My blog has moved to the Toister Performance Solutions website. Along with the move, I've updated the name to "Next Level Performance" which better reflects the blog's focus on customer service AND employee productivity.There are two Best Buy stores that are less than a 15 minute drive from my home. For the past several years, I've instinctively gone to the one that's "in town" because that's the general direction I went for most of my shopping. Unfortunately, I was often turned off by long lines, crowded parking lots, and indifferent service. I like Best Buy's selection of products, so recently I tried shopping at the other store near my home that was "out of town". This store was a whole new world. Every time I've been there I was greeted by a friendly, knowledgeable associate who helped me make a good purchase. And, there was always plenty of parking and rarely a line at the cash registers.
Same chain of stores. Different locations. World of difference.
Jim Collins, the Good to Great guru, wrote, "you can build a pocket of greatness without executive power, in the middle of an organization." He argues you can find ways to create a great team, department, or business unit regardless of your company's reputation, your boss's capabilities, or the resources at your disposal. Today's economic climate presents a perfect opportunity to stand out from the crowd and demonstrate your value.
Resources
Jim Collins has a great website with lots of tools. You can also check out my recent interview on NBC San Diego.
There is a growing list of websites that are dedicated to allowing customers to share feedback and reviews with each other and even the companies they are rating. These sites can be a powerful tool for companies that are willing to listen and act on what they hear. The sites can also dramatically hurt businesses that aren't paying attention or are unwilling to take corrective action.
Here are just a few sources I've found to be quite helpful:
consumersearch. This handy website compiles product reviews from multiple sources. Last night, I used it to check out vacuum cleaners. I've wanted a Dyson for awhile, but Consumer Reports gave it mediocre ratings. A quick check on consumersearch revealed that most people were overwhelmingly satisfied with it. I wonder if the Dirt Devil and Hoover folks are checking this site?
yelp and kudzu. These websites feature user-generated reviews of local area businesses. These are great sites for small businesses to be aware of.
Get Satisfaction. This site takes it a step further by allowing customers to provide each other with tips and ideas on resolving customer complaints. This site primarily features larger companies, and the smart ones are joining in on the conversation to spot (and fix!) customer complaints quickly.
epinions. Another great site for customer feedback, especially on service providers.
Industry-specific Feedback
There are a lot of website that offer feedback for your specific industry and a customer-focused company would do well to pay attention to what your customers are saying. The hospitality industry has many sources to choose from, including Expedia, Travelocity, and Hotels.com. I've also used Service Magic to find home improvement contractors and even get quotes from registered service providers.
Check out this helpful article from Inc. Magazine for more information on customer feedback tools.
DHL announced last week it plans to pull out of the domestic express delivery business within the US. I haven't had much good to write about DHL (see my November 2 post), but this one takes the cake. A recent BusinessWeek article quotes John Mullen, CEO of DHL Express, as saying, "It's hard to see what could have been done that would have led to a different result."
Recently, I saw a keynote address from a former Navy fighter pilot who is now a motivational speaker with a group called Afterburner. The speaker stressed that "debriefing after the mission" is one of the most crucial, but often overlooked, steps to achieving high performance. With this in mind, here is what we can learn from the demise of DHL Express. i
Be careful what (and how) you outsource
The delivery driver plays a crucial customer service and public relations role in a delivery company. He or she typically visits clients every day, drives a mobile billboard (i.e. branded delivery truck), and is the starting and ending point for package delivery. In short, the delivery driver is critical to clients' perceptions of a delivery service.
At DHL, delivery is outsourced in many (if not all markets). The contractors driving DHL trucks in San Diego are often aggressive drivers, making a poor impression in traffic. (I live near DHL's San Diego hub.) I've also heard many reports of these contract drivers being surly and unpleasant with clients.
The lesson here is be careful when you outsource. Outsourcing may save a few pennies, but could cost you a few dollars if the function is vital to your success. At the very least, you should hold contractors to your own service standards if they have regular contact with your customers.
Beware of icebergs
An iceberg is typically bigger and more dangerous below the surface. In business, what you can see (above the surface) may indicate much bigger problems below the surface. A few years ago, I was a Customer Service Manager at a catalog company that shipped most of its orders via Airborne Express (now DHL). The Airborne Express order tracking system was error-prone and inaccurate, especially when compared to their competitors, UPS and FedEx. As a result, they'd often lose shipments mid-route and try to tell us we never shipped the package. Typically, the package would turn up in one of their warehouses a few days later.
These situations should have pointed DHL towards operational challenges that urgently needed fixing. Instead, they were written off as one-time flukes. Companies who ignore or do not investigate icebergs risk seeing their strategies fail, their productivity decline, and their customers defect.
Listen to your customers
DHL's recent ad campaigns and CEO John Mullen's comments show how out of touch DHL is with their customers. In classic Dilbert fashion, the marketing department decided to promote something (outstanding customer service) that operations couldn't deliver. (Ha ha, no pun intended, but it worked.)
Your customers will tell you where you are doing well and where you can improve. If you are going to promote a particular benefit in your advertising, you would do well to first ensure you can deliver that benefit. The trick is to resist the urge to assess your capabilities through internal measures alone, but to instead listen to the voice of your customers.
Advertising often speaks to a companies more subjective qualities like customer service. They're paying for it, so they can generally say what they want. Even if they are the only ones that feel that way about themselves.
Here are a few examples:
DHL
Not long ago, DHL ran a series of commercials that focused on their apparent ability to put "customer service back in the shipping business". You can watch one of these commercials below.
The public may disagree with DHL's take on their own service. They rate a miserable 1 star (out of 5) for customer service on Epinions. Read the full review here.
American Airlines
It's pretty hard to get a smile from an American Airlines employee these days. I'm traveling on American Airlines today and I've tried all the standard techniques like smiling, saying "hello", being a customer, you name it. There have been a few kind people, but overall hey seem a bit preoccupied. (Their Epinions rating is 3 stars out of 5.)
This reality didn't stop the editor of their in-flight magazine from writing about "service with a smile" in the latest issue of American Way magazine. You can read for yourself (page 12 of the magazine, page 14 in the reader).
Misalignment
There's a lot of reasons why customers may experience something different than the marketing message. Perhaps the clearest indicator is when there is no deliberate connection made between the message and the action. Employees don't know what's expected, don't receive training, and may not even know about the marketing message itself. Supervisors don't incorporate the message into their supervision. Management doesn't manage or measure how well they deliver to the message. And so on.
I've had an experience yesterday that illustrated how indifference and apathy towards customers can cause sales to walk out your door. If your company is doing awesome, then stop reading. Otherwise...
Three May be a Crowd
I think there were a total of three customers in Office Depot last night when I walked in to load up on a few supplies and buy a computer monitor. By my count, there were a total of four employees on the sales floor, but all seemed engrossed in some form of task. No one looked up to welcome me as I walked in.
I picked out some paper and then walked over to the aisle with the monitors. "Ahh, now they'll come greet me," I thought as I wandered into the "bigger ticket" section of the store. Um, not really. Just me, left alone to browse.
After some investigation, I found the monitor I was looking for and took the inventory ticket to the register. The cashier, Manny, looked up the product and told me they were out of it. Manny also said the other Office Depot stores in the area were out of the monitor too, but they might get some in on Friday.
Choose Your Own Adventure
Here is the part of the story where I invite you to guess what happens next.
Manny chose option 1, which is interesting employee behavior since Office Depot posted a loss and a year over year decline in revenue in their latest quarterly report. Office Depot's stock is at $3.43 per share as I write this. Maybe Manny isn't fully invested.
If Office Depot could sell the equivalent of just one additional $250 monitor per store, per day, they would have over $150,000,000 in extra revenue in one year's time. Or, we could all go give our business to Staples, Best Buy, Fry's, CDW, or any number of other places that sell the same or similar products.
Translate this to how many companies are handling the current economic mess and you have a simple business plan:
I bet you have already skipped ahead and solved the puzzle, but just in case, step 2 is "people". A gut-wrenching, cost-cutting strategy won't make your company any stronger if your people don't execute. Your visionary, game-changing strategy won't make the company grow any faster if your people aren't carrying it out. Simply playing a recording that says "your call is really important to us" on your toll-free hotline doesn't mean your customers will feel their call is actually important to you.
The best way to get things moving is to engage your people in your strategy and ensure they are carrying it out. Here are five ideas you can use right now to make that happen.
Idea #1: Make a contest out of checking people's work. The best supervisors I've met make doing things right fun through contests and games. This approach can cause employees to welcome additional supervision and oversight since they know doing it right leads to positive results. Some enterprising employees may even bring their accomplishments to your attention!
Idea #2: Hold outsourced providers to the same service standards. Hotels, call centers, delivery services, and other companies often outsource business functions that have a high degree of customer contact. Outsourcing may save you money, but it will cost you customers if you don't hold these service providers to the same service standards you expect from your employees. Offer them training and resources to understand your service culture and check on them often.
Idea #3: Stand-up and listen. Many great supervisors use pre-shift meetings (often called "stand-ups" because they are so short) to keep the team focused and informed. Holding regular pre-shift meetings is a great idea, but you can also use this to gather and share valuable intelligence from the team. What is selling well and why? What problems are customers reporting that we can easily fix? Who has a success story they can share?
Idea #4: Don't miss an opportunity to upsell. Customers are pretty good at tuning out sales pitches, but you can train your team to upsell like a pro by arming them with a few simple questions they can ask their customers. A retail sales associate may ask, "Is there anything in particular you are looking for today?" to find out where to direct a customer. A hotel associate may ask, "Are you in town for business or pleasure?" to better understand which hotel amenities to recommend. Better yet, make it fun and create an up-selling contest!
Idea #5: Empower the team to do what's right. We all need a few guidelines, but make sure the guidelines you give your employees make sense. If there are exceptions to the rules, such as an opportunity to make a big sale or keep an important customer, let them know. At a minimum, train your employees to involve you if they think the rules need to be bent a little bit.
