer always comes first. Capability: According to Gulati, companies need more “generalists”. These are described as employees who “have experience in several products or services and a deep knowledge of customer needs” as well as having the skill and flexibility to cross organizational boundaries. These people see the big picture and resultant are able to produce tailored solutions that meet customer needs. Connection: Gulati’s research supports aligning with suppliers and partners. The rationale is that it support better solutions for the customer as well as provide cost-cutting opportunities. Gulati’s four “C’s” make sense, as they provide companies with a process map that focuses on the customer. Interesting to note, everything still focuses on the big “C” -- the customer. Cheers!

Is anybody really listening

Bill Hogg — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:45:00 +0000

As a customer do you ever feel that no one is listening to you or thinking about your needs? How often have you been in a situation where the service provider clearly demonstrates that in spite of their words, their actions communicate that they are not listening. For example, I recently went to pick up my dry cleaning. The cleaners have always been very helpful and looked after my needs quite well. No complaints. They run a loyalty program where for every so many dollars purchased I get a $15.00 credit -- nice. However, whenever I pick up my laundry, I have to remember to go through a pile of cards that they store in flat rolodex files, get my card, have it stamped and then return it to the file. On this particular day I mentioned that given the technology today they should have it on their computer system that whenever I spend over a certain amount they could surprise me and reward me with a $15.00 discount. Same program, but more convenient for the customer and provides the cleaner the opportunity to delight me. Their response (said very nicely) was they already had lots going on at the cash register when a customer was purchasing and that would just add another step. When I mentioned that it was not a very customer-focused response they assured me they were very customer focused -- and frankly they are. It just served to remind me that even people/companies that are customer-focused still need to listen. We may be doing many things right -- but when a loyal customer offers a comment or suggestion -- shut up and LISTEN. We can always improve and that usually starts with listening. Cheers!

CIBC policy hurts more than it helps?

Bill Hogg — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:51:00 +0000

Yesterday I tried to use my CIBC credit card to purchase some new lights for our home -- approximately $700.00. However, when I went to pay, my credit card was declined -- twice. Embarrassed by the fact that my bank had refused me credit, I was forced to use a different credit. When I returned home, I called the CIBC to find out why I had been declined. My monthly payments are through pre-authorized withdrawal, I never carry a balance and I was way under my credit limit. The explanation from the CSR was that CIBC had declined your card so I would call in and they could confirm that the card has not compromised, lost or stolen. They explained they did this periodically as a safety feature to protect their customers. To add further insult to injury, I was then forced to answer a number of questions about when, where and how much my last purchases were. So in their claimed effort to provide me with protection, the actually have set themselves up to upset their customers. I now have a ticking time bomb in my wallet. I never know the next time it will go off and I will face the embarrassment of having my card declined. Maybe next time it will be with a client, or possibly friends, who will question my financial management when my credit card is declined. Of course, one way to avoid this situation is to cancel the card. Which has exactly the opposite affect for CIBC than they intended. So, don't be like CIBC. Make sure you think through your policies from the customer viewpoint. Don't do more harm than good. Something to think about! Cheers!

Engaging Employees

Bill Hogg — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:06:00 +0000

The Hay Group, a global HR management consulting firm, recently surveyed 500,000 employees from 300 companies to assess the satisfaction levels of “committed” employees -- those who said they would stay with their company for at least five years compared to those who would leave after one year. They discovered that of the fifty influencing factors, pay was ranked the lowest. There is little doubt that in many industry sectors salary plays a significant role in attracting quality job candidates. However, what many of us really seek is validation for our work. “Show me my contribution matters to the organization” rather than “show me the money” is the underlying message that employers should focus on. But how does a company demonstrate validation? Some things for consideration are;

Offer interesting and varied work assignments
Have a clear growth path and incorporate on-going training & development
Provide tasks and projects that stimulate interest and give people the tools, processes and support needed to thrive and succeed, while being challenged
Formally and informally acknowledge your employees’ contribution to you and your organization
Actively solicit on-going feedback
Express genuine and specific appreciation for a job well done in a timely manner

Let me know if you have some success stories you would like to share. Cheers!

Rogers does the unexpected

Bill Hogg — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:10:00 +0000

It’s popular to highlight the problems experienced by one of the largest Telco’s in Canada, but today I had an unexpected experience worth repeating. I phoned Rogers cellular today because my daughters cell phone had incurred $33.00 worth of “Premium Services” on our family plan that she was unaware she had signed up for. We wanted to stop these services before additional charges were incurred. The CSR explained that these were not Rogers charges, but were third-party services which we needed to cancel directly with the third-party. She then explained how this could be done. While I was on the phone, I also asked her to examine my usage and let me know if I had the best plan for our needs. She showed me how by changing my plan, for the same base rate, I could receive additional services and have extra minutes which would reduce my overall bill. I hung up grateful for her help and feeling pretty good about the overall experience. Then the unexpected. An hour later I checked my cellular voicemail and found a message from my CSR. She indicated that because we had inadvertently accessed these premium services, and had called to cancel after receiving the first bill, she had credited my account for the $33.00. She was clear that this offer was extended because the first time someone accessed these services it was often based on misunderstanding how these services worked. WOW, was I shocked. I hadn’t expected this credit, and really had no right to expect it, but I was thrilled to have been treated as loyal customer who mattered to the company. My opinion immediately changed and this Moment of Magic has definitely put some currency in my Rogers brand bank account. Are you looking for ways to delight your customers? Cheers!

Pret a Manger vs. The Ritz-Carlton

Bill Hogg — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:14:00 +0000

I came across an excellent post in The Insider that you should read if you haven’t already done so. It features an interview with Jay Chapman, Head of Communications at Pret a Manger (a sandwich shop chain). The thing that struck me was the similarities between one of the key business practices between Pret a Manger and The Ritz-Carlton. They both place very high emphasis on recruitment. Like The Ritz-Carlton, prior to formal interviews for any role, all candidates (for any position within Pret) must work on the shop floor for a day. The team who works there gets a say on whether the candidate will fit in with the team there or whether they would like the person to work for Pret. If the answer is no, the candidate isn’t hired. In this way the shop teams make decisions on who the next Purchasing Manager, the next Customer Service Advisor and the next Property Director are. On top of that, all new recruits spend a week or two working in the shop at the start of their employment. Pret invests a lot in their recruitment process to make sure that their business is filled with “Pret people” from top to bottom and they actively encourage employees to bring their own personalities to work. Jay believes this investment pays off one hundredfold -- 60% of staff at Pret’s head office began life on the shop floor -- and they know the business inside out. Incidentally, ‘head office’ is described by Pret people as, ‘Hudsons Place’. This is because the people at Hudsons Place truly don’t believe they are any more important than the people on the shop floor – they’re just fulfilling a different function. This attitude of respect, treating everyone the same seems to run throughout Pret. That kind of attitude comes from the top and sets the tone for the entire organizational culture. So regardless of what kind of business you are in there is a lesson to be learned about hiring. Determine the culture you want and then design your recruitment to find those people. At Pret, there is one quality which is an absolute must if you want to join the team – happiness. “You can’t hire someone who can make sandwiches and teach them to be happy,” says Jay, “So we hire happy people and teach them to make sandwiches”. This is hiring based on character versus competence, which you then train. What are the key qualities you need to hire for -- and importantly, how have you designed your recruitment process to find those people. Cheers!

Pret a Manger vs. The Ritz-Carlton - Part 2

Bill Hogg — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:51:00 +0000

A further similarity between key business practices between Pret a Manger (UK sandwich shop) and The Ritz-Carlton is in the area of empowering employees. After all, given their focus on hiring for character, doesn’t it make sense to allow these great people to do what they do naturally (with some guidelines of course). Like The Ritz-Carlton, they are also empowered to make sure the customer is satisfied. At Pret a Manger, each team member is empowered from their first day at work to make their own decisions. For example, if you complain that you didn’t like your coffee at your local Pret, it is up to the team member you speak with, to decide how to resolve the situation. If you are spotted struggling with bags, team members are welcome to leave their post and go and help. It’s a question of using the common sense and respect that Pret looks for when it hires people. Jay Chapman, Head of Communications, says, “It’s not uncommon to find that if you’ve been to Pret for your lunch every day for a week, the person behind the till will recognise you and decide to give you Friday for free. The manager keeps an eye on things, but overall the team members are empowered to make their own decisions”. Result, Pret’s customers are happy. On average, 60% of feedback received by the Pret a Manger customer service department is either positive or neutral. Pret has not only succeeded in engaging their employees but their clients as well. And why not? Jay’s philosophy is “If you treat your employees well and involve them in the decisions that will affect them, they’re much more likely to be engaged in carrying out the effects of those decisions.” It comes as no surprise that both companies have both high employee engagement and high customer satisfaction. When you hire the right people for the job -- and then let them do the job, you will have happy, engaged staff, and it turn happy, satisfied customers. Check out the full article if you haven’t already done so. Cheers!

Empowering Employees

Bill Hogg — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:42:00 +0000

Last summer my family had a chance to travel to western Canada and one of the outstanding places we had the opportunity to visit was the Columbia Icefields in northern Alberta - just south of Jasper. Truly an awesome part of our great country. Years ago we decided that wherever we travelled we would collect small photographic fridge magnets to commemorate the many stops along our travels. Resultant when we were at the Icefields I looked for a Fridge Magnet for our collection. However, in the vast selection of magnets at the souvenir shop there were none that showed the Icefield. There were lots of animals, other local attractions, generic Alberta, but none of the Icefields. When I enquired of staff if they had any, they apologized and told me that they received a shipment only once each week and they always ran out of the Icefield magnets before the next shipment. What an interesting commentary on the company. Here the front line staff knew exactly what the problem was, yet either no one had asked them, they had not been encouraged to provide this input, or worse, they has already provided this input and it had been ignored. If feedback is not actively solicited and expected, then you are missing a huge insight into your customers needs. In addition to making input a central part of your culture, make sure that as part of your research plans you are building in a process to gather this input. Cheers!

Walk a mile in your customers shoes

Bill Hogg — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:24:00 +0000

We have all heard the expression about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, but how often do we demonstrate this concept when dealing with our customers? We often get so caught up in “doing our job” that we are too busy to really understand how our customer is feeling. I recently had a fantastic experience with a company that was renovating our kitchen that really brought that concept home. My wife and I arrived home after working all day, excited to see the progress that had been made on our kitchen -- they were installing the crown trim between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling. When we walked into the room, the first thing we noticed was that the work had all be completed and beautifully installed. The second was that the colour of the cabinets and crown was slightly off, causing the effect of a dark line around the top of our cabinets. We knew that with a hand painted finish that colour variation was part of the effect, but this seemed too much. We looked at each other and were immediately concerned. Could we live with this? Would the company tell us that this was the hand painted effect? I am sure you can imagine. The installer could probably read our thoughts, because he informed us that he had already called the sales person and owner about this issue and they we on their way to have a look. He explained that until the material was installed and you stood back to look, it was impossible to tell the colour differences. Well the sales person walked in and immediately agreed this was an issue that needed to be dealt with. He offered no solution yet, but our stress level was immediately calmed. The owner walked in and also agreed the issue needed to be dealt with. They then began a team discussion about the best solution. They did so with my wife and I included in the conversation as they discussed the various options. Finally, they decided the best option was to remove the crown moulding, return it to the shop to re-finish or prepare new pieces. The owner then pointed at the hood fan cover and a couple other pieces and stated that they weren’t up to standard either and they needed to come down as well. Imagine our surprise! Imagine our delight! The owner explained that we would have to live with this kitchen for many years, we had made a significant investment with his company and he wasn’t happy unless we were 100% satisfied. Incredible! He put our satisfaction/needs ahead of his own. In the end, his need of building a prosperous business was accomplished. We were more than 100% satisfied with final product -- we are enthusiastic ambassadors for his company. We have shared this story (and others from our experience) with many people and have already referred his company to at least 2 friends thinking about a new kitchen. Their business will continue to grow based on this kind of exceptional word of mouth. Are you putting yourself in your customer’s shoes when they are faced with a problem, or are you focused on your own needs? (If you are located in Toronto/GTA and want the company's name and number -- drop me a line) Cheers!

How are you treating your existing customers?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:04:00 +0000

I came a cross a couple items recently that I thought were great examples of how to treat existing customers -- remember, these are the people who are currently funding your pay cheque. The first was posted by Micah Solmon at the ultimate customer service blog. He talks about an experience he had with The New York Times when approached with a FREE gift subscription offer. When he told them he was already a subscriber, they gave him the FREE gift anyway as a thank you for his business. The second is a letter from Steve Jobs to early adopters who purchased an iPhone and could be upset that the price had dropped by $200 after only 2 months. He offers a $100 credit towards future purchases, while also providing some explanation on why they have decided to drop the price this soon. Both examples demonstrated a genuine commitment to treat customers like we all want to be treat -- with honesty, respect and integrity. Clearly, it costs money to execute these types of examples. But what is the value returned by the increasing trust (and resultant loyalty) to the organization. And shouldn't we be investing in our existing customer to keep them happy versus try to "buy" new customers? How often have we seen companies offering deep discounts to new customers while locking existing customers into old pricing. How does this make the existing customer feel? What kind of loyalty does it create when a repeat purchase is available. Companies that "win" on price often find that they lose on "price" when the next company offers a better/new incentive because there is no loyalty factor built into the relationship. Are you treating your prospects better than your existing customers? What can you do for your existing customer that demonstrates that you appreciate their business -- without breaking the bank? I'd love to hear any ideas that you are using. Cheers!

More Tales from the Kitchen

Bill Hogg — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:29:00 +0000

As you know we recently had our kitchen renovated. I had an experience with the hardwood flooring company that demonstrates how to irritate a good customer, when a very simple change in language would have had exactly the opposite effect. We have paid the bulk of the contract, but I hadn't paid the final small outstanding balance pending their return to make a couple minor repairs. Nothing serious, no problems -- just a little touch-up. They we fine with the request and made an appointment to make the adjustments. So far -- everything is great. However, the day before our scheduled appointment I received a call, indicating that they would not be able to come and make the repairs until the outstanding balance was paid. I explained that these were not repairs, but were in fact, 2 boards that were installed incorrectly and therefore I saw them as part of the original work that still needed to be completed. I also indicated that I had a cheque already made out, which they would be given when the job was completed to my satisfaction. A discussion ensued about their business practices and risk of continuing to do work when bills weren't paid etc. etc. -- all the while telling me I was a valued customer since 2002. Lots about their issues, but none about my desire to have the work completed correctly before final payment. The caller (who had been our sales person) closed by stating that he would make sure the installer would arrive as scheduled and he would deal with any internal issues. So how could they have handled this situation better and still achieved their desired result of getting payment? How about, "Mr Hogg, we are scheduled to be at your home tomorrow and I notice that you still have an outstanding balance. Could I tell the installer that you will have a cheque for him, or would it be more convenient to pay by credit card?" They could even have added, "Normally we do not do follow up calls when there is an outstanding balance, but because you are a loyal, longtime customer we are pleased to make an exception." if they needed to clarify expectations. I don't know about you, but the second scenario, lets the customer know what your expectations are while at the same time communicating that they are a valued customer. How do you handle similar situations? Do your statement of policies potentially offend, or can wording be changed subtly to set expectations and still create a positive experience? Try out some of your answers while wearing your customer hat and find out. Cheers!

No need for cutbacks in Employee Engagement

Bill Hogg — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:35:00 +0000

The 2008 Hewitt Best Employers in Australia and New Zealand were announced recently and there were a couple insights worth mentioning. Not surprisingly study insights show a clear link between levels of employee engagement and virtually every measure of company performance. For example, Best Employers generated an average of 1-1/2 times more revenue and 2-1/2 times more profit per employee than the lower ranked organisations. According to David Brown, market manager of Hewitt Australia and New Zealand: "The factors that drive employee engagement are a direct reflection on our changing social landscape. There are some universal factors that we see coming up again and again from year to year, such as;

career opportunities,
recognition for work successes, and
feeling that one's work makes a contribution.

However this year, three new factors emerged;

building a company culture that fosters productivity by 'walking the talk' and having company values that align with employees' personal values;
having middle managers who understand and support business strategies; and
building a diverse workforce."

The best part is that these drivers of employee engagement do not come with a hefty price tag, but help companies improve business results and offset numerous issues that have very significant costs (i.e. unplanned absenteeism, reduction in productivity, staff morale, lost management/employee time, resignations and labour replacement costs). Given the current economic climate, no company can absorb these additional costs as a result of cuts that negatively impact employee engagement. Cheers!

Hire for Character not Competence

Bill Hogg — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:36:00 +0000

Hiring properly is one of the keys to engaged employees -- making sure that the people you hire are the kind of people you want as part of your team. I recently went to the hardware store looking for a part for a door. The first person pointed me in the right direction - no luck. I asked a second person who directed me to a third person who directed me to a fourth person. Finally the fourth person took me directly to the appropriate section and then when they were also unable to find the correct part, looked on the computer to find it. Everyone one in this chain had the "competence" of knowing where to look, but only 1 person had the "character" to make the time to take me there. At Pret a Manger, they hire happy people and teach them how to make sandwiches versus trying to teach people who know how to make sandwiches how to be happy. Be clear on the character you want and then make sure your hiring practices build in the behavioural requirements. Cheers!

Customer Service equals Trust

Bill Hogg — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:14:00 +0000

A recent study of UK banks by Grassroots indicates that the level of trust a customer feels for banks is a direct result of the quality of service provided. Banks achieving a higher overall service score achieved significantly higher ratings of trust when compared to banks with a lower overall service score. Some key findings of the study include:

60% of staff failed to offer to open an account. Of these 40% would have done so there and then if they had only been asked.
Establishing the customer’s requirements is critical. Only two thirds of staff asked how much the customer had to invest.
Just one in five customers rated staff as having excellent product knowledge. This is a key differentiator when there are fewer customers around.
Only 64% of staff made an excellent first impression with survey participants – still a 5% increase on the results from the 2005 survey.

When the impact of good customer service can be linked to improved bottom line performance, one has to ask "why aren't more companies paying serious attention to the issue?" This is particularly puzzling when each of the above points would cost little or no money to implement. Cheers!

What about internal customer service?

Bill Hogg — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:15:00 +0000

We spend a lot of time talking about customer service and how companies must focus on the needs of the customer. Usually we share lots of examples of customer facing people either failing or succeeding to demonstrate the need for this important value. BUT WHAT ABOUT INTERNAL CUSTOMERS. All too often the folks who do not face the end customer fail to recognize they also play a critical role in delivering excellent customer service to each other. They fail to recognize -- or be held accountable -- that their support of the customer facing personnel can make or break the relationship. They fail to recognize that they also have customers -- they are internal customers. For example, I just got off a plane from Toronto to Washington enroute to a client meeting. The plan loaded on time, the boarding personal were efficient and we were all ready to go on time. But then we waited -- 1 hour! The reason was -- as explained very nicely by both the captain and the flight attendant -- the baggage was not loaded to safety standards so it had be be removed and reloaded. I actually watched this process take place out my window. I assure you that the ground crew did not appear to be in any rush. I fortunately made my connecting flight, but I cannot speak for other passengers who arrived 1 hour behind schedule. The key thing is that no amount of positive customer service by the Flight Crew could fix this issue. Yet they received the brunt of the complaints -- which they handled professionally and with great empathy. Problem was they were completely at the mercy of the baggage crew. Surely one must assume they had been trained how to load baggage -- yet they didn't do it correctly. But what were their consequences? How often do we leave our own front line people without the support they need to do their jobs well. Do we have the same type of customer satisfaction rating for the people who support them? Are those support people also measured based on customer satisfaction? If not, they should be, because they are often the foundation on which to build a business. And if the foundation is weak -- well you know! Something to think about. Cheers!

C-level or bust!

Bill Hogg — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:41:00 +0000

As we reflect on the importance of customer service in the current economic client, I recently read a blog by Management Consultant John Maven (ex P&G, Clorox) about the core competencies of the CEO. You can read the full post here, but I thought it was interesting that he felt that of the 10 competencies, 3 of them were linked to the customer-focus of the organization. He writes; Vision - The CEO, possibly with the help of his executive team, creates and communicates a compelling and inspired sense of core purpose. This is based on the vision of the future, not the reality of today. Culture – The CEO is responsible for creating and maintaining the desired culture and environment. If vision is where the company is going, culture and values tell how the company gets there. Values outline acceptable behavior. Work gets done through people, and people are profoundly affected by culture. Culture is built in many ways, and the CEO sets the tone. His every action—or inaction—sends cultural messages. Customer focus - CEOs have a clear understanding of customers' needs, preferences, interests, timelines and decision-making criteria. Focusing on meeting those needs and doing so profitably means success for both the company and the customer. Long-term customer satisfaction builds loyal, repeat customers Yet in spite of the fact that everyone is talking about it, we seem to constantly struggle with getting it right. I maintain that it is because too many CEO's do not have competencies in the area of customer-focus as demonstrated by the poor service we receive and the opportunities that abound even in these economic conditions for those who do. So let's make sure we have the direct endorsement of the C-level if we expect a true customer-focus. Cheers!

All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Bill Hogg — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:02:00 +0000

Robert Fulghum is the author of All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. As his title suggests, his basic premise is that what we learned everything important that we need to be a success in business and in life in kindergarten. But let's make another comparison. How about all we need to learn about employee engagement we learned by observing kindergarten. Think about your early days in school. Were you excited about going, learning, playing, meeting new people, and having new experiences? I suspect many of us were. When thinking back about our school days, our early grades were some of the most fun and also where we learned the most of our basic skills (i.e. the 3 R's). So what happened as we got older and started to be less interested in school? What was the difference? For the sake of discussion, I would propose were were less engaged because the learning environment became less about the student exploring, working together and more about the teachers dictating what we needed to know and lecturing about the subjects. Much less interactive. Of course, we all had a great teachers in high school. But if you look at what made them great it was often the way they engaged the class versus simply "teaching" the material. I think there is a lesson here. How can we take the best from kindergarten and incorporate it into our work environment? How do we re-inspire people to learn and grow based on the culture we set up? What did we learn from our experience in kindergarten that we have forgotten? Cheers!

The new old rules of engagement

Bill Hogg — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:32:00 +0000

Not that we need to say it again, but more recent research confirms that increasing employee engagement increases performance. Most boardrooms see employee engagement as a key priority for the future and investment in engagement is set to grow -- even in the current economic environment. This is a key finding of the comprehensive study of engagement practice undertaken in the UK, commissioned by employee engagement consultancy, Engage Group. The survey of nearly 23,600 directors, managers and employees, conducted during October 2008 , reveals that effective engagement can demonstrably improve an organisation's performance. A high level of employee engagement is one of the top three drivers of an organisation's performance, and nearly a third of the UK's senior leaders see a fully-engaged workforce as one of the most critical factors in their organisation's success. Key findings from the report are as follows;

Effective engagement can demonstrably improve an organisation’s performance
Most boardrooms see engagement as a key priority for the future and net investment in engagement is set to grow, even in the current economic environment
Despite growing board support for engagement, most employees still feel disengaged from their organisation – board buy-in has not yet, according to employees, been translated into action
'New world’ aspects of engagement, particularly the appetite and ability of leaders at every level to share power and engage people in decision-making, emerge as powerful new elements of engagement
Delivering on the ‘new engagement agenda’ will result in more engaged employees, more committed customers and faster growth
Forceful ‘command & control’ styles of leadership have little, no or even a negative impact on engagement and performance levels – less than 40% of employees view their leader(s) as effective
Employee satisfaction, the oldest assumed element of employee engagement, sinks near the bottom of the list of influential factors
Internal measurement lags behind external measures of performance – only 28% of board members claim to use robust internal measures of employee engagement

This study confirms an earlier thesis, the outcome of an extensive research programme carried out in partnership with McKinsey & Company, that the drivers of employee engagement are steadily shifting towards a new inclusiveness However, despite growing board support for engagement, most employees feel disengaged from their organisation. Only just over a third of employees believe their organisation engages them to perform well. For those of us who live in the world of employee engagement this comes as no surprise, but for those clients who are still struggling to find the time, money or motivation, maybe this will help. You can download a complete copy of the full report at Engage Group.

Cheers!

What Makes Customers Happy?

Bill Hogg — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:41:00 +0000

I recently read an article about online shopping and what it takes to make customers happy. The results indicated that the experience needs to be individualized, personalized, and centered around the customer. There are some technology barriers to making this happen online, but we have no excuse on the phone or face to face. Regardless of what we know in advance about the customer, our attitude and behaviour can accomplish these desired outcomes. Cheers!

Direct Marketers

Bill Hogg — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:16:00 +0000

Direct marketers have long had the ability to test different messages and offers to determine what pulls the strongest and converts more purchases. More recently ecommerce has provided the same direct correlation between copy/offer and purchase. So who better to link financial gain to emotional connections? A recent article in E-Commerce News speaks to exactly that point. Their focus is on the new technologies that are available to help companies get at the emotional drivers that affect purchase and loyalty. In the direct to consumer world, what works is easily tested, improved and refined. Their take on the power of an emotional connection or experience is summed up nicely in this quote. "When you go beyond price, quality and service to focus on the heart or emotional aspect of customer relationships, you will create more engaged customers. When this happens, you will begin to enjoy all the rewards that engaged customers offer a business, including a greater share of their wallets, more positive referrals, less inclination to leave the business relationship, more useful feedback, etc." I couldn't have said it better myself. Cheers!

Will price beat service?

Bill Hogg — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:02:00 +0000

Like many retailers Abercrombie & Fitch Co. suffered dismal November sales results. However, unlike many of their rivals they have made a fundamental decision not to aggressively lower prices -- deciding instead to try and maintain the equity of their brand. So if they don't match on price, what will be the draw to the customer? Have they built enough equity to survive the downturn? Has their brand experience built enough customer loyalty to keep them coming back? Time will tell. It will be interesting to see what A&F does as the recession continues. Will they be able to maintain the profitability based on less sales at higher prices or will they succumb to the price war? Stay tuned. Cheers!

Are You Maximizing Your Benefits?

Bill Hogg — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:43:00 +0000

Most organizations have put considerable time and money into developing a benefits package that is a positive for their employees. Rightly, they expect that these benefits will contribute to a positive work environment and overall engagement. However, Andy Philpott of Accor Services (one of the UK's leading providers of employee benefits, rewards and loyalty services), reports that in a recent study they conducted of rewards, benefits and employee engagement that only one-third of employers (33%) believed staff understand what benefits are available. More concerning is that just one in five employees (21%) claim to have a good understanding of the value of the benefits available and one in 10 admit they have no clue about the value of these benefits. Employees also seemed unsure whether their pay, benefits and incentives packages were competitive when compared with people doing similar jobs in similar organisations. Only 33% felt their company was competitive on pay, 25% on benefits and just 17% felt their organisation offered competitive incentives. It is critical that we communicate the value of our benefits package effectively to staff. Successful communication is an foundational element in building employee engagement and the resulting performance, motivation and productivity benefits are not maximized if people are unaware of what the benefits are. Cheers!

Changes for the New Year

Bill Hogg — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:49:15 +0000

The new year is always a good time to evaluate your past year and set new goals for the new. Like many of you I will be using the holiday break to consider the future and do some personal planning. One thing you will notice is that over the holidays I am making some changes to this blog layout and I am now hosting it within my website. This may cause you receive duplicate posts and you may need to update your RSS feed or email subscription so you continue to receive these posts uninterrupted. I apologize in advance for this inconvenience, but it is my hope these changes will improve your customer experience. If you experience any issues, please let me know at bill@billhogg.ca so I can look into and correct the issue.

Happy Holidays

Bill Hogg — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 14:54:39 +0000

I will not be posting until w/o January 5 so I can spend some well deserved time off with my family and friends during the holiday season. But I wanted to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and a safe, healthy and prosperous new year. Til 2009 -- Best Wishes! Cheers!

Building Emotional Capital

Bill Hogg — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:25:00 +0000

In our current economic climate, many companies are wondering how to maintain an enthusiastic, engaged employees. Employee Engagement and Employee Recognition experts agree that recognizing employees with thank-you's and small rewards are the foundation of all strong Employee Recognition Programs (ERP).

They answer the basic human need for something fundamentally important; Emotional Capital. When integrated into a rewards program, this approach to recognition is more powerful and has more lasting impact than financial compensation. We have all heard that people join an organization for money, but leave because of lack of recognition.

A recognition program that appreciates, thanks and rewards employees can lift staff out of the recessionary downer that many are falling into. This Emotional Capital builds on our need for belonging, self-esteem and feeling good about the contribution we make. Cash cannot meet this need.

Recent studies that support this philosophy include:

Spot awards to employees resulted in 10 times greater return on investment than an increase in base pay. (McKinsey and Company Compensation Round Table 2008)
Paying people a compliment appears to activate the same reward centre in the brain as paying them cash. (The Japanese National Institute for Physiological Services)
Acknowledging staff achievements (praising employees) had the same impact on job satisfaction as a 1 per cent increase in pay. (2008 White Water Strategies)
Non-cash incentives were 24 per cent more powerful at boosting performance than cash incentives. (University of Chicago 2004).

The key underlying imperative is that these type of recognition activities must be ingrained into the culture of the organization. A "way to go" that is is out of character will be seen as disingenuous and potentially have more of a detrimental impact that saying nothing. So make sure these initiatives are evolutionary and build credibility and trust.

Cheers!

Satisfaction vs. Engagment

Bill Hogg — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:09:47 +0000

U.S. researchers, William H. Macey and Benjamin Schneider, suggest employee engagement refers to the positive feelings employees have about their job as well as the motivation and effort they put into their work.

The authors wrote in Industrial and Organizational Psychology that employees will feel -- and act -- engaged when their employer creates conditions that permit them to do so. The key condition for feeling engaged is fair treatment, which creates a feeling of trust and, in turn, feeling safe to be engaged. They feel that some people confuse engagement with satisfaction and/or commitment and consider retention and turnover to be indicators of engagement. However, Macey and Schneider said employee engagement concerns both feelings of engagement, focus and enthusiasm, as well as engagement behavior, proactivity and persistence. Engagement is not equal to satisfaction. Engagement connotes energy and not satiation, while satisfaction connotes satiation and contentment but not energy. The authors contend that employees come to work ready to be engaged, and the challenge for organizations is to create conditions that will release that energy. I agree. Do you? Cheers!

OMNI Charlottesville: Part 1

Bill Hogg — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:15:21 +0000

I recently stayed at the OMNI Charlottesville (Virginia) -- one of the more expensive hotels in this community -- for 1 night, on 2 separate occasions, 1 week apart. After the first night I received the opportunity to respond to an online survey about my experience, but I did not respond to the survey until after my second visit. I decided to respond simply to see what their survey looked like versus any real desire to fill out another survey. The survey was based on a 10 point scale with only 1 opened ended question at the end. I felt they had satisfied all my needs but done nothing outstanding, so I ranked them satisfied (5’s) across the board. I also included a comment “You met my expectations -- nothing more, nothing less.” Frankly that was the last I thought I would hear about it. However, much to my surprise within 4 hours I received a phone call from the General Manager of the hotel wondering about my survey responses. He specifically asked what they had done wrong that needed to be improved. I explained they had done nothing “wrong”, but neither had they done anything extraordinary resulting in my satisfied rating. This left him puzzled. Why had they only received 5’s, when they had done everything right? This is one of the biggest issues in the customer service environment. We expect people to be thrilled to receive the basic expectations of service. I explained the room was clean, bed made; I was greeted in a friendly manner at the check-out and quickly checked -in. But why would I expect anything else. This is the basic level of service and just because they did it well is not deserving of any special merit. In fact, doing anything less would send me scurrying to another hotel very quickly. At this point they had done nothing to create any loyalty or feeling that they had exceeded any expectation I might have. They met my expectations -- nothing more, nothing less! See my post this Friday for the outcome of my conversation. Cheers!

OMNI Charlottesville: Part 2

Bill Hogg — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:21:08 +0000

In my last post I shared a recent customer service experience at the OMNI Charlottesville. I discussed that meeting the basic level of service only earned them a 5 out of 10 ranking -- satisfaction. The GM probed about what they could have done to achieve a higher mark than 5. I suggested that since I was arriving at 8 pm, and they could see from my reservation information that I had come from Toronto, they could probably assume that I had taken a plane and may not have eaten. Enquiring about my flight and asking if I had eaten would have accomplished 3 things.

Confirmed these assumptions in a none invasive manner
Shown me they cared about my well-being, not just my transaction
Possibly provided an opportunity to direct me to their dining room/bar which was open -- and empty -- to increase their business

Instead they checked me in and gave me my room key. I came back down approx. 30 minute later and asked if there was a local place where I could get a quick bite. They referred me to a hamburger place a short walk down the road. Upon arriving I found it was closed (Sunday night) and ended up walking back and getting a pizza slice on the way. Missed opportunity -- you bet. They could have suggested that I could get a hamburger or lighter fare in their restaurant. If they didn’t serve lighter fare, they should. They are a hotel where guests often arrive after dinner. Be prepared to serve them. Turns out they offered full meals as well as lighter fare according to the GM, but are doing nothing to promote this business. At minimum, they should know the local restaurants well enough to not send out of town guests on a wild goose chase. Also, when I arrived back for my second visit (1 week later), I was treated well, but like a first time guest. They knew from their check-in screen that I had been there the week before (the GM confirmed this information was available). I suggested that a simple “Welcome back Mr Hogg, it is so nice to have you return to our hotel” would have also contributed to making me feel special. Not one of these suggestions has any incremental cost to the hotel, yet they all would make a customer feel special -- and increase the likelihood to return. Let me know what you think. Was I too harsh? See my next post for his response. Cheers!

OMNI Charlottesville: Part 3

Bill Hogg — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:24:11 +0000

Last post on my customer service experience at the OMNI. So far I have talked about my experience and my discussion with the GM. After making my comment, the GM agreed that they could do a better job of the things I had suggested and indicated that he would share my comments with his staff. So far so good. Then he asked whether I would be returning to Charlottesville and whether I would be staying at the OMNI again. I indicated that I would be returning, but would be staying at a competitive hotel, since the conference I was speaking at was at that hotel. He enquired which hotel -- and I told him the DoubleTree Hilton. He said, “Oh, well then you will be back” Wrong answer! That’s when things started to go downhill. Never denigrate your competition. Simply sell your benefits. Frankly, the DoubleTree provided all the same service of the OMNI; clean king size bed, clean room, efficient and friendly check-in, etc. PLUS they offered FREE internet, convenient airport shuttle when I returned to the airport with a very friendly driver, had a nice breakfast buffet and were 30% less expensive. Overall a better experience at a reduced cost. Not sure why he was so sure I would be back to the OMNI -- just because it was a “nicer” hotel? Not likely. I stay at a lot of hotels and frankly I feel more loyalty towards the DoubleTree than the OMNI, although I admit the actual structure was a nicer, more modern building. Unfortunately the people, and therefore the experience, were better at the DoubleTree. Lastly, the GM made a classic mistake. He told me he would follow up with an email to me -- not sure what his purpose was, but he did make this commitment. To-date nothing. In his initial enthusiasm he made a commitment he did not keep, breaking my trust. Better not to promise than do so and not carry through. If he won’t keep his word on this, why would I trust anything else? This story also was an excellent customer experience example in my keynote presentation to people from 5 surrounding States. Not great word of mouth. Lots of lessons here we can apply to our own business. Cheers!

Did I say "No Problem"?

Bill Hogg — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:55:23 +0000

How many times have you used or heard someone use this expression? It is usually used to indicate that we would be pleased to accommodate your request. Or in response to you saying "Thank You". However, let's examine this statement for a moment. When we start a sentence with the word "NO", we immediately send the listener down a negative path. They can't help it. Then to make matters worse, we add a second negative trigger word "problem". What are we thinking! Both are words no customer ever wants to hear. The human mind is programmed to react to key trigger words like 'Don't', 'But', 'However', etc. As soon as we hear one of these words it immediately triggers a response -- often exactly the opposite of what is intended. In this case we want to leave a positive impression, but by starting our sentence with "no problem" the listener starts to imagine how they are going to deal without your help. So what about 'It's been my pleasure', 'You are welcome', 'Happy to be of service'? Would any of these work as well or better? Not only are they as good, they also convey a positive attitude towards service. Sort of a glass half full versus half empty approach. We all know the importance of language in how we communicate with our customers and each other -- so why not drop this expression from our responses? Cheers!

CMO's admit they are not listening to customers effectively

Bill Hogg — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:44:43 +0000

Many of you will have heard or read about the new report released by the CMO Council that describes the current role of the voice of the customer in marketing decision-making based on a survey of 480 executives. It is a dismal state of affairs given the sputtering we hear about the importance of customer service. Reports have already been published in major industry publications such as AdAge and AdWeek, as well as blogs too numerous to mention. Some key findings include;

Nearly two-thirds of companies do not have a formal Voice of Customer program in place.
Only 31 percent highly rate their organization's commitment to customer listening.
Only 13 percent of companies have deployed real-time systems to collect, analyze and distribute customer feedback.
While 74 percent say they receive customer feedback via e-mail, only 23 percent say they track and measure the volume and nature of these messages
Only 12 percent are using a word-of-mouth marketing platform to drive online customer advocacy.
58 percent of them believe the Internet and social media have changed the level of influence and expectations of their customers, but only 14.5 percent track word of mouth on the Internet and only 16 percent regularly monitor online message boards for complaints and feedback
37 percent said they gather insights from customer engagement situations
56 percent said they have no programs tracking or propagating positive word of mouth among customers
Only 33 percent of the respondents think their companies are very good at resolving complaints
58 percent said their companies do not compensate any employees or executives based on customer loyalty, satisfaction improvements or analytics
Only 29 percent said their companies rate highly in their ability handle and resolve customer problems or complaints

I think you would agree that this is a dismal state of affairs. From all this data, two things stand out for me.

What gets measured gets done: Unless people are being recognized and rewarded for an activity it will not get done.
Empowerment: If improving the customer experience is not central to your value system and everyone isn't empowered to effect change, then change will not happen.

At the end of the day, even though everyone seems to espouse the value of customer service, it still isn't being effectively leveraged to create a point of difference for organizations. I believe those of us who focus on these two truths will win the day. Check out the articles (and some of the comments) -- they make good reading. You can download the Executive Summary here.

Careful where you cut

Bill Hogg — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:14:20 +0000

I think we all agree that Starbucks has done many things right, but a recent experience demonstrated how even great companies need to make sure their fundamentals are right, particularly with the recent down turn in the economy and people being more particular where they spend their dollars. Since I don't have a traditional office, I often meet people for coffee rather than in a boardroom or office. I was meeting with a prospective client in a Starbucks and my experience demonstrated their need to ensure their culture is being broadly and accurately communicated. We have all read how Starbucks developed The Green Apron to communicate their principles -- even making them available to any customer that asks. On more than 1 occassion I have actually gone to the counter and asked for a copy and shared it with my guest to demonstrate this story and to show them a well written set of principles. So imagine my surprise when I recently asked for a copy and was told it was for employees only. I indicated that Starbucks has publicly stated they were available to anyone and suggested they might want to check with their manager. They told me the manager was in the store and they went to check. When they returned, I was told they would get me one -- however I was asked where I worked and why I wanted one. At this point I ended the conversation and returned to my table empty-handed. So much for freely sharing their principles. Additionally, I left with a revised opinion of Starbucks and my guest had a great real life story about the importance of communicating your values throughout the organization. It also demonstrated a real issue with the on-boarding of this location. It is relatively new (less than 6 months old) in a new super-centre. One has to wonder whether there have been cuts in the start-up process to save money and this is one of the results. I have written about a companies most valuable assets (your customers) before -- if you are not providing support to the people who manage these assets, you are on a dangerous and slippery slope. This is not the time to be making cuts in the important area of customer care. Something to think about. Cheers

L. L. Bean Tops In Customer Service

Bill Hogg — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:18:47 +0000

I spotted a great article about L. L. Bean being rated number one in the National Retail Federation/American Express 2008 Customers’ Choice survey for the second year running. The article quotes heavily from an interview with Terry Sutton, Vice President of Customer Satisfaction, and I wanted to share some highlights. Terry attributed the number one ranking to the company’s longstanding culture of putting the customer first. The key here is "longstanding". I have previously said that while a product or price advantage can easily be duplicated, strong customer relationships can never be duplicated or lured away. That statement is based on the premise that customer focus is part of the organizational DNA versus a flavour of the month. A couple other points are also worth highlighting. Terry adds “Our front-line employees are just great advocates for the customer. Every now and then marketing will roll out something and the CSRs will say ‘wait a minute, that’s not customer friendly.’ So we have a pretty strong voice at the table, at the corporate level, to influence how customer-facing communications and treatments are handled.” Key message here? The customer is central to decision-making. L.L. Bean clearly makes sure the folks who are dealing with, understand, and are closest to the customer have direct and planned influence on decisions. And while L.L. Bean also reported that its year over year holiday sales were down about 10%, Sutton says it could have been a lot worse if the company cut back on customer service “It’s the easy thing to do to manage your costs,” Sutton admits. “But boy, it’s like a death spiral. You accelerate your own demise when you do things like that. So we decided we weren’t going to do that.” Some great advice from a leader. Check out the full article for more comments.

Online Word of Mouth

Bill Hogg — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:45:46 +0000

I spotted a couple interesting articles about the power of online reviews (word of mouth). Articles in BizReport.com and Internet Retailer report on Forrester Research's recently released report called 'Myths and Truths About Online Customer Reviews'. Forrester Research indicates that while 81% of people look for information online, and are influenced by what they read -- they also do not base their purchase decisions on that information. In fact only 14% always trust an online review. There are slight variations by target audience and category, but the good news is that bad online reviews can be survived. In spite of bad reviews, people sought additional information either from a professional reviewer (37%) or followed up directly with the company (7%). My view is the lack of personal connection with the reviewer made their motives and credibility suspect. We don't have a context for why they provided a poor review. Was it a disgruntled employee or a customer with unreasonable expectations? People want to make their own decision and online reviews are a research tool as part of the decision-making process. However, compare that with an offline review -- word of mouth from someone we know. What makes off-line reviews so powerful is that we know the person, we trust them and therefore their views are already in the context of a credible reviewer. We may already have discovered similarities in expectations that align with our own values, so their opinion holds special value. A bad review online may not be a death knell, but bad offline reviews from someone we know will surely have an enormous impact on any business.

Customer Service Tune-Up

Bill Hogg — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:53:06 +0000

I read a recent post over at The Gourmet Retailer that raised the question about whether to have experienced employees re-take customer service training that was part of their orientation process. It struck me as a good question. My bias is that orientation should be used to clearly define service expectations and lay the ground work for all future training. When you are presenting lots of information, people can only take-away a limited number of actionable new behaviours. So much of what they have heard is lost as part of the brain overload at a new organization. The key message needs to be about principles/values. Customer service training needs to be part of ongoing daily activity. There is a consistent need to refresh and update the communication. Having shorter sessions, that are focused on specific (often timely) issues and opportunities works better than having "courses" that are given yearly and cover lots of information. Customer service is an ongoing journey and by making training an integral part of ongoing work life, we ensure that we are growing and coaching each other towards continuous improvement. I love the concept of short (5-10 minutes) daily or weekly team huddles to discuss what has been working -- often with specific real-life examples that have taken place recently. Plus, this is a great opportunity to build in recognition for demonstrating desired behaviours. My take: Use orientation to set the principles and expectations that are foundational to your organization. Then use short regular sessions to discuss the issues and opportunities that arise. This will keep customer service front and center and people will add new behaviours that are top of mind in their daily activities. Agree, disagree -- share your thoughts.

Customers vs. Guests

Bill Hogg — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:32:53 +0000

Recently I read a post that reminded me that how we "think" about our business has a huge impact on our execution. Dennis Snow wrote an excellent post on his blog where he reminds us that Disney doesn't have customers -- but guests. The nugget here is that by thinking of people as guests, we no longer think in terms of a transaction, but we re-frame our thinking into a more emotional relationship between 2 (or more) people. Within this new framework, we stop thinking about simply getting the business done and start thinking about how we can create a positive experience -- the same as we would want for any guest visiting our home or business location. Think about how you mentally and physically prepare for the arrival of a guest. We tidy up, greet them warmly, make them feel comfortable, endeavour to create a positive experience and then thank them for coming and invite them back (Notice I said guests -- not necessarily relatives ;) ). By simply changing our frame of reference, we construct a new set of guidelines that govern our behaviours, without the need for a long list of rules. It keeps our focus on the real reason we are in business versus the transactions we complete. How are you thinking about the people who make you business grow?

Common Purpose Drives Performance

Bill Hogg — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:16:57 +0000

Dennis Snow wrote of the power pf purpose on his blog and it is such a wonderful example of how a common purpose elevates performance to new levels that I wanted to share it with you. The story is about iron workers who are building a new cancer center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Each day they spray paint the names of children who are being treated in an adjacent building. They do this to provide hope and smiles to these children. They recognize they are not just erecting a new building, but something much more important. They are building hope and future dreams for families. This story demonstrates that when we think about people versus transactions it changes how we approach every activity. How could any one of these iron workers give less than 100% knowing what they are creating for the future. Are your teams clear on what they are contributing? We all can't build cancer centres, but we can all make life a little easier, or safer, or more comfortable for the next customer we meet. The full story can be read at the Boston Globe.

Are you customer focused?

Bill Hogg — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:07:12 +0000

Many organizations talk about being customer-focused, which I define as informing all decision-making from a customer perspective versus the organization. Here are 2 examples of companies that I think are demonstrating a customer-focus. JetBlue: Jet Blue will refund airfares to customers who book a flight with them, but are laid off before their scheduled date of travel. Under its new Promise Program, customers who book flights between Feb. 1 and June 1, 2009, and lose their job on or after Feb. 17 may be eligible for the refund. The customer who purchased the flight and is listed as a traveler on the itinerary, can request a refund for up to nine customers traveling on one reservation. JetBlue’s low fares are usually nonrefundable. Hyundai Motor America: The South Korea-based automaker will cover the depreciation on any returned leased or financed vehicle for the first 12 months to those who find themselves unable to make their car payments. The program is aimed at consumers too nervous to spring for a new car in the difficult economy. The slump in consumer confidence has been one of the biggest factors behind the collapse in new vehicle sales in 2008. Both of these companies are demonstrating they understand the situation many consumers find themselves in. The programs may not be perfect, but they are a step in the right direction. I predict that customers will appreciate the consideration and reward such companies with purchase and loyalty.

Customers Are Fighting Back

Bill Hogg — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:07:55 +0000

Spotted a recent article online in AARP Magazineoffering strategies when you do not receive the customer service you deserve. If you are unfamiliar with the AARP, it is the largest membership organization (40 million members) for people 50+ in the United States and is affiliated with similar organizations around the world. In total, a pretty significant and influential target audience for many businesses -- any of whom have lots of time on their hands. It demonstrates the potential impact of an unhappy customer and the power of word of mouth advertising. It was interesting to note that the writer recognizes that most senior executives do not want unhappy customers. Why is it that senior executives don't want unhappy customers -- yet there seem to be so many unhappy customers? I think this speaks to two issues;

The vision of the organization is not clearly communicated and demonstrated so that all employees know and understand expectations. If the leaders don't want unhappy customers they must communicate this throughout the organization and recognize desired behaviours accordingly.
Too many businesses design their procedures based on company needs versus customers needs. The result is customers not getting treated the way they should because rules and procedures make it hard or even impossible for employees to do the right thing.

When you put these 2 issues together you are headed for disaster. So if you are not looking after your customers the way you should, beware of the educated and empowered customer.

Importance of Customer Experience Today

Bill Hogg — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:16:49 +0000

Successful businesses ensure that customer experience is the guiding principle of everything they do. There have been many examples of the importance of creating a differentiated customer experience, and how that can translate into customer loyalty and the recommendation of that product or service to others. Unfortunately, in today's economic environment, many companies are choosing to reduce spending in areas where they do not see an immediate ROI or they feel they can ease off until things look less grim -- Marketing and customer support spring to mind. However, this is a very short sighted view. Customer experience is even more critical now than ever before for a couple reasons. One, the greater majority of the population is still working, still earning and still spending -- but they are spending less and being more choosy about where they spend. A great customer experience will ensure customers choose your business when they are ready to spend their hard earned dollars. For example, people are going out to restaurants less these days, but they are still going. However, they are choosing the restaurants that provide the best experience and value. Some restaurants will feel the pinch more than others -- only the strong will survive. When customers are more choosy about where they spend their money, getting your share means standing out from the rest. A great customer experience is one of the most cost effective means to stand-out. Two, the economy will bounce back. Loyalty is built through great customer experience and long term sustainable growth is achieved based on recommendations by others. Continuing to provide a great experience even during the economic downturn will help ensure that you don't just survive, but thrive. And when the economic picture brightens (and it will) you will be better positioned for future growth. A focus on customer experience is critical to the success of any business. It is even more critical now than ever to ensure your long term survival.

Is Air Canada starting to understand the value of customer experience?

Bill Hogg — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:41:19 +0000

In 2008, while their competitors lost money, SouthWest Airlines posted another year of profits. In Canada, WestJet continues to grow and take a bigger piece of the Canadian flying business. Is Air Canada finally starting to take notice. It appears so, but to what extent will be the interesting question. The Globe & Mail reports that Chief Operating Officer Bill Bredt is to deliver cross-country pep talks urging staff to improve customer service against competitive threats and the recession. On its own this will surely fail. But if this is but 1 part of a larger plan to engage their workforce -- from top to bottom -- then it may stimulate some success. However, unless the attitudes and behaviours change in the top of the organization, nothing will change in the balance of the organization. Changing the direction of a large, governmental organization with a strong union requires a strong mandate of change that starts right at the top and is endorsed throughout the organization. Otherwise, the "pep-talks" are waste of time and money -- often doing more damage than good. When I worked with ServiceOntario, the gateway to all government services in Ontario, it required a fierce commitment and determination from the executive suite to stay the course and focus on the customers in all decision-making. The results are being demonstrated across the organization. They have more to improve but the changes to date have been dramatic and noticeable by customers across the province. So clearly it can be done, but does Air Canada have the courage and fortitude to stay the course or will this become one of the next businesses at the government door step looking for a rescue plan? Time will tell.

Orange Lake Resort - Holiday Inn: Part 1

Bill Hogg — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:11:48 +0000

I just returned from 1 week in Orlando Florida where I was spending time with my wife and youngest daughter on March Break vacation. What a pleasure to sit by the pool, catch up on some reading and not think about business except in broad terms. Overall we had a great time, but staying at a resort forced me to contemplate what they are doing well, or could be improved on -- particularly since they set the bar high with the following promise, "In just 25 years, we've exceeded the expectations of more than 110,000 owners worldwide by empowering our team of dedicated individuals who work hard to ensure a wonderful experience." So I thought I would use the next few posts to share what I thought went well, what could be improved and some lessons learned. Let me start by saying that the check-in was very friendly and positive. Short efficient line-up, because they had lots of people on hand to manage the crowds (3:00 pm check-in). Our check-in person was very friendly, asked some questions about where we were from, had we been to Orlando before, etc. that made us feel welcome. They completed the registration by promising that we were going to have a great time and our expectations would be exceeded. (There's that phrase again -- someone has been doing some internal training about consistent messaging). In very short order we arrived at our room (1 bedroom with pull-out queen size couch) and were pleased with the cleanliness, size, facilities, location relative to pool and parking, etc. Satisfied, but so far nothing exceeded my expectations. After all, this is supposed to a first class resort. Shouldn't we have a right to expect this? After dinner and a stop to pick up some groceries, we settled in for the night and discovered that the pull-out bed only came with 1 sheet - no second sheet and no blankets. The rooms are advertised as sleeping up to 4 people, but there was no bedding for the second bed (pull-out). A quick call to housekeeping resulted in a 90 minute wait and a second sheet with 2 thin blankets. Hmmm, things are not quite so exceptional. The next morning, my wife went in search of a morning coffee (Starbucks is advertised in the brochures) only to disciver that the restaurant in our area of the resort is only open from 11 - 4 and is really a snack bar. Resultant, to get a coffee, required getting dressed, driving to a separate section of the resort where "Starbucks" consisted of 2 canisters (regular and decaf) that you poured yourself and had the ability to add a couple "shots" in addition to cream or sugar. At this point we are not feeling very "first class". But I am encouraged because on the front page of their monthly newsletter provided to all guests at check-in, they have published the following;

Delighting Our Guests Resort Services has transformed into a "Customer Care" department. All team members are provided with extensive empowerment training, which includes taking ownership of any opportunity to delight our guests. For information, questions, or concerns you may have while staying at the resort or between vacations, call Resort Services at ext. 6100.

So it looks like someone has the right idea, but will the idea come to life? I'll talk more about that in my next post, but in the interim, see if you can spot the problem with the communication in the above message, and what seems to be the issue that is beginning to present itself.

Orange Lake Resort - Holiday Inn: Part 2

Bill Hogg — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:57:43 +0000

Last post I introduced the "Customer Care" department, and asked what was wrong with the communication. What did you think? I think the answer is they are trying to promote a solution, when they haven't really made the internal change in culture. Like putting the cart before the horse. Let me explain. If Resort Services has been "transformed" into a Customer Care department, then why is it still called Resort Services. A check through the resort quickly shows that except for a couple signs, Resort Services is still very much the department -- and more importantly very much the attitude. In fact, in my encounters with Customer Care, even the staff indicated they were Resort Services and were merely the traffic directors of any issues. There was absolutely no empowerment shown. I even asked the person at the desk of Resort Services (sign over door) about the sign on door (Customer Care) who told me that they were a) still Resort Services, and b) they only passed on complaints to other areas for addressing issues. I happened to make this trip after a particuarily unpleasant experience at one of their 2 Internet cafes, where I was unable to access my email attachments. After trying to connect for almost 60 minutes, I overheard the attendant tell another guest that they were unable to download attachments on emails even when accessing through a Internet email program. (Not being too technical, I am still unclear if this is true because the attendant at the second cafe, disagreed with this statement.) After confirming I had overheard correctly, I suggested that if full access was not available, it might be a good idea to post a sign indicating what services were or were not available. Their response? I should have asked if I wanted to download email attachments and she could have told me. I suggested that good customer service would put the onus on the resort versus the customer to figure this out and they argued that they had no idea what I wanted to do online. When I expressed my surprise at this, she suggested that I take up my complaint with someone else (they offered their name but no suggestion on who I should talk except a generic "management"). So far the attitude of customer care has not made it through the organization -- seemingly past the reception desk. Hence my trip to Customer Care -- feeling that if they were genuine in their desire to improve customer care, they would be interested in hearing customer feedback -- right? Well as I mentioned above, the person at the desk really had no idea -- they were only empowered to pass my feedback on to "another department". Resultant, I asked for the email of the President so I could send them an email and express my concern directly, which got me an introduction to the Manager. More on that next post.

Orange Lake Resort - Holiday Inn: Part 3

Bill Hogg — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:46:02 +0000

In my last post I had been transferred to the Manager because I had been told by the person at the desk that all they could do was pass my complaint on to the department that I had the issue with. You will recall the transfer to the Manager was prompted by my request for the email of the President so I could send them a personal note. The manager was really quite nice. She empathized with my situation all the while assuring me that my concerns were important to them. However, she did not contradict the assertion by the front desk that the process was simply to send comments to "another department" and pray. In fact, she assured me that when I returned home, I would receive a survey that solicited my honest feedback and would be read by senior management as part of their ongoing desire to understand their customer expectations. Resultant, there was no need for me to have the email of the President. (Ohh, the red flags are waving now.) So I left without the email address. The next day, we returned to our room to find a very nice basket of nuts and water with a note from the Manager (but still no email address). Overall, I thought the Manager handled the issue very well, but clearly they were not empowered to actually do anything. What seemed crystal clear to me was that someone had tried to implement a customer-focus in this organization, but fundamentally the senior team didn't buy in. Resultant, the promise was not delivered. In fact, it would have been better not to make such lofty promises and raise expectations to a level that ensured disappointment. So sometimes, customer focus language can do more harm than good. Be sure that your organization can and will support this initiative across the full organization before communicating these higher expectations to your customers. Oh, in case you are wondering -- I received an email survey for my feedback the day after we arrived home. I will let you know if I get a response.

Canadian Tire vs. Mark's Work Wearhouse

Bill Hogg — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:47:18 +0000

I had recent occasion to visit these 2 stores with a return of damaged merchandise without a receipt. I thought the different experiences were worthy of note since both are owned by the same company. At Mark's I returned a shirt that had frayed at one of the seams -- possibly because the fabric was not pleated properly when it was stitched. The shirt was relatively new (Christmas gift) which the sales person could see from the wear of the balance of the shirt. Their response was swift and efficient. The person at cash apologized for the inconvenience and refunded the full price to my credit card of choice -- no Manager approval required. After they made the refund they encouraged me to look for another shirt, which I gladly did. At Canadian Tire I returned 2 premium brand name floor mats from my car. The winter salt had eaten through the driver side mat in a number of areas and salt had leaked through into the carpeting I had purchased the mats to protect. Their response was to tell me that without a receipt there was nothing they could do, although they freely acknowledged that the mats were a Canadian Tire product and that it was not the first time they had received returns of this nature. I asked to speak to the Manager, who also refused to return my money or offer a store credit. He offered to exchange the mats for the same or similar -- however, this offer was accompanied by a very clear statement that this was being done as an exception, because it clearly violated "company policy" (did anyone else hear the trumpet blare when that was said?). Resultant, I was forced to take 2 mats that didn't fit my car or just accept that I had wasted almost $100 for 2 floor mats. The really interesting point here was that when I took the 2 cars mats, they refunded my original purchase to my credit card and then as a separate transaction rang up a new bill for the 2 new mats -- which happened to be less than the original purchase. Plus, I could now return to the store on a different date with a receipt and get a full refund for 2 new, unused mats. Go figure! 2 Stores, same organization, but 2 completely different approaches. The interesting thing is that Mark's has somewhat of a unique niche, while Canadian Tire is in a very competitive space. Which one do you think built loyalty?

Make the Ordinary, Extraordinary

Bill Hogg — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:59:33 +0000

We all recognize the importance of creating memorable Moments of Truth because these are the stories we create -- that our customers re-tell. Southwest is well know for creating these stories, so no one will be surprised to hear this video was filmed on a Southwest flight. I thought this was a good example of how easy it is to make the ordinary, extraordinary. This crew has taken a required activity and made it special and unique. It sets the tone for the rest of the experience and regardless of what happens next, a memorable impression has been created. What can we each do with our regular activities to make them memorable? Work with your team to identify the top 10 most repeated customer interactions. Then brainstorm ways to answer the following question.

What can we do tomorrow, for little or no cost, to make each interaction memorable.

I'd love to hear what you discover.

Growing in a Down Market

Bill Hogg — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:04:37 +0000

Okay, we all know about the recession. I have decided not to focus on the problems but the opportunities (old P&G training kicking in!). So what are the opportunities that we can leverage?

For starters, focus on motivating and inspiring your teams. Here are a few things that you can do tomorrow, for little or no money, which will have a positive impact on your business results.

Set a positive tone: It’s easy to blame the economy. Customers are buying less, expecting more. But using the economy as the catch-all excuse for poor performance sends a dangerous message. It implies that the situation is completely out of the company's hands. This raises anxiety levels and enables complacency. While the competition is bemoaning the economy remember, high achievers never complain, they just get on with it. They look for ways to get a bigger piece of the pie by adding value.

Communicate: An e-mail from the CEO doesn't accomplish much. Give people frequent opportunities to openly discuss and ask questions about the business situation the company is facing. Speak to employees in small groups and be as candid as possible. Give them what they deserve: honest explanations and plans to move forward. Schedule brown-bag lunches or other informal venues to talk to employees about their findings and where they might be hitting roadblocks. This is also a good time to address any rumours.

Leverage the expertise of your team: Motivate and engage your team by including them in the problem-solving process. Form groups of employees to identify what’s slowing down business. Often the best place to start is to look for processes and bureaucracies that annoy the team. No one knows the issues better than those who are dealing with them daily. It’s a great time for people to realize that they can play an important role in discovering opportunities for the company. (TIP: Cross-pollinate with people who have different areas of expertise. Often fresh eyes offer an innovative new solution.)

Feed your top performers: It’s easy to believe that employees are grateful to have jobs at all. But layoffs and budget cuts cause good people to look for better opportunities. Give them a reason to stay by advancing their careers. If promotions or raises aren’t possible, give top performers the opportunity to grow, even if it's a lateral move that challenges them in a new way or to take on a special assignment. (TIP: Also, keep an eye out for great talent that other companies have shed for cost cutting measures. This is a great time to recruit future stars.)

Focus on the future: Don't sugar-coat it! Surviving through the downturn might not be easy, but by emphasizing the opportunities and developing a plan together you will emerge even stronger than before.

Turning Adversity Into Opportunity

Bill Hogg — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:05:38 +0000

Despite the doom and gloom of today's economic downturn, smart leaders look to history for learning. History tells us that now is not the time to cut important foundational programs, but to leverage current conditions for competitive advantage so they emerge from this economic downturn better positioned for success. One area that seems to be under pressure is workforce size and employee engagement. Many firms will cut back in this area; some will see this as an opportunity to strengthen their teams through strategic hiring, downsizing and internal communications. In these times of uncertainty, it is especially important to go above and beyond to strengthen employee engagement. Leaders may set the direction, but employees make things happen, including building and maintaining competitive advantage. Happy, engaged employees aligned with your corporate values, goals and strategy produce amazing results. A culture of pride of ownership permeates the entire organization and results in better products, better customer service and better business results. The first step (and arguably the most important) is communicate, communicate, communicate. Don't sit in your office and send out e-mails; walk around and reach out to folks personally, and coach your managers to follow your lead. Really talk to employees about what is going on - and listen to what they say; it's amazing what you can learn from them. If you don't already regularly survey your employees, it's a good idea to have a confidential employee survey program to get the feedback you can't get in person. These can be set up easily using free online survey tools. However, to be effective, you must act on the results and communicate early and often that you plan to do so. And remember that this is not a once-and-done process. Your customers and distributors also need reassurance in these difficult times. Making an effort to connect with them now will pay dividends over the long term. Brand loyalty leads to competitive advantage, and customer loyalty boils down to excellent customer service, which enables trust and confidence. Now is the time to reach out and communicate. Leverage technology tools to enhance regular ongoing communication. Electronic newsletters, wikis and blogs are powerful ways to regularly update your employees, customers and distributors and get their feedback. Streaming video and podcast updates about how you are weathering the storm also are excellent tools. Look for quick wins that will serve customers and stimulate sales in the current economy. Are there new products with lower pricing you could offer? Would a review of their current services to ensure they are maximizing any discounts or product combinations make sense? These initiatives demonstrate you appreciate their situation and the lower margin pain you feel now will be rewarded when customers come back for your products and services when things turn around. Plus they are a great opportunity to talk to your customers and potentially identify issues before they consider moving their business elsewhere. Also, make sure you employees are ready to respond with a higher level of empathy and support for the customer. Now is not the time to offer bad customer service, as emotions are running high and customers will vote with their feet. Times may be difficult, but regular, meaningful ongoing communication will ensure everyone is focused on the goals of the organization and working in the same direction.

Providing Positive Feedback

Bill Hogg — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:06:14 +0000

I must admit, I am uncomfortable when someone compliments me about my work. Of course I want people to be happy about my behaviour (performance) and I want positive feedback versus the alternative, but for me, I am uncomfortable responding to praise, or compliments. I'd like to hear something specific about my work rather than some generic comment about me. For example I prefer: “That was a great idea you proposed for ......” versus “Your idea was brilliant. You’re very creative.” (Okay, I like that too, but I prefer the former). You’re probably thinking I am over analyzing and I should take all the positives I can get and shut up. Probably good advice, but I can’t change my emotional response to flattery, praise, or compliments -- they make me a bit uncomfortable. I prefer a positive comment about the specific behaviour and its effect. Nobody has to add anything personal or gushy to make me feel good. The behaviour speaks for itself. For instance: “That comparison you used in the first paragraph really helps the reader understand your point.” Instead of: “You’re a great writer—so eloquent.” Describing the behaviour and the effect is a particularly good approach if you are just starting to provide positive recognition for behaviours. It also works with someone you may not have a good relationship with. Anything you say to that individual is going to be hesitantly received -- they are sensitized to every phrase, gesture, tone, and inflection. If you have a real good relationship with someone, then you have larger margin for error. Some other examples of positive feedback include:

When you apologized for the inconvenience to the customer who had to wait in line and thanked them for their patience, which really demonstrated our principle of empathy.
That recommendation you made really demonstrated your knowledge about that aspect of the business. It will really save us time.
Your PowerPoint created a buzz after the meeting. The senior team said your presentation made it easy for them to understand the issue and take action.
I noticed that your email was sent late last night. I appreciate your commitment and know I can count on the project to be delivered on schedule.

Stay away from describing the person and focus on describing the valued-added behaviour and its effect After you have laid the groundwork based on what they did and what effect it had, then you can add personal appreciation. You can then start you comments with "I appreciated you taking the time to...." You have now added a personal touch based on creating a positive relationship of recognition. Employees want to be acknowledged, to know that the company is aware of their contribution or even more important -- their efforts to overcome the limitations of their equipment, unforeseen problems, outdated systems and processes are noticed and appreciated. People don't leave companies -- they leave Managers. Two of the biggest reasons are; Managers who doesn’t know how to recognize people effectively, and having to work around poor performing co-workers, bad systems and other problems and not being appreciated and acknowledged. When your feedback describes what they did and what they had to overcome, you defuse any pent up frustration and create a positive, supportive, high performance culture where everyone is working to improve, and where adding value gets noticed. Try this technique and I guarantee employee engagement will go up and surveys will have positive responses about management and supervision. In addition, turn-over and absenteeism will go down and performance and productivity will go up.

Give Your Employees The Finger!

Bill Hogg — Mon, 25 May 2009 12:10:31 +0000

Another successful technique for providing recognition doesn't require talking—that’s right, you can provide positive feedback to anyone without saying a word. The only requirement is you have to see them demonstrating the desired behaviour. If you have followed some of my previous advice and make recognition an ongoing part of your team culture, this technique will fit in extremely well. You begin by deciding as a team on a symbol to use as a positive cue -- a sign you can make to anyone that says, “Well Done!” We are all familiar with "thumbs up" or "OK" circle; universal signals for positive communication. I once heard about a team that decided that when they saw positive behaviours demonstrated they would give each other the finger -- a raised index finger for "We're #1". A hand signal does not take the place of verbal or written feedback, but it is a useful addition to one’s toolkit for identifying and acknowledging value added activities. An obvious benefit is that you can do this across a room and no one else even knows what you are doing -- something unique to your team or organization. Your own secret sauce! I know that these tactics seems too simple -- but it is inexpensive, personal, relevant, factual, repeatable -- and it works. Employees want to be acknowledged, to know that the company is aware of their contribution or even more important -- their efforts to overcome the limitations of their equipment, unforeseen problems, outdated systems and processes are noticed and appreciated. People don't leave companies -- they leave Managers. Two of the biggest reasons are; Managers who doesn’t know how to recognize people effectively, and having to work around poor performing co-workers, bad systems and other problems and not being appreciated and acknowledged. When your feedback describes what they did and what they had to overcome, you defeat the negative and create a positive, supportive, high performance culture where everyone is working to improve, and where adding value gets noticed. Try this technique and I guarantee employee engagement will go up and surveys will have positive responses about management and supervision. In addition, turn-over and absenteeism will go down and performance and productivity will go up.

Home Depot Makes a Big Impression

Bill Hogg — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:04:32 +0000

Saturday morning I went looking for a new Wet/Dry Vac. I had been looking at the flyer's to see what was on sale and was now going to look at the 3 stores that had product advertised at around the same price. First stop, I saw the unit on sale and it had the key feature I needed -- a convertible leaf blower. But I wasn't sure how it compared in power and size to the other 2 units advertised. So on to the second store. At the second store -- Home Depot -- the product on sale was a good value, comparable size and power but didn't have the key blower feature that I wanted. I mentioned this to the young man who had helped me find the unit and he showed me another unit -- bigger, more powerful, $30.00 more expensive at regular price -- that had the leaf blower conversion. "Great" I said, "if it was on sale for the same price I would have purchased it." "I would be happy to give you the sale price" he said. I thought I was hearing things! But he repeated his offer. I asked him how he could just make this offer. He said (proudly and pointing to a badge pinned to his apron), "I am empowered to make our customers happy". He then carried my new Wet/Dry Vac to the cash register where he told the cashier the new discounted price for the unit and that it should be coded as a customer satisfaction discount. The cashier rang it in without a question. WOW! Happy? You bet! More loyal than when I arrived? You bet! Telling my friends? You bet! Home Depot had clearly communicated that building loyal customers is everyone's job to this young man. He was enthused and empowered to make the sale and a clear process was in place to make it happen easily. Home Depot had stopped me in my tracks. They had reset a new expectation of improved customer satisfaction and had moved to the top of my list for hardware purchases. No clearly he had played the price card. But I never went to the 3rd store and Home Depot will be my first stop next time I am looking for hardware purcahses. What are you doing to empower your employees to build customer loyalty? Do you have guidelines in place that allow them to make decisions on the spot that will build loyalty? If not -- you should. What kind of guidelines could you put in place to empower your employees to make on-the-spot decisions to build customer loyalty?

Air Canada Demonstrates A Flawed Business Model

Bill Hogg — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:22:49 +0000

Air Canada is suffering, while West Jet is growing. A recent flight demonstrates why. I recently returned from Halifax -- travelling with a client. Our flight was scheduled to leave around 9:30 pm, however, there was an earlier flight which had seats available. We had first class tickets using upgrades earned for previous travel. Upon arriving at the airport the agent was very helpful in moving us to the earlier flight -- however, only 1 first class seat was available. The second person was put on stand-by. However, at the gate, the second person was moved from coach to first class, but his ticket was marked "no meal service". Upon being seated, we quickly observed there were at least 2 Air Canada employees (noted by their Air Canada Flight Crew uniforms) seated in first class. Upon departure there was still a vacant seat for the return flight. Obviously, dead-heading crew had priority over paying customers who had "earned" upgrades due to travel. When the meals were served, 2 members of the flight crew stood beside the passenger who had "no meal service" and discussed aloud whether they should serve him a meal since his ticket stated otherwise. Eventually, after everyone else had been served, they offered the meal because someone else had declined theirs. We were in different rows, 1 row behind -- one window, one aisle. This allowed us to chat over the back of the seat and pass documents. The person sitting in the aisle in the rear row was an Air Canada employee. He did not offer to switch his aisle seat for the aisle seat in front to allow us to sit beside each other. Lastly, when the flight arrived, the passenger in the front row asked the Air Canada employee if he could pass him the bag from the overhead compartment which had slid back during take-off -- the employee, after showing the inconvenience at being asked, finally shoved the bag forward so the person could reach across the back of the seat at get it themselves. After a flight like that, if given the choice, we would never fly Air Canada again unless the flight times were significantly more convenient. However, the client has a large number of employees who fly regularly, so they have a corporate deal with Air Canada. None of these employees fly Air Canada by choice. It's a doomed business model when the only way to build loyalty is to under-price the competition. Not one of the employees we experienced in first class that day understood the impact they had on the brand. The employee who checked in our baggage and tickets did. The difference was clear. Companies do not own brands -- employees do. Are your employees aware of how critical each interaction they have with your customer are? Clearly everyone at Air Canada doesn't understand this basic fact. It's no wonder they are suffering against West Jet.

Do You Fix or Simply Cover Your Issues & Opportunities

Bill Hogg — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:56:38 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Halifax and stay at the Downtown Courtyard by Marriott. Overall I thought the experience was satisfactory -- although I admit, it is hard to WOW me with hotel service most days given the basic needs of the business traveler are fairly simple. However, one thing did stick in my mind. I turned in early the night we arrived because I knew I had a long day on stage the next day and wanted to make sure I was well rested. However, when I went to bed I realized that there was a heating/cooling vent directly overhead of the bed. This vent seemed to be a direct vent to another room. I could hear "every" word of a very normal volume conversation by a couple from that room planning their activities for the next day as if they we sitting next to me in my own room. They were not yelling or even talking loudly. I called the front desk to ask if there was a means to close off this vent since I was finding it difficult to fall asleep while listening to them. They told me they had never heard of such an issue before and that they would respond to the "noise" complaint by asking the offending room to be quiet. I again explained that they were not making "noise" but it was the issue of the direct vent. I was actually embarrassed that they would perceive my comments as a complaint against the other guests or that the other guest would be told to tone it down when they had done nothing wrong. The next day I received a handwritten note from the Director of Sales apologizing for the inconvenience and giving me 2 bags of nuts and a room temperature bottle of Keith's Beer. I am sure they felt they had "exceeded expectations" -- and in many ways they had. They had empathized with my issue, sought to correct the issue and then sent a follow-up note with a small gift. All great things to deal with the situation. However, a little deeper digging reveals some important issues.

They never actually acknowledged the real problem. The vent was a structural issue that will continue to create problems, but they brushed it off as a noise complaint. If they do nothing about the vent, the issue will arise again and again.
I felt they hadn't really listened to my feedback or planned to do anything about it. I felt like they were just covering the issue until I left.
I felt uncomfortable because I had been the cause of inconvenience to fellow guests -- who had done nothing wrong. I just wanted to go to bed early because of my needs.

When someone gives us feedback, we need to make sure we are listening and hearing what they are actually saying -- not just fitting their comments into preconceived slots we have created for convenience. Only when we really listen will we find out the root issues that will allow us to create solutions so problems don't re-appear.

The Cost of Accountability

Bill Hogg — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:47:28 +0000

Recently we had the misfortune of getting 2 flat tires at the same time -- both on the driver's side of the vehicle. Obviously we had driven over something that had punctured the tires. I removed both tires and went looking for a repair facility. However, to compound the problem, it was a Sunday afternoon when many tire repair facilities were closed and I ended up at a garage that was slightly out of my local area and one that I had never used before. They repaired both tires (one actually had 2 punctures) and I returned home to re-install the tires. Monday morning, my wife jumped in the car and drove my daughter to school -- approx a 10 kilometre trip. In her rush to get my daughter to school, she didn't check the tires (and why would she -- they had just been repaired) and didn't realize that one of the tires had gone flat overnight. Because they were low profile tires, this is even less obvious. Resultant, the tire was ruined because it had been driven without correct air pressure. Very unhappy, I returned to the repair facility and explained the issue. Everyone was very polite and professional (including me). They examined the tire and confirmed that the tire was damaged and that I needed a new tire. They also indicated that it needed to be the same tire since the car was all-wheel drive and all 4 tires should match. Fortunately, the tires were all fairly new so only one tire needed to be replaced versus all 4. They special ordered a new tire (it was an expensive original equipment brand) and indicated it would be in on Tuesday at which point they would install it. When I asked the costs (expecting the worst, but hoping for the best) they indicated that it would be "no charge", because in their words -- the problem was as a result of a workmanship issue at their end. The patch had not sealed properly which led to the deflated tire. No mention was made of the fact that we had driven on a flat tire. This repair facility understood the concept of accountability -- even when there was a cost associated with their actions. They accepted full responsibility for the issue. Rather than suggesting that we should not have driven on a deflated tire and trying to pass part of the responsibility on to the client, they acknowledged that if the repair had been done correctly, there would never have been an issue of driving on a deflated tire. Resultant, I will actively look for opportunities to use their services and recommend them to my friends -- and I will drive the extra distance to use their services. They have not only built loyalty, but I now feel a commitment to this company because I know they acted with great integrity and I would like a company that treats people so well to be successful. I have now become an ambassador for their services in my community and their cost for this was much less than a single page ad in the local papers, but worth significantly more in the power of Word of Mouth advertising. In addition to considering the Lifetime Value of your customers, don't forget the cost of lost opportunity. Compare this experience with the one I had a Canadian Tire recently which I will post next week. For those living in the GTA area, the company was Meineke Car Care Center in Oak Ridges/Richmond Hill Ontario.

Canadian Tire Breaks their Contract

Bill Hogg — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:19:45 +0000

Last week I shared an exceptional experience with a tire repair shop and promised I would share an experience with Canadian Tire this week. This spring I needed my winter tires switched to summer tires so I went to my local Canadian Tire early one Saturday morning. When I arrived I was told it would be 30 minutes to get the car in and then 30 minutes to execute the exchange. At around 50 minutes I asked if I could pay in advance, so I could get out quicker when the job was done. I was told the car hadn't yet been brought, but was just coming in. Not great news, but I had already invested 60 minutes so I decided to stay. When I asked to pay the bill I was told that they couldn't create the invoice until the car had actually been pulled in so they got get the mileage from the odometer. They told me to come back in five minutes and I could pay and pick up the receipt -- which I did. About 30 minutes later the car was complete -- I could see through the window into the garage the car was being lowered on the hoist. I walked in to speak to the young fellow who had done the work to confirm that they'd used the proper lugs for the new wheels -- something I had specifically spoken to the original person at the desk about. The mechanic indicated that he had not changed the lugs indicating that it is printed on the work order if anything like this needed to be done. A quick look at the work order confirmed that it had not been printed, but had been hand written. He apologized and began to raise the car back up so that he could put the correct lugs on the wheels. After another 30 minutes, I finally left after a two-hour visit to Canadian Tire. Overall, not a great experience. However, the next morning the tire pressure on my tires looked low. In fact a quick check of the tire pressure indicated all four were low -- and different. I looked at my receipt and noticed there was an attachment that indicated the tire pressure was checked and was correct, plus there was a full list of other items that were checked. You will recall that this was supplied with my receipt, which was actually done just after the car was pulled into the bay. Based on this timing, in my mind, it was impossible for these things to have been checked. So here's the problem. Canadian Tire has provided me -- in writing -- a list of services that they have completed. I suspect they do this as an "added-value" service. However, what happens when they don't actually complete these services and just fill out a form? For example, if I had an accident the next week and it was determined that the tire pressure played a role, would Canadian Tire be partially libel because I had relied on their written commitment that my tires were properly inflated. If my engine had overheated due to lack of coolant, would Canadian Tire have been partially libel because they had indicated that my coolant was fine. When they gave me a written document that stated that all these items had been checked and were fine, they effectively created a contract that they had completed the work which I should be able to rely on as true. The concept of providing "added value" is a good one, but where Canadian Tire goes horribly wrong is not communicating to their team what is actually happening here. When there is no time, or a customer is rushed, employees do not know what to do -- so in this case they just checked all the boxes, with no thought or understanding about the consequences. They are just completing a task. My Perspective: Too often companies have rules that indicate how each customer should be treated, but they have not communicated why the process is important or what to do when the process can't be followed. They are simply completing a task, without understanding its purpose. Make sure that your team knows why they are offering certain benefits and what to do when they can't be executed as designed. It's better to have a short list of expectations/guidelines than a long list of rules.

Show you Care

Bill Hogg — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:28:39 +0000

Toronto is currently in the middle of a labour strike that affects garbage collection. Resultant, residents of Toronto are required to drop their garbage off at dump sites that are being picketed by striking workers and managed by non-union employees -- this often results in long lines, 15 minute forced wait time by picketers and from time to time confrontations with frustrated residents and strikers. One of my clients has arranged for all employees affected by the strike to bring their garbage to work -- where they have made arrangements to have the garbage collected and shipped by a private collection company. Restrictions were few; double bag everything, trash only (no furniture, yard waste, etc) and don't drop-off garbage in the parking lot when the truck wasn't there. Instructions were simply to drive up to the truck between 7:30 am and 9:30 am on garbage day and staff will deposit your garbage into the truck. My Perspective: The action is totally unrelated to the individual's job or corporate objectives, but demonstrates corporate values and culture. It's simply a caring way to treat your people and make one of the difficulties in their lives a little easier. Would you love to work for a company that thought of their people this way? What activities do you implement that demonstrate your values in a real tangible manner?

Everything Counts -- Be Careful of Your Associations

Bill Hogg — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:34:36 +0000

Recently we had a very poor experience with our local dry cleaners -- poor enough that we have stopped using them after years of patronage. My wife took my daughter to have a dress altered for her Grade 8 graduation formal. A little tuck on each side. When my wife picked up the dress she was told this small alteration was $50.00 -- much higher than she was led to believe when she dropped it off. The owner indicated that he would adjust the price accordingly. However, the entire time my wife was in the shop, no explanation for the increase was offered -- in fact, the seamstress didn't even acknowledge her. When my daughter tried on the dress we discovered it was significantly too small. The zipper would no longer close by approx 4 inches. At this point, my wife was very upset and my daughter almost in tears because she thought the dress which we had purchased in Florida during March Break for her special evening was ruined. After my wife's poor experience, I decided to take my daughter and the dress back to the Dry Cleaners to address the situation. When we arrived the seamstress had left for the day, but we were able to speak to the owner who apologized and assured my daughter that she would have her dress for the evening -- even if it meant they had to purchase another one. He readily agreed that the alterations were incorrect and he requested that I bring my daughter back with the dress when the seamstress was there and he would personally see that the appropriate alterations would be made. When we returned, we had the dress marked and altered by the seamstress and my daughter was able to wear the dress to her formal -- however, the seams down the side were now off-centre because the material that was cut from the initial alterations needed to be "found" by pulling some of the pleating from the front of the dress. In the end my daughter's dress was saved, but my wife and I were not interested in returning because of the poor treatment by the seamstress and we have never been back to the Dry Cleaners. Some key elements were;

the owner immediately apologised and assured us that the situation would be resolved
the seamstress did not offer a sincere apology
there was no offer to compensate us for our inconvenience (5 visits vs. 2)
the Owner admitted that the seamstress was not an employee (I assume she rented space) and therefore there wasn't much he could do about her attitude
every employee or contractor counts towards your impression

My Perspective: Because "everything counts" you must be careful about your associations. In this case the Dry Cleaner had allowed someone who didn't share their values to impact on their customers. Resultant, her poor attitude ended a relationship the owners had worked hard to nurture. When we had such a bad experience -- even when it wasn't their core business -- we never returned.

Understanding Priorities

Bill Hogg — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:50:22 +0000

Yesterday I experienced one of the most common missteps of good customer service -- ignoring customers to attend to "organizational" priorities. I was waiting in line to pay for my purchases, but as my turn arrived, the Manager showed up to make sure the cashier has enough change. Of course this is a good thing because it ensures that the cashier does not hold up customers because they don't have correct change. The issue was that I was ignored while they attended to the task. When I stepped up to the counter, rather than the cashier acknowledging me before turning her attention to the task, she immediately turned to the Manager to discuss her needs. They quickly shuffled through the dollars and cents to decide what she needed. It was only 30-45 seconds, and then the cashier rang up my purchases and sent me on my way with a cheery "Have a nice day!" However, it let me know the priorities in this organization. My Perspective: To be clear, I don't hold the young girl responsible for this misstep -- but the manager/management. Management needs to ensure that tasks of good customer service don't interfere with delivering good customer service. When tasks need to be performed in full view of the customer, a simple acknowledgement of the customer would let them know they were seen and appreciated. Then you can address the organizational task. This could be getting change or restocking a shelf, but the customer needs to be the first priority. The simple steps of viewing these types of tasks through the eyes of the customer will give you a quick clue on how to handle them.

Employees Own The Brand

Bill Hogg — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:34:55 +0000

Seth Godin wrote a great post "All I Do is work here" last Thursday and fundamentally I agree with him -- I'm sure he will sleep better knowing that ;). However, I would have approached it a bit differently, but that's because I view things through a slightly different filter. Seth recounts his poor customer experience with various people within the organization. He rightly links the brand and the people who make up that brand as being the same in the customer's mind. His closing comment was "If you're not proud of where you work, go work somewhere else. You don't get the benefit of the brand when it's hot without accepting the blame of the brand when it's wrong." However, this implies there is a distinction between the brand and the people who deliver it. This underestimates the linkage between the brand and employee behaviour. My view is that the brand experience changed because the people inside changed first -- not independent of their behaviour. People stopped caring. Senior management stopped holding themselves and everyone in the organization accountable for living the brand vision that made the brand great in the first place. The customer is just now seeing the result of this internal condition. The people Seth is talking to in his example are the symptom -- not the cause. This problem started right at the top, and it probably wasn't a couple months ago. Systemic changes in attitude like this are a result of longer term indifference. These people act this way because they are allowed to. My perspective: Employees own the brand. If the brand is faltering, then senior management needs to refocus the vision and hold everyone accountable for delivery. "All I do is work here" and "It's not my job" are simply unacceptable. If you're not proud of where you work -- change it by becoming an internal leader. Then if you can't -- go work somewhere else that shares your attitudes and beliefs.

Outsourced Customer Service

Bill Hogg — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:17:12 +0000

I recently had a question from a colleague asking if I had an article on outsourcing the call centre or the back office.

My response was that I did not have a specific article on outsourcing any services because I tend not to think about the operational aspects of where the people are “sitting”, but more about the type of culture that is built around that service delivery channel.

You may recall my recent post Everything Counts about a contract seamstress in our local dry cleaners. In spite of the fact they were physically sitting in the location -- their attitude was not consist with the values of the owners, so the customer didn’t receive a consistent service experience.

I felt the critical issue was to partner with a company that shares your values and their hiring/recognition programs are align with your own. Franchise systems try to achieve this -- some more successfully than others.

However, upon further reflection I am also reminded of the importance of recognizing that "perception is reality" when dealing with customers.

If your customer has a bad perception of the service level they will receive based on prior negative experience with other outsourced call centres etc, -- and we have all heard or experienced these -- then how hard will it be to overcome this perception regardless of the service level you provide.

Will you ever be successful in overcoming this built in perception and how much time, money and potentially dissatisfied customers will you expend fixing the perception?

My Perspective: Outsourcing that is not seamless (language being the critical component) could have such a deep-seated negative perception it will be impossible to overcome the incoming prejudice. If you are going to outsource, the transition must be seamless to the customer otherwise you will inherit every bad experience they have had -- or heard about.

Are You Reading Too Much?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:55:11 +0000

About 1 year ago I made a personal commitment to read 2 new business books each month. I set this goal because I wanted to ensure I was keeping up with the latest learning and because I am a believer in life-long education. This was in addition to the RSS Feeds and Newsletters I subscribed to. So 1 year later, here are a few observations.

A lot of books are sounding the same. For example, how many books can you read about Net Promoter before you start to feel you have read this before. In my thirst for knowledge I was just reading the same stuff restated by a different author.
I have stopped focusing on new books. I am now “re-reading” some previously read books because I didn’t absorb everything in the first read. I am now going back and re-reading books (i.e. Good to Great, Unleashing Excellence, Branded Customer Service, etc) that I found were meatier and offered more information that I could absorb in the first read. I pay particular attention to those that are action plan oriented.
I have cut back my newsletters and blogs because I found a lot seemed more interested in building their own distribution numbers and selling their own products than actually sharing usable information. I want to see actionable ideas.
I am using the new found time to think about the information that can provide more value to my clients. Great ideas don’t become valuable until they are implemented.

My Perspective: Life long learning is essential, but like everything, we must be careful what were are measuring -- because that’s what gets done. I was focused on numbers of books, but not on the depth of knowledge I was getting or using. I have now refocused on getting usable information I can implement. I think this is a much more powerful measure.

Accountability: How Much is Enough

Bill Hogg — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:29:17 +0000

Last week my wife and I stopped into our local Boston Pizza after dropping our daughter off to see a movie with friends. It was during one of the worst thunder storms of the summer.

After surviving torrential rain to get from the car to the restaurant and getting fairly wet in the process, we were told that because of the storm, there was no gas at the restaurant and therefore they were unable to cook pizzas. This left us with choices of salad and/or pasta for dinner. We decided to leave and brave the weather again to find another restaurant.

At this point, the Manager provided us with a coupon for 1 FREE Appetiser when we visited in the future.

He recognized that we had come to purchase their offering (in this case pizza) and they had failed to deliver against our expectations. This offer of a coupon reflected his accountability for not meeting expectations.

My Perspective: On a positive note, the Manager was familiar with the concept of accountability, but hadn’t really thought it through.

Two customers arrived for dinner -- average dinner bill with tip $50.00 - $75.00. Unable to meet our expectations he provided a single couple for approx $7.00 - $10.00.

However, did he miss an opportunity to create a truly memorable “Woo Hoo” Moment of Truth?

Consider if he had invited us in and indicated that because of the issue with pizza oven, he would like to offer us a FREE signature appetizer this evening (he could chose the one to offer), plus offer a 2 for 1 offer on all pasta dishes (something they are not yet well known for, but advertising suggests they are trying to build this business).

He could potentially have maintained some of the business, gotten us to try new dishes on the menu which we may have enjoyed and caused us to see them for more than a pizza place.

Further, by add a little festive atmosphere by the staff because of the storm and the hardships we would all be experiencing together, he could have created a unique experience for us to tell our friends about.

Incidentally, the restaurant was virtually empty on a Thursday night. We were not the only customers who decided to eat dinner elsewhere.

Potentially he could have turned a disappointed customer experience into an exceptional one, if he just applied a little imagination.

How do you manage your accountability and recovery? Are you doing enough? Are you looking through your customers eyes when you decide what to do? Maybe just a bit more thought could turn a bad situation into a great situation.

Boston Pizza Drops the Ball -- Again

Bill Hogg — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:55:27 +0000

We had a second experience with our local Boston Pizza that clearly highlights some of the issues we all face with leadership and customer experience.

Two weekends ago we had guests from out of town with 2 young boys so we decided to order pizza for dinner Sunday night. Overall we have been pleased by the quality of the food, but as yet had not tried their take-out experience. Boy did we make a mistake!

The first call was put on hold for 10 minutes (yes our phone has a timer). Rather than just call another Pizza location, I decided to call back and asked to speak to the Manager. He apologized, took my order immediately, extended us a 25% discount and told me it would be 30 - 45 minutes. So far, they understood the concept of accountability and executed a fair recovery.

A few minutes later, the restaurant called back to get my credit card.

Then we waited -- and waited. For 80 minutes.

The initial order was created at 7:13 pm; however, the credit card was not swiped until 7:49. When the order finally arrived at 8:35 -- not only were the kids starving and cranky, but the pizza was soggy and cold, and the salad was warm. The driver indicated she had gotten poor directions to her first delivery which was why our order was so late -- and cold.

I asked the Manager to call me -- providing my name and telephone -- which I wrote on the receipt I returned to the driver. No return call.

So, ever the optimist, the next day I sent an email through their corporate website (I know, I'm a masochist, but I was interested in what would happen). Was this the corporate culture or just my local store?

After filling in the form and hitting send it told me I would receive a response within 48-72 hours. As of Friday morning -- no response.

Not to be deterred, Friday morning I called the Eastern Canada Regional Office. A very nice -- and helpful -- lady tried her best to answer my question on whether the email from the website went to head office or directly to the location (location was a required field). She asked me to hold and tried to track down the answer. She spoke to someone in marketing who thought the messages went to both.

However, she did take down my number and indicated that either the VP Operations or Director of Operations would return my call. She indicated the Director was on vacation until Monday, so I might not hear back until then.

My Perspective: There are 4 interesting observations.

Setting Expectations: The location set an expectation (45 minutes) and failed to meet it. The head office set an expectation (even though it wasn't immediate) and I was fine with waiting (however they also didn't meet this expectation). Set expectations that you can meet -- don't over promise.

Recovery: The location initially executed a recovery -- but there was no plan in place to ensure the commitments were met. It would seem the Manager simply took my order and made no effort to ensure that a full recovery was executed. We all know that when you execute a recovery you actually have a greater opportunity to increase loyalty. Why did he miss this opportunity?

Follow-up: Boston Pizza had the opportunity to move an unhappy customer to a delighted (loyal) customer. However, they had no process in place to ensure the recovery was executed well. A simple follow up call to a dissatisfied customer to ensure that their issues had been addressed should be standard practice for any organization. If expectations were not met -- you still have another opportunity to recover. Plus, if they had been met -- or exceeded -- a simple follow up call would cement the positive experience.

Leadership: By not following up to ensure his commitments were met, the leader on duty that night hadn't held either himself or his team accountable for an outcome. When the leaders don't hold themselves accountable -- why would anyone on the team?

FOOT NOTE: I received a call from the location General Manager late Friday. He was responding to my website email which apparently goes to head office first and then is forwarded to the appropriate location.

He apologized and seemed genuinely concerned about the poor experience. Importantly, he made no excuses, but fully accepted responsibility for the issues at his location and was interested in making improvements. He offered to refund my entire bill (which I declined) and asked that if I was willing to give him another opportunity to rebuild trust in his location.

Overall he demonstrated many aspects of a strong recovery -- professionalism, listening, empathy, accountability, verified what would make things right, action oriented. Based on this call we will probably give them another try, proving once again how valuable a proper recovery can be.

In our discussion we covered a couple critical points worth sharing.

Much of his (and every QSR) team is made of young adults who may be in their first job. This presents a special set of issues when discussing accountability, ownership and follow-up.

We agreed that it was even more critical that Managers be coached about how to set, demonstrate and recognize expectations.

He needs to use his regular weekly meetings to ensure that expectations are being clearly communicated.

So regardless of your work environment, there are a number of lessons to be learned from this experience. Which of these lessons do you think can be applied to your business?

All Meetings Are Cancelled!

Bill Hogg — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:03:14 +0000

Wouldn't that be great? It seems that we spend more time meeting than doing. Those long drawn out meetings where little gets done except covering our behinds -- it's like musical chairs for ownership and accountability. I recommend clients implement the concept of "Huddles" vs. Meetings. My definition of a Huddle is a short gathering prior to taking action to ensure that everyone is clear on their roles and responsibilities. Successful Huddles are defined as follows;

They are short - 5 to 15 minutes maximum
They focus on immediate action
They provide clarity on responsibilities
They clarify and re-enforce desired behaviour

The term is borrowed from Football, however, teams in most sports call a time-out late in a game to make sure assignments are clear and to fine-tune a specific strategy. The work environment is no different. A short Huddle before a shift starts gives the supervisor/coach the opportunity to cover a few critical items.

Is there anything new we should be aware of since our last shift. Examples might include; product news, problems with support (i.e. technology, product, etc.), recent news about our firm, any issues that arose since last shift.
Confirm goals or objectives. How are we doing against team goals, did we have a great previous shift or do we need to bear down to catch up?
What are the priorities for the shift? Has it changed from your last shift?
Recognize people/behaviours that are achieving desired results?
Quick status on key projects so everyone knows what needs to get done and/or where someone needs help.

These topics can all be covered quickly at the beginning of each work session in a few short minutes. It provides a focus for the team and ensures everyone is working together towards the same objectives. My Perspective: Based on your particular business you can develop a short checklist of items to cover, but ensure that they are short, action-oriented and to the point. When everyone knows where they are going and is clear on their role, the team will achieve greater results.

7 Tips To Deal With Unhappy Customers

Bill Hogg — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:57:27 +0000

No one likes to receive a complaint -- but complaints are worth their weight in gold if an organization learns from them and then uses the information to improve the customer experience. Customer complaints can be used to build a better customer experience and turn a dissatisfied customer into a raving fan. A good response to a customer complaint also ensures you'll receive that particular complaint only once. The company will know how to handle that issue in advance in the future.

Customer complaints are usually not personal. When employees understand that the customer's anger is directed toward the company, not the employee, they are better able to deal with the emotions of the customer. If the employee doesn't take a customer's comments personally, it will help them remain calm. Remaining calm will, in turn, help calm the customer more rapidly.
Focus on the customer rather than the complaint. Customer-focus will help the employee empathize or "walk in the shoes" of the customer. It will help them listen more sympathetically to a complaining customer -- which is often all the customer wants. Plus it will help them remain calm and polite while a customer vents his frustrations.
Attitude is everything in creating satisfied customers. Even the most irate customer will usually calm down when dealing with someone who is obviously doing their best to understand the customer's situation. If employees truly listen to a customer complaint, valid or not, the customer will at least feel as if they are being heard. Sometimes that's enough to completely diffuse a negative situation.
Empower employees to handle customer complaints themselves. Obviously, there will be a point when a more senior person must make a decision in dealing with a complaint, but empowering employees to deal with common complaints and issues on their own will go a long way toward creating a more positive customer experience and increasing employee engagement.
Verify before taking action. Make sure that you ask what would make the customer happy and then verify before taking any action. Customers will rarely ask for more that we are prepared to offer, so ask what will make them happy first. Once they have made their suggestions, then verify that if you are able to provide that remedy, the customer will be satisfied. Nothing worse than working to resolve an issue only to find that the customer is still not happy.
Move quickly to resolution. Once a resolution is agreed, move quickly. When an upset customer calls and receives an immediate resolution to their problem, they will be much more likely to return as a customer. In fact, a good recovery builds greater customer loyalty than simply delivering as expected -- so make sure to use this to your advantage. The exact opposite is true, however, if the customer is "given the runaround" by being transferred from employee to manager to higher level executive before their problem is handled.
Provide tools. Give employees options when dealing with difficult customers, or those with an issue the employee can't resolve. For example, if a customer bought an item on clearance, and the store's policy is to never accept returns on clearance items, allow employees to offer the customer a complimentary gift card, an extended warranty on the item, or a similar bonus. While it may not be exactly what the customer asks for, it will show customer appreciation and help them see that the company is going out of its way to satisfy the complaint.

There will be times when nothing can be done to satisfy an unhappy customer. At that point, the customer service employee must simply defer that customer to a manager or supervisor. But employees who handle customer service complaints quickly, efficiently and professionally will minimize those issues and will give employees a sense of ownership in their jobs and in the company.

Be Accountable For The Small Things

Bill Hogg — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:37:30 +0000

I recently received duplicate copies of an e- newsletter. The arrived within minutes of each other and it was obvious they were the identical. It was a computer glitch with the email server that distributed the email that was out of the distributors control. I am sure we have all experienced a similar situation where the tech gremlins seemed to operate with a mind of their own. I simply deleted 1 and continued on with my day. However, that evening I received a third email from the organization -- it went something like this.

Hi Bill, Earlier today you received multiple copies of my newsletter. Obviously, this was not my intention. Please accept my apologies. There was a technical glitch with the email server which was beyond my control.
I've received lots of positive comments on the content and I sense it wasn't too much of an inconvenience. However, please accept the attached complimentary eBook as an expression of my gratitude for your interest and support.

My Perspective: How did you feel after reading this last email? Did your opinion of this organization increase, decrease or stay the same. I suspect for most it improved.

This organization recognized they had not met expectations and demonstrated in a tangible way that they respected and valued your time (possibly even more than you did yourself).

When organizations demonstrate accountability in small things -- it gives us permission to believe that they will be accountable in all things. Are you demonstrating accountability in the small things or letting them go because they are "just small things"?

Customer Experience vs. Customer Service

Bill Hogg — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:41:43 +0000

Seth Godin recently wrote a post Cultural Wisdom that got me thinking about the difference between Customer Service and Customer Experience.

He makes the point that cultural wisdom is the ability to discern when things don't fit with your overall brand. The sophistication to know what fits with the norms of your brand culture -- and the resultant opinion people form about that brand.

Very often people will describe what I do as "Customer Service" or something along those lines. Whether as a speaker or a consultant, they quickly slot me into the term customer service because it is easy to understand and wrap their head around.

However, what most of us actually do is much broader than customer service; it is more about the overall experience.

Customer experience starts the minute someone thinks about interacting with your product or service. It continues as they begin towards the actual interaction with your product or service. They make judgements about how easy to find you online or in the phone book, where you are located, how clean the parking lot is, the condition of the paint, carpeting and furniture in your offices, the tone of voice by the receptionist, the strength of your hand shake, etc. The list goes on.

Each of these examples above have nothing to do with the "customer service" you provide around your product or service, but they often dramatically affect whether you even get the chance to do business with that customer.

My Perspective: Seth asks "Who's in charge of cultural norms at your organization?" My question is "Who's in charge of your overall customer experience?"

Does one person/team have oversight over all aspects of the customer experience, or are they limited only to the period when interacting directly with the client.

Most clients I work with understand that great customer service is just one part of great customer experience. These organizations understand every person in the organization plays a critical role in that experience -- whether they ever actually interact directly with clients.

Is anyone in your organization responsible for the full customer experience?

When a Volume Discount isn't a Volume Discount

Bill Hogg — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:23:19 +0000

Do you put barriers in the way of your customers that prevent them from giving you their money? My wife and I recently dropped by our local Blockbuster video to rent a movie. There was a special on previously viewed movies that offered 4 movies for $20.00 vs. $6.99 each. They had a large selection and we noticed there were a number of movies that either we hadn't seen or thought they would be good to add to our home library -- so we decided to purchase some. After sorting through the selection, we chose 10 movies - assuming that anything over the 4 movies would be available at same rate of $5.00 each. We assumed wrong. When we went to the cash, we were told that we could have 2 bundles of 4 for $20.00 each, but we would have to pay $6.99 ($13.98) for the remaining 2 movies. I explained that they were all from the same bin and that since they were trying to entice people to purchase more movies -- we should get the same deal for the remaining 2 movies. Wrong again. We were told we should go and pick 2 more movies if we wanted the same deal. We chose to only purchase 8 movies. My Perspective: This is a perfect example of letting rules override common sense. When you have a customer looking to purchase, what barriers do you put in their way that prevents them from giving you their money? They worked hard to get their money -- don't make it hard for them to spend it! As an aside, Blockbuster often waives late fees etc for customers, so I know they have put some guidelines in place to empower their employees. I don't know whether the cashier would have gotten in trouble for accommodating my request, or whether they just didn't want to go to the trouble. Regardless, my opinion of their brand was influenced by a single employee who may have been acting on their own.

Thank You

Bill Hogg — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:36:49 +0000

These are 2 of the most powerful words in the English language -- they are equally powerful in any language. They express our gratefulness for the benefits we have received, either in personal or business relationships. This past weekend was Thanksgiving here in Canada so I wanted to share a thanksgiving story about one of my clients -- PRO-TAX, headquartered in Charlottesville Virginia. I have had the privilege to work with this organization since 2008 and they have consistently demonstrated their values and commitment to delivering an exceptional customer experience. And they are working every day to improve and make it better. This story occurred after a recent trip to their corporate offices to conduct customer research. We spent time talking with customers to better understand their emotional and business needs. When I returned home I received a hand written Thank You note from the President. How often do you receive a Thank You note from your clients? I often speak about the power of a Thank You, but usually when referring to thanking our customer/clients for their business or employees for their efforts. What a remarkable example of truly living your values. Thanks to the great group of folks at PRO-TAX for reminding us that we should be thanking all the people in our lives who enrich and add value -- not just the ones who pay us money. My Perspective: Who has contributed to your business or personal life that you haven't thanked recently. Make a point to do so this week. Plus, I want to offer my thanks to everyone who has contributed to making this past year so great. Whether as clients, colleagues, readers, contributors or the many bright and engaged people I have had the privilege to meet -- thank you for making my life richer.

Don't Be A Jack of all Trades

Bill Hogg — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:31:25 +0000

I read a post by Dumb Little Man that encourages people to focus on their strengths versus their weaknesses. This advice seems counter-intuitive, since we all should be striving for improvement in our lives -- and our businesses. Their point is "you've got the potential to go further with your natural strengths than you do with your weaknesses." When we build on our strengths, we continue to set ourselves apart from others who do not share the same strengths. It contributes to our uniqueness that makes us memorable -- either as a person or a business. If we spend too much time trying to shore up our weaknesses, then we become exceptional at nothing -- a "Jack of all trades, master of none". I agree, with a minor adjustment. Where I think this statement needs further clarification is in the area of Character. Where we have weakness in our character, we need to work on that immediately. Character issues like integrity, trustworthiness, dependability etc. must all be aligned with our personal values and if we have identified any area where we need work -- it should be a critical priority. My Perspective: Strength of character must come first. Whether, personally, in business or when hiring -- strong character is essential for success. But once those essentials are in place, then work on your strengths in your areas of competence or skills. Make sure that you are leveraging these to create an unbeatable advantage over the competition and you will become known as the person or business who is the unrivaled expert in that area. A description that is never used to describe a Jack of All Trades.

Valued Based Pricing

Bill Hogg — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:11:48 +0000

Recently I deposited a cheque from a US client into my US funds account. I then immediately transferred a portion of that deposit into my current account which is in Canadian dollars. Two interesting things happen. First, the bank was unable to guarantee an exchange rate from US to Canadian funds. It seems that there is variation over the course of the day based on when "they" transfer the funds. I have learned that this is also the case when transferring funds online. Of interest, if I had withdrawn the funds and then deposited them into the Canadian account, I could have gotten a guaranteed rate posted for that day, although I did not compare the rates (something for another day). Secondly, I was charged interest for being overdrawn on my US account because the funds I transferred into the US account were not cleared into my US account until 1 business day after the deposit. Although I have no overdraft facility built into the US account and at no time was the total account overdrawn or was any funds removed from any of the accounts. In both cases I was left feeling the Bank was uninterested in my needs and was simply looking for ways to pad their own revenue. My Perspective: Banks have a reputation for masking fees and charging fees that don't make sense. This contributes to the poor customer experience and provides a point of differentiation for those that offer clearer understanding of their fees. Have you reviewed your own fee and pricing structures lately? Make sure that your fees are based on value delivered and the value clearly communicated to your customers. Too often our fees are arrived at from a cost replacement model focused on our revenue and not viewed from a customer perspective. When the value is clear, your customers are less likely to comparison price shop.

Do You Stand Behind Your Employees?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:20:49 +0000

A friend shared the following email that she sent to the individual responsible for Customer Service at Danier Leather in Toronto.

I am taking a few moments to email you about the poor customer service I received today at approximately 12.30 pm in your Eaton Centre store. I had gone in on my lunch hour to purchase a pair of gloves. Once I found the pair that I wanted to purchase I stood in line for a cashier. I was pleased to find out that if I surrendered my email today I would be able to take advantage of the 20% discount being offered. For a while there was only one cashier, so the line was long and slow. Then a second person started serving, however I had already stood in line for approximately 10 minutes. That is perhaps not a long time on a usual occasion, however due to illness in my office, we were short staffed so I was anxious to get back to the office. I approached a sales associate and asked if I might be able to get her to hold the gloves and I would be back in just after 5 pm. She took the gloves from me and asked my name to which I gave her the information, and then the store manager came over and told the staff member (disregarding me standing there) that she could not hold the gloves. No apology was offered by either person. I don't know why, if this was the policy, that this staff member had not been informed. My contention is that she had already accepted my request, and that in good faith and good customer service, in this instance, the store manager should have obliged. So you not only lost a sale today, but also my email address on your mailing list. I am not looking for any special treatment, but I wanted you to be aware that your company has left a bad impression on a long time customer.

My Perspective: Clearly this store manager is neither customer-focused or a very strong leader. The lessons learned by this employee -- who seemed to have been prepared to put the customer first -- is that all future decisions should be made in the absence of any regard for customer satisfaction. Secondly, they learned that in future, anything that is not standard operating procedure require approval from the store manager. Both of these attitudes are a death knell for a customer service business. Regardless of your employee decision, if it's good for the customer and doesn't harm the company, stand behind their decision. Then if they need coaching, take them aside and provide that direction at a separate time. Not only did they lose a customer that day -- but the lessons learned by the sales associate will surely cost many more lost sales in the days to come.

Are You Accountable?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:01:32 +0000

It has been a crazy couple weeks, so I haven't had as much time as usual to write. However, I have had a couple very positive experiences lately that I thought were worth sharing. Both to do with accountability. The first was with the Sony Store. Recently I purchased a Digital Voice Recorder and a package of rechargeable batteries for the recorder so I could re-charge the unit overnight (rather than replacing traditional batteries). However, after 3 months -- well past any warranty, but also well before the advertised life of these batteries -- I found the charge didn't last 24 hours even when not being used. I dropped by the store and asked the Manager whether I was possibly using them incorrectly and he immediately replaced the batteries. It was a "Woo-Hoo" moment of truth. The second example is a past victim -- my local Boston Pizza. So I am particularly pleased to share this experience. Recently my wife and I dropped by for a salad and pizza. The salad seemed to take a long time arriving, but before it arrived the on-duty manager dropped by the table to apologize for the delay and provide a $5.00 coupon against a future $25.00 purchase. Suddenly, what was a minor inconvenience became a "Woo-Hoo". My Perspective: Too often when dealing with a minor inconveniences, we simply apologize and move on -- which is fine. But a little extra effort can turn these into increased loyalty. We all know that a strong recovery can build loyalty faster that just delivering against expectations. So when you have the chance -- take the opportunity to turn that recovery into a "Woo-Hoo". Why not brainstorm with your team for some great ways to turn minor inconveniences into "Woo-Hoo's"? Look for quick, inexpensive responses that let your customer know you appreciate their inconvenience and value their time. It will work wonders on their loyalty.

Are You Listening To Your Customer

Bill Hogg — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:13:43 +0000

Last week I was in the US presenting at a client conference when one of the attendees shared an experience with the hotel we were staying at. When she checked into her room, she noticed what looked like blood on her bed comforter. She phoned down to the front desk to request that it be changed. The person at the desk indicated that they could not just change the comforter, but would come up and strip the entire bed. The guest indicated this was not necessary, she only wanted the comforter changed. However, the front desk was insistent, and began to argue with the guest until finally a a Manager was consulted. Eventually the comforter was changed as requested by the guest. My Perspective: There were actually 2 lessons here.

Often, in our rush to recovery, we fail to ask what would satisfy the customer. It seems obvious, but before charging ahead with a solution, be sure to ask what the guest wants. We often impose our values on what we think the customer may value, when in fact they often already have a satisfactory solution in mind.
Create guidelines not rules. Obviously, this hotel had a procedure about what to do when a guest complained about bed linen. However, they didn't allow the employee the flexibility to use their common sense to respond to the customer request. They needed Manager approval to deviate from the standards. This creates issues with the guest and doesn't inspire the employee to use their judgement.

Both issues could have been resolved simply by empowering the employee to use their common sense after apologizing to the guest and simply asking them what would make them happy. As it was, even though the guest finally got the solution they requested, they had to argue to get it -- and was left with a bad feeling.

Your Customer Works Hard For Their Money -- Don't Make It Hard For Them To Spend It

Bill Hogg — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:53:39 +0000

It's the holidays and many of us are thinking about sending to gifts to friends and family. I thought it would be nice to send a selection of cookies to some friends in the US. I went online t0 Mrs Fields Cookies to place an order. However, after placing the order, providing the shipping address and credit card information, at the very last step, I discovered I was not able to place the order because the billing address for the credit card was in Canada. I called the Mrs. Fields phone number and was told the only way around this was to set up an account. Not Interested. Total waste of my time. So I went online to www.giftbaskets.comand placed exactly the same order for Mrs Fields Cookies without any issues with my credit card billing address being from outside the US. Within 5 minutes I had placed my order and received a confirmation email. Woo Hoo! Now here's the interesting part. At Gift Baskets I paid a premium of $2.00 v.s Mrs Fields on the initial purchase price. However, I received FREE ground shipping versus paying $14.95 through Mrs. Fields. Resultant my purchase was less to use a third party supplier than directly from Mrs Fields. Mrs. Fields placed a barrier to me purchasing directly from them. This time I simply purchased the same product, so they still received a sale -- but would probably need to sell it to Gift Baskets at a reduced price resulting in less profit on the sale. More importantly, I now have been introduced to another company that offers a broader range of products -- so in addition to not ever returning to Mrs. Fields, I will potentially choose different offerings from Gift Baskets in the future versus Mrs Fields cookies. My Perspective: Are you putting barriers up that push your customers away because "that's the way we do things"? Mrs. Fields effectively turned me from a customer, to a dis-satisfied customer, to a non-customer in one easy step. Simply because they made it hard for me to buy from them. I was standing in line with my purchase and money in hand and they set up a barrier to purchase. Review your processes. Are you looking at these processes from your organizational perspective -- or are you looking at them through the eyes of your customer? During some recent client research, one of the staff made the comment "All our clients work very hard to earn their money -- they don't want to work hard to spend it". Words worth remembering!

Seasons Greetings

Bill Hogg — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:08:39 +0000

During the Holiday Season more than ever our thoughts turn gratefully to those who have made this last year successful.

As a way of expressing our thanks to you and in keeping with the spirit of the season, we have made donations to Princess Margaret Hospital and our local Food Bank.

These gifts will help ensure those less fortunate than ourselves share in the goodwill of the season and receive some of the everyday necessities that we often take for granted.

Sharing our good fortune with others has become one of our holiday traditions and with your continued support we hope to uphold the tradition for many years to come.

2009 has been an incredible year of growth and learning for me personally, and I have benefited from the truly unselfish sharing of so many colleagues I could not begin to list them all.

I have had the opportunity to learn and work with exceptional clients and I appreciate they each have a choice on who they work with and do not take that privilege lightly.

To each of you and your families I wish you a wonderful holiday season and a safe, healthy and prosperous 2010.

Are Your Values Aligned?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:25:13 +0000

I trust everyone had a restful holiday season and are energized about the coming year. I know I am. New Years is traditionally a time for reflection and planning and today's post is about exactly that. Over the holiday's I had breakfast at Chez Cora's -- a franchise restaurant that specializes in breakfast. It has an excellent reputation locally for appetizing breakfasts that are presented well. On this particular morning I felt like an omelette, but wanted one that wasn't listed on the menu -- a Western with no onions. I was told "no", all the ingredients for the omelettes are pre-made and no variation was allowed. Resultant, I ordered a ham and cheese omelette and went about my day. However, a few days later I happened on their website and noticed a section called "History of our Plates". In it were 4 stories about how specific dishes came to be. Of interest, was how all 4 of these stories focused on how someone had requested something that was not on the standard menu that led to the new signature dish. Interesting. Their website/brand heralds back to the early days of fresh ingredients and personalized family service, however, the reality is that the franchise has become a "chain" no longer aligned to their historical values and culture. Success has eroded the values of this organization and brand and they have become a quick serve business dressed up to look like a family restaurant. Business is still good, but one has to wonder, as they get further away from the values that made them successful, will another restaurant step in and take their business and Cora's won't ever understand why. My Perspective: Today's question is has your success or business caused you to lose sight of what your fundamental values are? Are your values and your actions aligned? In your desire to become efficient and profitable, is it possible some of the values that made you special or unique -- or exceptional -- have gotten lost. Take the time in the New Year to re-examine what makes you unique from your competitors and make sure that edge hasn't gotten lost.

Even Disney Has Missteps

Bill Hogg — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:17:43 +0000

Recently Disney introduced their program Give a Day, Get a Disney Day. This is a program where Disney offers a free ticket to one of their theme parks in exchange for volunteering a day to a local organization. A great idea that has the ability to generate tremendous goodwill for Disney and make a positive impact within local communities. However, I wonder if they realized the torrent of volunteers they would unleash on unprepared volunteer organizations. My daughter noticed the ads for this program and immediately wanted to participate. This program will help her earn her required volunteer hours for high school (a requirement here in Ontario), plus, when we travel to Florida for March Break, she would have a free ticket to a theme park However, when we tried to participate, the following issues arose;

The website did not function properly making it difficult to access volunteer opportunities
When we were able to access the volunteer sign-up section, they all didn't work properly and email responses were not received to confirm that you had registered
When a couple of the volunteer organizations were contacted directly, they indicated they had been overwhelmed by volunteers -- hundreds each day beginning the first week of January. Possibly this is why the website wasn't working properly
When talking to the volunteer organizations, we discovered we were not the only people having difficulty getting connected through the website. They were receiving numerous calls, further increasing their workload.
Very few opportunities were early enough in the year to qualify people to have a confirmed voucher to use during the Canadian March Break -- a key time of year for Canadian visitors to Florida. This desire to qualify before March Break is possibly a reason for the overwhelming response to the program so early.

My Perspective: It is not my intention to criticize this wonderful program, but to remind us of 3 things;

When evaluating any program, make sure you look at issues from all your customer segments -- not just the most obvious. Canadians make up a small percentage of North American visitors, but they are still a large group of unsatisfied consumers.
Bullet-proof your systems. Need we I say more!
Even the best organizations drop the ball from time to time -- so don't beat yourself up, just take the necessary steps to recover

Footnote: I received a prompt email response from the Canadian organization when I sent an email earlier today asking for help. However, this help was simply to provide an email address for the US administrators. It will be interesting to see how Disney handles this situation. I'll keep you informed.

Can the Union/Management Divide be Crossed?

Bill Hogg — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:51:29 +0000

Here in Toronto, our public transit system -- the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) is currently the focus of considerable negative attention by the public. The public is lashing out at the union as well as management -- pointing fingers and making suggestions about how they should each do things differently. General discontentment was smouldering because of a fare increase earlier this year, but their outrage escalated when a picture was posted on Twitter which showed a ticket agent sleeping in their ticket booth. The public was rightly outraged. The senior union official chastised the public for assuming the person was sleeping and not having medical difficulties (he was sleeping). His focus is on protecting his members -- regardless of the issue. Management is focused on having trains running on time, on budget. Noble objectives -- but only part of delivering customer service. No one seems to be focused on understanding or delivering good, consistent customer service. The issues here are complex, but one fundamental truth is at work. People within the organization are not aligned with a focus on the customer. The problem isn't with either the unions or the management. This organization needs a complete change in culture and no one seems to be willing to work together and make the hard decisions to change the current culture. They need to start by getting aligned around a common goal -- defining and delivering an exceptional customer experience. Once that happens, the various combative elements can begin to start focusing on the common goal instead of their individual goals. My Perspective: Regardless of our business, we too often get caught up focusing on our department goals and forgetting the overall organizational goal which is serving customers. By creating this common focus we break down our silos and start working together towards a common goal.

What Are You Doing to Offer Value?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:08:38 +0000

When was the last time you re-evaluated your value offering? When did you last sit down expressly to think about the value you offer to both your customers and your employees? What does your organization offer that sets you apart from your competition? And remember competition is not just others who offer the same service -- but others who compete for the same dollars. Value is the real heart of why people buy from you. And regardless of the economy, if you have a real and compelling value proposition, they will continue to buy. That's why some companies continue to do thrive and grow -- regardless of the economy. A good example of this is restaurants. When restaurant spending declines by 20%, it doesn't mean that everyone's business declines by 20%. It means 20% (or more) of restaurants disappear and the balance keep or grow their business because they have a better value offering. When people make choices, they choose the organizations that offer the best value. Spend some time with your employees. Ask you customers. List all the things they place value on, then list them in priority. Lastly, figure out what you can do better than your competition -- and then take it to the next level. Be outstanding! My Perspective: Deliver real value every day -- be outstanding in ways that are relevant to your employees and customers. And regardless of the economy -- your business with thrive.

Are Your Recoveries Really Recoveries?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:26:27 +0000

Recently my wife picked up dinner for 4 on the way home from work. We had ordered online from Swiss Chalet (Canadian Rotisserie chicken franchise). Swiss Chalet is known for their dipping sauce, which is included with every signature meal. When she arrived home, we discovered that the "special sauce" was not included in the order. I called the order desk to report this lapse and the conversation went something like this. First she confirmed the order by asking for my phone number.

My thought: Doesn't every order come with Chalet sauce? Why would I be making this up?

Then she apologized -- a number of times.

My thought: Good, you should. Our dinner has been ruined because Swiss Chalet didn't execute the order correctly.

Then she indicated that I could return to the store to pick up the sauce.

My thought: But what about our dinner now getting cold in the kitchen? Not much of a solution.

I declined to return to the store, indicating the solution wasn't very practical because our dinner wouldn't taste very good cold, while waiting for me to head back to the store She apologized again and offered me a $6.00 credit on my next order (the initial order was approx $30.00)

My thought: Would $6.00 really inspire me to return when the product had disappointed me. No!

My Perspective: We all know that a good recovery can actually have a positive impact on loyalty after the initial disappointing customer experience. However, what happens if the recovery is also disappointing? It further reinforces the negative experience and drives a further wedge between your company and a repeat visit. Swiss Chalet clearly didn't think their recovery process through from the customer perspective. In my mind 2 options were appropriate.

First choice: Replace the entire meal and have it delivered to the customer home. Woo Hoo!
Provide a credit for a full meal to entice me to return and experience how great their service/food should be. At least I might give them a second chance.

Great service will make up for a miss with the product. But mediocre service will only reinforce the poor product. Three Tips:

Make sure you review your recovery processes from the customer perspective.
Ask the customer. Do this when determining your recovery process and again after each recovery to ensure that you have indeed recovered.
Make sure your people are trained to ask for customer feedback and empowered to make it right. Every customer is not equal -- don't treat them like they are.

Be Consistent -- Then Become Great!

Bill Hogg — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:34:13 +0000

I recently read an article "Consistency Is Far Greater Than Rare Moments of Greatness" by Scott Ginsberg The Nametag Guy. In it he makes the point "Because ultimately, consistently is greater than rare moments of greatness. And people only give you credit for that which they see you do consistently." It brought to mind that even before we become great -- we must first become consistent. If you talk to any professional athlete, cook, public speaker, salesperson or customer service representative, they will all tell you that before they became great they first had to learn how to consistently deliver their product. Only then were they able push to the next level -- become faster, stronger or better. In the book "The Myth of Excellence", Crawford & Mathews state the key to successful organizations is first becoming consistent across the 5 key attributes (price, service, access, experience, and service) that consumer's desire -- and then achieving dominance in one and differentiation in a second, while remaining at par with the competition across the balance. In my post Don't Be A Jack of all Trades, I talked about focusing on your strengths -- but only after you have brought your weaknesses up to par. The consistent message here seems to be that before we ever become great we must first become consistent with customer expectations across all touch points. Even if you are great in one area of your business -- or one department -- a single interaction with your customers that is below expectations can render the entire experience as negative. Think about after-sales service. Any issues come to mind personally. My Perspective: Look at your customer experience map and look for areas where you are below par. Fix them Then look for areas where you are or can be exceptional. Leverage them. Don't try to be great in all things, figure out what you want to be known for and make that the area that you will seek dominance.

Customers Don't Care How Much You Know -- Until They Know How Much You Care.

Bill Hogg — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:44:00 +0000

We've all heard this expression, but I was reminded recently how important this adage is by an experience I had when I was a young Account Executive with one of Canada's largest advertising agencies. A large international client from Boston was in Toronto for a day of meetings and I was responsible for making sure that lunch was available. In a trip to their office months earlier, the client had mentioned that he disliked chicken with bones -- he preferred chicken breast and remarked that he always purchased boneless breast for his barbecue. The single exception was St-Hubert Bar-B-Q Chicken with dipping sauce which he had discovered on a trip to Montreal. He was so enamoured by their dipping sauce that he wished it was available in Boston where he would gladly picked it off the bones. Based on this personal insight I ordered St-Hubert chicken for our lunch. My agency President was aghast. We were effectively serving a large international client a fast food meal rather than a traditional catered meal. He felt that we had lost an opportunity to impress this important client with our hospitality and even feared that we would be perceived as second rate versus our international cousins. He quietly took me aside to give me some "constructive" feedback. Fortunately, the client overhead his whispered comments. The client indicated that he was thrilled that I had taken the time to arrange this special lunch for him and proceeded to sing my praises for remembering this small fact that he had shared with me months earlier. He continued that this was a further demonstration of the care and attention that I applied to every aspect of his business and went so far as to state that he saw no need to replace the recently departed Account Supervisor on his business -- voicing his confidence that I was ready to step into this role (a promotion that was wisely swift in coming after the meeting :)). My Perspective: Paying attention to our clients specific needs/desires allow us to tailor our products/service to their needs and build trust and confidence. The client felt more important by the personalization of the meal choice than he would have ever felt regardless of the expense of a generic meal that may have been served to any client. What might have been disaster for another client was pure magic for him. Are you looking for the opportunities to create a moment of magic for your clients -- or just providing the same generic service o everyone?

Customer Service: A Tactic or A Strategy?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:52:32 +0000

We often hear organizations talk about their focus for the upcoming period -- whether for the year or the quarter. I am always slightly amused when I hear an organizations talking about customer service being a key focus. This usually a sign that they see Customer Service as a tactic to be employed at various times -- much like a new ad campaign or pricing strategy. These are usually the same organizations that think customer satisfaction is a goal (vs. outcome) and can be impacted by a training program to all their CSR's. Customer service is not a tactic. It needs to be a long-term strategy that is embedded into your organizational DNA or culture. Customer service is not a tactic you employ as part of a plan -- instead it should be the foundational theme that links every tactic together to provide differentiation. My Perspective: If you find yourself talking about customer service using words like focus, initiative or tactic, you need to re-think the role of customer service within your organization. And that starts with reviewing your internal culture and values. Customer service is not something you put on like a shirt and tie. It is an attitude you live and breathe in everything you do. Make sure it includes the language you use when you communicate it internally and externally.

Make Sure To Communicate Value When Adding Extra Charges

Bill Hogg — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:49:55 +0000

On the recent weekend, we expected family and friends would be dropping by at irregular intervals with their various activities -- making regular meals less likely. I decided to stop at The Pickle Barrel -- a well known Toronto restaurant and delicatessen -- to pick up some bite-size deli sandwiches so we would have some easy snacks available whenever anyone was hungry. However, we are not fans of their lox and cream cheese sandwiches which are part of their pre-made party platters. I asked if I could get a selection without these sandwiches and they confirmed this was possible -- but would require a wait while they made up the platter. No problem. I placed my order and said I would be back in the recommended 15 minutes. When I returned to pick up my order they rang it up and I was surprised that the price had increased by 50% versus the posted price. When I questioned the accuarcy of the bill, I was informed that mine was a custom order and this resulted in the surcharge. This was the first I heard of any surcharge. It was also something never charged in the past. I asked to speak to the manager since I felt they should have mentioned this when I placed my order so I could have decided whether I wanted to; 1) the pay the surcharge, 2) take the standard platter, or 3) not order at all. The manager claimed he was unaware of the surcharge and would look into it -- but was unwilling to take any action. I left wondering what function this manager played. He claimed ignorance of a policy that a cashier was implementing -- yet was unwilling or unable to do anything about the policy. More importantly, I was surprised by his complete lack of interest in the issue. It was simply, "I don't know and I don't care". My Perspective: Of course, the issue was not the charge, or the amount. The issue was that an extra charge was not clearly communicated to me and resultant I was surprised by the change. This left me feeling trapped into a purchase I may not have wanted. On a more expensive purchase, in addition to breaking trust, this could lead to embarrassment if the customer was unwilling or unable to pay the demanded amount. It is critical that any extra charges be clearly communicated to customers before the service is provided. Plus, it is equally important to make sure that you communicate the reason(s) for the extra charge in a manner that demonstrates value to the customer. Transparency is a key driver of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Don't risk losing a customer because you assume they understand your pricing structure. Review your pricing structure to ensure there are no hidden surprises and that every employee is clear on how to communicate the value associated with the change that justifies the increase.

Are Your Recoveries Really Recoveries? Part 2

Bill Hogg — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:29:00 +0000

In February I wrote a post about a recent service recovery experience with Swiss Chalet. I thought I would share the subsequent follow up I had with the manager of the particular store I mentioned. The franchise manager called a couple days later because I had made a comment through their website about my experience. I thought it would be interesting to see how they reacted. The timing of the return call was pretty quick, but upon connecting, her first concern was to ensure that the issue was with her particular location -- and not another location. I confirmed it was her location. She then asked what I wanted to make this right -- yes those were her exact words. I indicated I wasn't looking for anything -- I had just responded to the feedback form that was made available to me for feedback. They had asked -- so I assumed they were interested in what I had to say. :) She then indicated that she was calling because "the Franchise owner wanted me to clarity that it was their store". She saw I had received a $6.00 credit and said "she would take up with the central organization". Implying that somehow, someone else had dropped the ball in the total experience. And that concluded the call. Not even an apology on behalf of her store. My Perspective: This encounter is part of a much bigger problem I am seeing in the service industry -- particularly the auto industry. The follow-up survey for customer satisfaction. You know the one -- where corporate has arranged for a survey company to call customers to gain feedback and then punishes the outlet if they have poor performance. This results in employees basically asking people to give them a high ranking so the employees/outlet doesn't get in trouble or even penalized. Talk about a skewed result. Employees start to "game" the system when feedback is used as a stick. How is this type of information gathering supposed to help businesses improve? They have missed the real opportunity for honest feedback because they have forgotten the purpose of the feedback loop. So have a look at your customer feedback programs. Are they focused on improving the experience or punishing the laggards. Are they being implemented simply because you know that you should be measuring customer experience -- or are you using this important tool to fine-tune and continuously improve. There are much more effective ways to deal with the poor performers.

Are You Really Listening?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:03:09 +0000

I phoned the call centre at Mirvish Productions to renew our tickets subscription for the next theatre season. The CSR quickly went about renewing my subscription. I am sure I was one of a long list of calls that day doing exactly the same transaction. She was very efficient in getting the order processed. However, after twice telling her the payment option I had chosen was 50% today and the balance in 3 months -- she processed the entire order as a single payment immediately. When I for a third time told her I wanted the 2 part payment -- she said "That's not what you said" My Perspective: There are 2 issues here. The first is simply listening. Even when you are doing the same thing again and again -- remember, each customer is unique. And even if they are not -- we need to make them feel like they are. The second is more bothersome. A CSR should never tell a customer they are wrong. I was very clear about my request, but even if I was wrong, or just forgot to ask, there are much better ways to deal with this situation than placing the blame on the customer. I don't subscribe to the philosopy that the customer is always right. But I am pretty sure there is rarely a good reason to tell them they are wrong.

Are Your Rules Driving Customers Away?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:59:54 +0000

Staples had a sale on computer remotes. Regular price $74.99, on sale for $19.99 -- a $50.00 savings. I already had one, but at that price, it made sense to get a back-up. I dropped by on the way home -- unfortunately I arrived at 5 minutes past closing time. The doors were open, people were shopping and cash registers were open. However, I was denied entrance. I asked if I could enter, explaining that I was there to pick up a specific item and that I knew exactly where it was located. No deal. The young man at the door had his orders. No one was allowed in after closing time. I didn't get my back-up remote. They lost the goodwill of a customer. Which was worse? My Perspective: This is a perfect example of the need for guidelines versus rules. It is difficult for rules to be flexible. But guidelines allow for real people to make decisions based on specific circumstances. Why was this employee not empowered to make a simple call on an issue? Frequently I have discussions with clients that are based on a specific issue that has arisen. My advice is always to avoid creating a rule that will fix that issue -- but to look for the guideline that would have prevented the issue. Then you either need to create a guideline that will avoid numerous similar issues -- or communicate the existing guideline better so people know how to work within it. We usually agree that communication and training is the issue versus creating a new guideline. So the next time an issue arises and you are thinking about creating a rule -- stop, and look for the root cause and focus your efforts there. Do you need a new guideline -- or do you just need to communicate the existing guidelines better? By the way -- I did get the remote -- my wife was kind enough to drop by the next day and pick one up. But Staples never regained their goodwill.

Rules vs. Guidelines

Bill Hogg — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:06:22 +0000

I recently submitted an article to one of the online publishing sites. It was rejected for broaching their rule of using company names in the content. I used the spelling "excelerate" versus the correct spelling -- accelerate -- since I have trademarked the term Performance Excelerator^TM. I always use this spelling. It is part of my brand. But because the term Performance Excelerator is trademarked in my author signature they rejected this spelling. The publisher wants to avoid self promotion within their articles and maintain the integrity of the article content and their site. All appropriate objectives that most authors are very happy to follow -- including myself. I wrote and explained it was the spelling I always used and not to do so would be inconsistent with my branding. I was not promoting my company name (Bill Hogg & Associates), nor was I drawing attention to the specific word for promotional purposes through bolding. It was just spelled differently in line with my trademarked name The Performance Excelerator. While I hoped they would see the reason why this guideline should be waived in my case, I recognized the reasoning behind their guideline and was willing to forego publishing the article rather than use the correct spelling. Upon review, they published the article based on this special circumstance. My Perspective: Even a rule that is in place for all the right reasons may need to be broken given certain circumstances. Having a guideline that is based on an outcome that is widely understood allowed someone in the organization to make a decision based on the specific circumstance. Are your rules supported by clear guidelines that provide guidance if a unique circumstance arises that isn't covered by the rules?

Lack of Transparancy Impacts both Customers and Employees

Bill Hogg — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:56:28 +0000

Recently I upgraded my cell phone. It seemed like a simple enough process -- until it was time to have the phone delivered. After a positive telephone experience with the representative who placed the order, I was told the new phone would be delivered usually within 3 - 5 business days. On day 5 I decided to follow up and find out what was happening since I was going to out of town for a couple days. The adventures began. When I called my service provider to find out the status , they indicated that the product had been back-ordered and was just now back in stock -- but they did not know when it was to be delievered. They offered me a number where I could tracking the order. So I called this number -- where they informed that; 1) the phone had not been shipped and, 2) there was a problem with the order so they couldn't tell me when it was shipped. When I inquired about the problem with the order, they indicated it was a technical issue on their end and they were working on it. Apparently a number of orders did not get process correctly and they were working to fix the "glitch". I indicated that while I was certainly sympathetic to their technical issues, I was more interested in when my order would be shipped now that they had identified that there was a problem. They indicated that they were working on the technical issue. As you might guess I asked to speak to someone else -- a Supervisor perhaps? This person confirmed the fact that there was a technical issue, but also indicated that they had identified which orders were affected and that they were hand packaging these orders and they should be out within a couple days. They suggested that I call back after 3 days if I had still not received my phone. My Perspective: This lack of transparency left me feeling unloved and unappreciated as a customer. This organization could have saved both money and customer goodwill by simply being proactive and sending a message to me informing me of the issue. After all, they certainly had my email address -- I was one of their customers. Instead they stuck their head in the sand and tried to hide the problem. Even if only a small per cent of customers called with enquiries, an email to all affected customers would have avoided the phone calls and the resultant cost. They clearly anticipated the calls since the CSR's were given the update -- but the CSR's were not given enough detail to actually provide a clear answer. One of the key drivers of customer loyalty is transparency. The feeling that you understand what is going on and can trust the company to treat you fairly. When you hide the truth -- you lose credibility and customer trust. An easy first step to losing the customer. Possibly more important, it sends a clear signal to your employees about how you will treat them as employees. Neither situation bodes well for a high performing organization By the way, my new phone arrived 2 days later as promised. I'm still trying figure out all the new features :)

Are Your Policies Customer-Focused or Profit-Focused?

Bill Hogg — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:33:27 +0000

Last week I tried to get a replacement part for my stationary bike. One of the end caps from the handle bars had cracked and needed to be replaced. First, I called the local store. They didn't have any and instructed me to call their central service department number. The service department indicated that because the bike was not a current model, I needed to get the part from the US manufacturer - Vision Fitness. They provided the hotline number. I called the Hotline and sat on hold for 15-20 minutes before getting a live person. They were very helpful and indicated that the replacement part would cost $0.78 USD. They proceeded to get my mailing address for shipment. They then indicated that it would be mailed at a cost of $10.00 USD. When I asked why a $0.78 plastic part was going to cost $10.00 to ship I was told "that's our minimum shipment cost". The cost didn't reflect the weight -- it was a minimum charge for them to send out any part. I had already invested thousands of dollars to purchase their machine. I guess the figured they already had my money and what was the likelyhood of me purchasing a second stationary bike. Well the part wasn't that critical and I had already spent too much time on the issue, so I decided to forget about it and just live with a cracked end cap. What initially seemed like a minor issue was no longer worth the trouble. My Perspective: A customer-focused organization anticipates situations like this and would simply offer to put a part like this in the mail. The fact that they have a minimum charge indicates that their first concern is their own profitability -- not the customer. They will only make the customer happy if it first serves their profit motive. We should ask ourselves whether our policies are addressing our employees and customers needs -- or simply acting as barrier to providing exceptional customer service.