One of the customer service principles I focus on a lot is the principle that “Everything Speaks.” If you’ve read any of my writings or sat in on one of my presentations, you’ve likely heard me harp on the subject of Everything Speaks. Meaning that every detail of the customer experience either enhances your brand or detracts from your brand. Your brand can refer to your organization’s brand, your department’s brand, or your own personal brand. Everything speaks.  I’m always looking for examples of this principle in action. I had a recent experience that perfectly highlig [...]

Regardless of the industry, standing out in today’s crowded marketplace is tough. As products and services become more and more commoditized, customers have an almost unlimited number of choices for just about anything they want. And yet, some companies DO stand out from the pack. A Bigger Goal I was going over some old notes recently and came across a quote from fellow speaker Nido Qubein (also president of High Point [...]

I was talking to an auto repair shop owner recently as I prepare to speak at a conference of independent auto repair shops. I was ready for a quick call focused on getting some specific material to include in my presentation. I was NOT prepared for how enthusiastic this shop owner is about auto repair. It was obvious through his words and vocal inflection that he is passionate about auto repair as well as passionate about his team.  After I hung up from our call, I found that I was passionate about his passion! I was charged up to get things done for MY clients. All from a 30-minute conv [...]

   I'll say here that "business poems" aren't really my thing, but I recently came across a poem that changed my mind a bit. It was written in 1942 by poet Edgar Guest and is titled, “Good Business.” Maybe I’m the only who hadn’t seen it before, but I doubt it. The exact terminology used could certainly be updated for a 21st century audience, but the sentiments expressed are as applicable today as they were in 1942. Good Business By Edgar Guest If I possessed a shop or store I’d drive the grouches off my floor I&rsq [...]

You’ve probably heard this quote by legendary college basketball coach, John Wooden: “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.” Whether we’re talking about someone’s personal or professional life, what he or she does when no one is watching truly is the ultimate test of character. But what if someone is watching, and we just don't know it? I was working in my home office one rainy Florida day, and happened to look up as our mail carrier pulled up to our mailbox. One package wouldn’t fit in the [...]

When I analyze the level of service an organization delivers, I often start with this question: “Who is managing the customer’s experience?” The answer is often the customer, when it should be the organization that manages the experience. Yes, I know that many customers choose self-service options and want to handle everything themselves. But I believe that’s usually a result of poorly designed processes that aggravate customers to the point that they simply prefer to do things themselves. Here are some recent personal examples of the customer (me) hav [...]

In this video I showcase the world-famous Pike's Place Fish Market as an example of taking a routine task (selling fish) and turning it into an experience that delights customers. [...]

Most of us have had an idea for a project that we’re passionate about, only to be met with resistance in the form of, “The timing isn’t right.” The timing excuse might have to do with the economic situation, the labor market, competition, global warming, etc. The list of possible excuses goes on and on. We’re usually told to be patient, the time will soon be right and then the project can go forward at full speed. The right time, of course, never arrives and the project, which might have made a positive difference in the organization, begins to fade and eventually disappears completely. H [...]

I’m always looking for the subtleties that differentiate good customer service from great customer service. And the difference usually is subtle. This example highlights that difference. My son and his girlfriend were doing some grocery shopping, and one of the items on their list was a water filter for a sink. After a few minutes of searching, they approached a store employee for help. Let’s freeze the action at this “moment of truth.” Their interaction with the employee could’ve gone in one of four directions: Option 1 [...]

Do little courtesies, like a handwritten note to a customer, really have an impact on customer loyalty? If the product is bad and the processes consistently poor, then the answer is likely to be no. In the long-term, small courtesies won't make up for a dysfunctional business model. But when the product is good and the processes are customer-friendly, little touches like this can lock in an emotional connection between the customer and the organization. My wife's nephew, Ryan, recently sent me the following note: I had to share this story with you. A couple weeks ago I ordered a speaker for my home theater [...]

How many times have you been told by a cable company, delivery service, or appliance repair company that they will be at your home sometime between 1PM and 4PM? And how many times have you waited, only to have the service person arrive later than promised or not arrive at all? Staying home for a half-day, and perhaps having to repeat the experience due to a no-show service person is one of the truly frustrating customer experiences nearly everyone can relate to. For some it can also be extremely costly because they’re taking time off of work to be on “standby.” I&rsqu [...]

For me, college was a long, long time ago. And contrary to what we often tell our children as they head off to the world of higher education, it wasn’t the most enjoyable time of my life. Other than my freshman year, that is, at the University of Vermont. That’s the year I almost flunked out because I spent more time skiing than I did in class or studying. That year was a ball. But it was clear my college career would be short indeed if something didn’t change. After moving to Orlando to work at Walt Disney World, I became a “non-traditional student” at the University of Central Florida. [...]

Is there someone in your organization (colleague, boss, employee) who did something good this past week that you may have neglected to thank? A sincere thanks is a great way to start the weekend! [...]

Who hasn't, at least once, dreamed of quitting a job in a dramatic, memorable way? Something about a flashy exit seems so satisfying. And along comes the viral story of the now-famous JetBlue flight attendant setting a new bar for saying goodbye to his job. I've seen many stories and blog posts from flight attendants and other workers hailing the guy as a hero. But I have to admit that when I read the story, I had a knot in my stomach. I knew that some reading the story [...]

One of my all-time favorite movies is, “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The film kept me on the edge of my seat. While the fight and chase scenes were exciting, I found the scenes of the archaeological digs to be especially engaging. When Jones found and explored the desert chamber I felt like I was right there with him. As he made discovery after discovery, I thought, what a thrill it must be to discover something that has been hidden for thousands of years. I have always been fascinated by the work of archaeologists. They are able to take physical artifacts of ancient civilizations and construct a rich portrai [...]

Why does JetBlue Airways like to hire flight attendants who are former New York City police officers and fire fighters? A recent Wall Street Journal article, "From the NYPD to JetBlue," by Scott McCartney, provides a wonderful example of an organization that understands right fit talent. "...it dawned on recruiters that people who had been through emergencies routinely wouldn't panic onboard airplanes." "...They know how to handle [...]

I guess I'll never be known as the "Wizard of Wall Street," because for the life of me, I can't figure out how Wall Street works. I try, but I just can't get it. Latest example: Amazon.com's stock price tumbled 13% yesterday because second quarter profit missed analysts' projections. If the news stopped there, I'd understand. But the news didn't stop there. Amazon.com's earnings are UP 45% and revenue is UP 41% from a year ago. Keep in mind that the Dow is up "only" 13.8% and S&P 500 is up "only" 12% during the same period. But missing analyst projections apparently trumps what seems to be strong performan [...]

A couple of years ago I wrote about some of the struggles Home Depot was experiencing, along with some recommendations for reclaiming the positive brand image they once commanded in the minds of customers - Sacrificing Customer Service – Lessons from Home Depot. Blogger Alan Gregerman sent me a link to one of his posts in which he states, “This is g [...]

As a frequent flyer, I have been on a quest to pack as economically as possible. I can’t remember the last time I had to check a bag, and those items I pack in my carry-on bag are carefully chosen to take up as little space as possible. I get giddy whenever I come across a gadget that’s smaller than the one I currently carry. I don’t care how much it costs, if it’s smaller it’s better, and I buy it. I often joke that my goal is to travel with only what I have in my pockets – 5 day trip. Spirit Airlines apparently wants to help me achieve my goal. First, airlines bega [...]

Southwest Airlines has been my favorite airline for a long time - I've written about them often in this blog and talk about them often in my speeches. I'm a Southwest fan not only because of positive experiences, but also because their success and almost cult-like following has been a great case study as a speaker and consultant. But I've noticed a disturbing trend over the last several flights I've had with them. It seems that more and more of their employees have adopted what I would call an "attitude of arrogance." Since most interactions are with flight attendants, this trend has been most noticeable with them. Wh [...]

This blog post will start out in an unusual way - a description of a funeral. It may seem at first to be a departure from my focus on customer service, but please stay with me; there's a point to what I'm writing about. Last weekend I attended the funeral of a former Disney colleague, John "Scooter" Huller. He lived a very full 84 years and, based on the stories shared during the funeral, was a well-loved human being. I met Scooter in the mid 1980s when I was a supervisor in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. Scooter was the manager of Special Events, responsible for providing support for all of the logis [...]

I just finished a series of customer service programs for the employees of TWC Services, a commercial equipment service company. A branch manager made a comment during one of the sessions that made me stop and think about how businesses and employees deal with challenging situations - customer service issues or otherwise. The manager, Jim Oakley, said to the group, "When dealing with any situation, it's important to understand the difference between responding and reacting. When we respond," Jim continued, "there is some thought behind our actions. When we react, we're just making it u [...]

Several of my previous blog posts have focused on the differences between employees who do their jobs with a "task mentality" versus employees who do their jobs with an "experience mentality." I stress this topic so heavily because it is at the heart of what separates great service providers from the rest of the pack. Those employees who focus on creating great experiences make customers feel welcome and valued. Those who focus on merely completing tasks make customers feel processed. The word that bridges the gap between a task mentality and an experience mentality is presence. In order to create a posi [...]

Every job requires a special blend of skills and talents if the job is to be done masterfully.  At the Starbucks near my home, one of the "baristas" epitomizes the concept of right fit talent.  While all of the baristas do a fine job, James stands out through his uncanny knowledge of customer names and their favorite beverages.  While Starbucks emphasizes this in their training, James takes it way beyond what can be trained.  He prepares beverages for customers even before they walk in the door, having seen them walking in from the parking lot.  He knows the names of customers' family mem [...]

A sense of purpose has an amazing impact on job performance. When we see a purpose behind the tasks we do, everything takes on an importance that might not be so obvious otherwise. A client recently sent me a story that powerfully reinforces the impact a sense of purpose has on performance. The story is about a group of ironworkers and how they bring smiles to faces that might not have a lot to smile about. These ironworkers are involved in building a new cancer center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. It's a construction job. Each day the children who come to the current cancer center write their names on [...]

I was sitting next to a warm fireplace in the lobby of a Virginia hotel this morning, enjoying a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper. Several other hotel guests were doing the same. Two men entered the lobby and sat down near the rest of us, sitting across the table from each other. It quickly became apparent that the purpose of their meeting was a job interview, as one of the men started lobbing pointed questions at the other. It wasn't that I was purposely listening in; the conversation was so loud that no one in the room could help hearing what was going on. The interviewer's entire demeanor w [...]

The customer service example below comes from Springfield Clinic, a wonderful organization I've mentioned in my blog before. There are two things I appreciate in this example: 1. It demonstrates that opportunities to truly wow customers are all around us. It might not be possible to take advantage of every opportunity every time, but when we can - we should. You can bet that the customers in this story will remember the kind gesture forever, and imagine how many friends and family they've shared the story with. 2. It demonstrates a commitment to sharing great service stori [...]

When proposing a customer service improvement plan for your organization, one of the questions you're likely to get is, "What will it add to our bottom line?" So many factors influence the actual impact of a service initiative that it's hard to give a specific number. I can point to past successes, but even then it's hard to make a prediction. What's happening in the economy? How well does the organization follow through on the initiative? What's the competitive environment like? What other operational and financial issues is the company up against? So, while it's hard to say "if we do this, we'll add $X to our bottom [...]

My publisher, Dennis McClellan (DC Press) sent me a blog post yesterday that stopped me in my tracks. It's written by Quint Studer, who is one of the premiere consultants in the healthcare industry, and brilliantly addresses the issue of accountability. I could elaborate on the article here, but there's nothing to add. Please check out (and pass along) his article,  [...]

Not long ago I received a comment from a program participant stating, "I'm tired of hearing Southwest Airlines, Nordstrom, and Ritz Carlton examples in every customer service speech. Why do all speakers seem to highlight the same companies?" The answer, of course, is that these companies consistently do the things that make them good examples! It's hard to argue with success and these as well as a few other companies have pretty good track records. Why not learn from what they've done to reach the point where they're regularly held up as examples of excellence? This is all a build up to another Southwest Airli [...]

One of my all-time favorite leadership quotes comes from Tom Peters: "The problem isn't that your people don't know what you're doing; the problem is that your people do know what you're doing." Employees know what their leaders value simply by observing their actions. When a leader says something is important and yet his or her behaviors contradict their words, behaviors will trump the words. If, for example, a leader says treating people with respect is a company value while regularly and publicly chewing out employees, chewing out employees will quickly become an acc [...]

Due to a mechanical problem on a United Airlines flight departing from Orlando last Sunday, I was informed, along with the rest of the passengers, that we would be delayed five hours (!?!). Because I would miss my connecting flight I went to United's lounge to make other arrangements. I'll spare you the details, but the agent was unhelpful and quite arrogant. She kept saying, "I can't" to everything I was politely asking her to do. All I got was, "I can't." Concerned I would be a no-show for the speech I was to give the next morning I did what I always do in a panic situation. I called my wife Debbie and within a [...]

What a wild few weeks we've had. It seems like the economic bad news just keeps coming. Bank failures, talk of a global recession, the economic bailout (or rescue depending on who you listen to). The whole mess makes you hesitate to pick up the newspaper or turn on CNN. With all of the doom and gloom, it's only natural for employees to worry about their jobs and for business owners to worry about staying in business. But I have another fear that may seem trivial in comparison, but is very legitimate when considering the long-term prospects of any organization. My fear is that companies will panic and cut elements of t [...]

Recently I spoke at a conference of the Travel Industry Association. I arrived a couple of days into the meeting and noticed a buzz going around about something that happened earlier. I caught snippets of the situation, but got the full story after my speech. During one of the meals on the first day of the conference, an attendee asked a server if he could have a Red Bull energy drink with his meal. It wasn't a typical request, but the server said she would see what she could do. Sure enough, a few minutes later she came back with a covered platter, and with a flourish uncovered the can of Red Bull. Eve [...]

With such news headlines as "Odds of Recession Seen Rising" (Wall Street Journal Online) and "Consumer Crunch: The Day the Spending Stopped" (U.S. News & World Report), it's no wonder that so many executives are wearing long faces. Companies are filing for bankruptcy, or closing their doors completely, at an alarming rate. And many economists predict the trend will continue. Yet despite the doom and gloom, some companies are weathering the storm very well. Indeed, some aren't just surviving, they're thriving. What are the thriving organizations doing that allow them to continue building business [...]

As a customer service speaker and author, I spend most of my time talking or writing about what organizations can do to be better service providers. In this post I thought I'd divert from my usual theme and spend a moment talking about a different, but certainly related subject. Being a better customer. More times than I can count, I've stood in line at a coffee shop, fast food restaurant, or store observing an employee trying to take the order of a customer who is chatting on his or her cell phone. Everything gets slowed down as the customer tries to order and talk on the phone at the same time. The employee often do [...]

Many of you know that JetBlue, the discount airline, recently began charging $7 for pillows and blankets on flights over two hours. While they have received some negative press due to the move, I feel that JetBlue actually implemented the program pretty effectively by connecting the change to increased value. Pretty radical for an airline. Several radio programs have interviewed me on the subject this past week, including the show, "The Small Business Advocate [...]

Assisting an organization with a customer service initiative (or any other organizational development project) can be very rewarding; especially when the leadership team is truly committed to long-term success. When everyone is involved and engaged, amazing results can be achieved. Getting everyone involved, however, can also cause mind-numbing frustration. Anyone who has ever participated on a project team or a steering committee knows that a beast is always there waiting to strike. The beast's name is Project Creep. You know Project Creep has arrived when input from others regarding the initiat [...]

For many organizations, the greatest untapped resource for customer feedback is their call center. The call center handles just about every issue customers experience with your product or service. They handle questions, compliments, complaints, errors, requests, purchases, returns - you get the idea. While there are some companies that truly do mine their call centers for information about customer opinions, most simply track statistics about call volume, length of calls, and issue codes. While these statistics are valuable, they're only the tip of the iceberg. The real value comes from actually li [...]

One of the (if not the) top reasons that I see many customer service initiatives fail to reach their full potential is due to a lack of accountability. Too often managers ignore substandard service performance from an employee (or employees) because the manager is either uncomfortable with confrontation, worried the employee might quit, or they believe they'll handle the problem at performance appraisal time - which is absolutely the worst time to surprise an employee with any performance issue. Another reason I see managers avoid confronting substandard service issues is that they feel the whole c [...]

Starbucks announced last Wednesday that profits for the second quarter fell 28%, blaming the drop on the struggling economy. While I agree that the economy is struggling, I’m not convinced it’s the reason for Starbucks’ current woes. The Starbucks story, of course, is the stuff of legends. Three books about the company have been published in the last twenty-four months alone. I’ve been a fan of the company for years. What they did was to take a commonplace drink, a cup of coffee, and make it something special. I love the quote; “ [...]

Most of us have grown up with the adage, “The customer is always right.” Well, if you’ve been in the real world for any time at all, you know that the customer is often wrong. They didn’t see the sign, read the directions, arrive on time, buy the right part, give the right specifications, etc, etc. Companies screw up often enough, but so do customers. When I was working at Disney World, our philosophy was; “The guest may not always be right, but they will always be our guest.” A Disney colleague, Jim Cunningham, put it better when he said, “The guest may not always be [...]

I was conducting a client service seminar for a law firm recently and one of their attorneys shared a story that illustrates the difference between completing tasks and creating customer experiences. I shared a post about tasks and experiences last week, and this is a perfect example of the concept. At the time of the story, this attorney was working for UPS in their legal office. They were receiving proposals from several law firms for a sizable project, and one of the leading contenders completed a thorough and well-drafted proposal. Wanting to ensure tha [...]

Very few industries have achieved the distinction of being universally despised. The airline industry and a couple of others have come close, but none have succeeded quite like the oil industry. I was watching CNBC this morning and they ran a segment about rising fuel costs. No surprise there since it’s a hot topic right now; but what caught my attention was the news that production is actually being reduced even as we approach increasing demand due to the upcoming Memorial Day holiday and busy summer travel season. The analysts on the program noted that production isn’t being reduced due [...]

A reader recently posted a comment on this blog that said her organization implemented a customer service initiative about a year ago and the executive team was getting anxious for results. Her question was; how long does it take before a company will see the results of a service initiative? Usually a company sees some quick wins early in the initiative as employees are trained on the service principles and possibly implement things right away. True change in a large company (hers is a Fortune 400 company) however, takes 3-5 years. Changing a company’s culture is no small feat – [...]