You Can't Send a Duck To Eagle School

The world's greatest mechanic, if he's gruff, rough, and rude, is unfit to work in residential service.

Can You Afford To Be Generous?

Photo: powerbooktrance
On the drive to work, I swung by Starbucks. I stop by this particular Starbucks fairly often, but not enough for me to recognize any of their employees. The only clue to the amount of money Starbucks sucks out of me was my use of a Starbucks logoed mug, which was a gift.

I asked for the bold coffee. The barista rang up the order and took my mug to rince it out. She returned to sadly inform me that the bold wasn't ready. It would take another three minutes. Or, she offered, I could have Pike Place now.

In truth, three minutes is no big deal. I can pull out my phone and easily spend ten times that about amusing myself with Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, email, or one of the blogs I follow. Shoot, in a normal restaurant it takes a multiple of three minutes to catch the wait staff's attention (though servers always seem to be Johnny-on-the-spot when I don't want anything).

But I didn't want to wait three minutes this morning. I smiled and said, "Oh, just give me the Pike Place."

She cheerfully filled my mug and when I started to pay, refused to accept it. She said, "This one's on us."

A free cup of coffee isn't like winning the lottery, but it still felt good. A McDonald's is located about a quarter mile away. I doubt McDonald's would give me a free cup of coffee, though McDonald's promises coffee for less.

Photo: Robert Couse-Baker

Honestly, the margin in coffee is high enough that McDonald's has plenty of room to give a cup away now and then, but I doubt management looks at it that way. I suspect they think they're offering a generous price and nothing more is needed. At least, that's what their marketing suggests.

By charging more, Starbucks has more room to be more generous. Even though I pay higher prices at Starbucks, I feel like I'm treated better. Starbucks seems friendlier and more caring.

Coffee's not the same as in-home service, but it's still part of the service industry. Scale the principle and it can work for your company.

Do you charge enough that you can afford to make a generous gesture from time to time?

Tips on Empowering Service Workers

The following video, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, features Thunderbird School of Global Management professor David Bowen talking about ways companies can empower frontline service workers.

Mabel & The Wal-Mart Greeter

I love the local Kroger. It's close enough to walk to, though I always drive. It's got great produce, dozens of cheeses, an olive bar, hard to find food from around the world, a decent selection of meat, poultry, fish, shellfish, bread, beer, and wine. The prices are competitive. The staff is mostly high school kids who are invariably pleasant, energetic, and helpful. Except for Mabel (not her real name).

Mabel strikes me as... bitter. While the kids are kids, Mable is either older than I am or has lived a really hard life so that she appears older than I am. Maybe she resents having to work in a store with kids young enough to call her grandma. Who knows the reason. Or cares.

The point is that in a store with great service and helpful people, Mabel is the opposite. Where the kids call someone for a price check or give the customer the benefit of the doubt, Mabel doubts the customer, even for trivial amounts. While the kids apologize for the imposition of asking for an ID when the customer writes a check, Mabel treats the mere fact that customers want to write a check as an imposition.

As a shopper, Mabel makes you feel bad for shopping at Kroger and bothering her. She shows her irritation with a sneer, curl of the lip, exasperated sigh, and more. Worse than the attitude she shows customers is the potential that her attitude might infect the kids.

Mabel is poison. If left in place, sooner or later she will poison someone else. Then the disease will spread and the store will suffer.

The competition is waiting. Two miles to the east and two miles to the west are Tom Thumb stores, Kroger's top local competitors. Both stores have upgraded after the Kroger opened. Two miles to the north is a Sprouts, with better quality food, though less selection.

The perfect contrast is the Wal-Mart on the other side of town. The great Stubie Doak relayed his experience buying groceries at Wal-Mart.

Upon entering the store, Stubie grabbed a shopping cart.

"I was saving that cart just for you," exclaimed the Wal-Mart greeter with a smile.

"Well thank you," replied Stubie. "It's perfect."

Stubie said the greeter extended his hand. Stubie shook it and the greeter said, "I bet you're the type of person who never has a bad day."

Stubie said he felt great the rest of the day. In fact, he considered asking the greeter if he would adopt him.

Do you have any Mabels or Wal-Mart greeters on your team? Each affects those around them. Each affects the desire of your customers to do business with you again.

Telephone Customer Service Fundamentals

This is a great presentation to review with your CSRs and dispatchers on customer service over the phone. The only beef I have is the admonition to avoid ever telling the customer, "I don't know."

It's okay to say, "I don't know," as long as it's followed by, "But I'll find out."

Watch the presentation in full screen...

Would You Rather Call a Strange Plumber or Visit a Strange Mosque?

I saw this whine by Jenny Allen and found some truth in it...

Our house is an old farmhouse, and it has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, except the shower in the upstairs bathroom doesn't work. The shower per se works, but if you use it water streams from the ceiling down below into the living room, and then you have to stick a bucket underneath to catch the water. It's like living in a Frank Lloyd Wright house, only with much lower property values. So please limit yourselves to the downstairs
shower. Thanks!

Speaking of the downstairs bathroom, sometimes the toilet doesn't flush. That's because that piece of wire that connects the bulb thing inside the tank to the rod thing sometimes comes unhinged. The wire is actually a replacement for the real piece of hardware; in fact, it's a bit of coat hanger wire that our friend Augusta rigged up when the toilet broke years ago. She got tired of waiting for our plumber, who promised to come and fix it but never did. Just lift the tank and hook it up again.

Try not to call our plumber unless it's an emergency. I'm afraid of our plumber, who barks at me, but plumbers call all the shots here. You do not want to rankle your plumber, because the other plumbers are all tied up, and then you won't have any plumber. Our plumber has been coming to our house longer than I have, which is twenty-six years, and he seems to think I am some kind of interloper, a Janey-come-lately.

"Jeff," I said on the phone when I asked him to come and turn the water on this spring, "I've known you for twenty-six years, and I'd like to ask you a favor."

"Depends what it is."

"I always call you by your name, and you never call me by my name, and I wonder if you could call me by my name."

"I know yah name!"

"Well, thank you for turning the water on," I said.

"All right," he said, and hung up.

Jeff's phone number is on the attached list of other repair and service people, who will not bark at you but will probably not come. They are too busy in August to come. Whatever the problem, you'll have better luck just fixing it yourself.

"I'm afraid of our plumber, who barks at me," writes Allen.

"Whatever the problem, you'll have better luck just fixing it yourself," she adds.

Wow. Is there any more damning criticism of the state of service companies than that? I think a large segment of the DIY market exists not out of consumer cheapness, but that consumers perceive it's simply easier to fix it yourself.

Calling a contractor, for most people, is unsettling. It's filled with uncertainty and unknown.

• Will you get a responsive company that will treat you well?
  
  
• Will the serviceperson be pleasant or gruff, treating you like an idiot?
  
  
• What kind of person will show up? Will he or she be honest?
  
  
• How long will it take to get someone to show up?
  
  
• Will someone arrive when promised or will you wait and wait and wait?
  
  
• Will the work take days to complete?
  
  
• Will it be done right the first time, or will you have to call the company back again and again?
  
  
• Will the serviceperson make a mess and not clean up?
  
  
• Will you get ripped off?
  
  
• Will you know what the costs are before the work begins or will you get an unpleasant surprise?
  
  
• Will there be an unpleasant conflict?

These are some of the questions that cross consumers' minds. Your marketing should address these issues. You should address them on your website, in your yellow pages ads, and in your direct marketing.

Finding a new service company is unpleasant and unsettling. To give you a sense of the discomfort, imagine walking into a church, temple, or mosque during services for the first time. That feeling of unease is similar to the consumer's feeling of unease when calling you.

Now, imagine a friend recommends his or her church/temple/mosque. The friend tells you what to expect, how to act, and what to wear. You might still approach the service with trepidation, but you would feel much better about. Your friend's attended and survived. You can too.

It's similar when a friend recommends a service company. This is why people turn to friends and neighbors first when looking for companies. This is why referral marketing, affinity marketing, and social media are so important for service companies.

Let's say you know the pastor/rabbi/imam from a civic club. You mention something about he pastor/rabbi/imam about attending a service and receive a warm welcome and personal invitation. You feel much better about attendance.

Similarly, people who know you personally, as the owner of a company, are going to feel far more at ease calling your company for service. This is why it's so important to get involved in civic clubs, networking groups, the chamber of commerce, and more. The more people you know, the more opportunities you will create. And to make sure everyone knows what you do, always wear logoed shirts.

And when you are fortunate enough to be invited into someone's home, act like a guest. Be polite. Be friendly. Be helpful.

It's hard to imagine a worse example of service than Jenny Allen's plumber, Jeff. The guy's been serving her home for more than a quarter century and the upstairs shower is unusable. The toilet downstairs doesn't flush and was jury-rigged years ago.

What do you bet Jeff is the type of tradesperson who sips coffee at the supply house, complaining about his customers, griping about DIY, moaning about how cheap people are, and lamenting his lack of business.

(c) 2009 Matt Michel

The Customer's Voice

Before the advent of the Internet, unhappy consumers would tell their family, friends, and neighbors about their ordeal. The Internet has given consumers a publishing platform that empowers them to tell the world about how they perceive they were treated. Of course, that doesn't mean the world will listen.


Furnace Slam

Slam sites are hardly news. This site has been up since 1997, detailing a consumer's problems with a furnace installation. Is the customer right? Who knows? But reviewing the timeline on the website, it appears that early action might have solved the problem.

Right or wrong, the consumer undoubtedly cost the manufacturer far more than the cost of resolving the problem early. The cost is in lost sales and management time as the consumer got CEOs involved, members of the Board of Directors involved, and even a U.S. Senator involved.

I'm sure the manufacturer's personnel were convinced they were right. If so, they were so right they were wrong and ended up participating in a situation where everyone lost.


Going Viral

Over the last decade, the risk to companies has increased. The ease of shooting and posting video on YouTube and other video sites, in combination with social media, has created the potential for consumer complaints to go viral.

From the window of the plane, musician Dave Carroll witnessed United Airlines baggage handlers slinging the band's guitars. His $3500 Taylor was "severely damaged." Unable to get resolution from the airline (read the full story), Carroll promised to record three songs about United, put them on YouTube, and run a poll.

Here's United Breaks Guitars...


The video has gone viral with more than 4.5 million views in the first month. Yikes!

So United responds (finally), prompting Dave Carroll to record a brief statement...


Did Dave Carroll refuse restitution? It appears so. It turns out he no longer wants anything from United because his video, prepared to hurt United, has done wonders to help his career.

It's similar to the furnace consumer above. Had the manufacturer made their late offer early, the whole thing might have gone away. Had United handled Carroll's damage claim early, 4.5 million people wouldn't have viewed a video on United's propensity to damage luggage and respond with indifference.


Act Early

Acting fast is key. Don't put consumers through an ordeal where the consumer gets his back up and refuses an offer he might have gratefully accepted initially. The longer you delay, the more management time the resolution costs, and the more the entire incident ultimately costs.

And if the customer is wrong? Unless it's an extreme case, it doesn't matter (and even then, it might not matter). Justice is the right thing for your business, which may feel wrong personally.

Create a customer satisfaction account equal to 0.5% to 1.0% of your pricing (raise your prices to cover it and profit from it). When there's a problem, tap into this account. The money's already been accounted and set aside. Use it to make problems go away fast and for less expense.

(c) 2009 Matt Michel