Want a quick indication of a company’s commitment to customer service? It’s a simple gauge that works just as well for restaurants as it does for retail stores, as for gas stations, as for professional service providers.
Just take a look at the bathroom. No, I’m not kidding. The condition, cleanliness, and comfort of a restroom speak volumes about what a company thinks about its customers (and often, its employees).
Companies that want to be better at customer service will often put a great deal of effort into trying to hire the “right” people. “If we just find the right people, everything will fall into place,” they believe.
It’s true that there are a lot of people out there who view helping others as a calling. And there are people who may not be quite as dedicated, but who genuinely enjoy seeing customers walk away with a smile and a promise to return. But if you simply place even the most well-meaning people into your customer-service settings, you probably won’t get the results you want.
When you operate the largest hotel adjacent one of the nation’s top tourist attractions, you don’t have to do a lot to entice out-of-town travelers to visit. But what do you do during weekends, when the tourist trade isn’t quite so robust?
The Chicago Hilton & Towers Hotel, which sits at the corner of Grant Park, set its sights on the many suburbanites who travel downtown for concerts and other cultural attractions, and Scott Flood created a special tent card to catch their attention.
I called the quick-service restaurant with a large carry-out order, and was told it would be ready at 5:45. At exactly 5:46, I walked in and discovered that nobody had started to prepare my food. The manager muttered an apology and snapped at the crew to get to work, then disappeared from sight.
A smiling teenage employee walked up and said, “Sir, if you’d like to have a seat, I’ll bring your order to you when it’s ready.” I thanked her and declined, primarily because I wanted to watch the kitchen crew prepare my food. I’m funny that way, especially after the cooks have just been scolded.
Put a brochure or a magazine in front of you. Now take your index finger, and tap it repeatedly. Does anything happen? Aside from the object developing a slight dimple and you receiving some kind of repetitive stress injury, that is?
Microsoft Word is a dandy piece of software that has many helpful tricks. One of those tricks is automatically turning website and email addresses into hyperlinks and giving them a pretty blue color. When you’re exchanging documents online, that can be handy, because you can use your mouse (or finger on a tablet) to connect with that link.
Businesses and organizations often struggle to understand why they’re not performing as well as they’d like. In many cases, the answer is a lot closer than they realize. If they took time to talk with … and genuinely listen to … their customers, they would develop a much stronger understanding of what they’re doing right, and what needs to be improved.
In his landmark book The Customer-Driven Company, Richard Whiteley cites many successful companies that aggressively pursue input from customers, and then build what they’ve learned back into their products and processes.
At a time when new technologies seem to appear every day, most folks are becoming overwhelmed. While they’re impressed by all the new features and opportunities, and while many can see at least some of how these new advances will benefit them, the sheer volume of information is pushing a growing number of people into overload.
How can you help people understanding something new and unfamiliar without overwhelming them? A tried-and-true tactic is to connect that unfamiliar object or process with something that’s very familiar and quite simple. It’s a tactic effective copywriters have used for decades, and it’s even more applicable today, because it can help to overcome resistance to new ideas.
Being an established business or organization can easily cut both ways. On the one hand, longevity can inspire confidence and respect. But on the other, it can easily saddle you with an image that’s old-fashioned and stodgy.
That’s a particular problem for community-based banks. While they may be the bedrock of their communities, many have been slow to modernize and embrace technologies that their aggressive big-city counterparts have promoted.
One of the most common questions I hear from non-writers is “How do you get started?” They have something that they want to put down on paper, or something they have to write for a job, and they sit and stare at that unfriendly cursor, unable to type the first word. They assume that someone who writes for a living would know some sort of magic trigger to get that first sentence underway.
I don’t, but I’ll let you in on a secret: I don’t usually start at the beginning. No matter what I’m writing — whether it’s an article, a website, an ad, or a blog post — I usually start somewhere in the middle.
Three cheers for the companies that are dedicated to developing the new and the exciting! The companies that aren’t satisfied with what’s already available, or who have recognized an entirely new way to accomplish something. The companies that are constantly focused staying at the forefront of their industries. If you run (or work for) one of those companies, I’d take my hat off to you (if I wore a hat).
But when you take on the mantle of “innovator,” you also assume the responsibility of an educator. That’s because when you stake out new territory, it’s new to everyone else, too. The advantages and superiority of your new approach may be obvious to you, but they may not be quite as clear to the rest of the world.