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Category: Customer Expectations

Another Basic to Wow Example

I got a couple emails asking for more examples of Basic to Wow customer service against which you can measure your own business.

Here’s one for the simple act of greeting a customer at the front door…

Basic Customer Service: Look up from your station and say “Hello” to everyone who walks through the door.

Good Customer Service: Spice it up with a hearty welcome (and actually mean it).

Great Customer Service: Get out from behind the cashwrap. Greet the customer by name. Speak to their kids.

WOW Customer Service: Hold open the door (especially for people pushing strollers or wheel chairs). Offer to hang up their coats. Greet them like a friend. Chat casually with them, not about why they are there but what’s up in their lives. Ask about the previous purchases they have made (what do you mean you don’t know?). Customers love to know they have been recognized and remembered. Give them all the time they need to decompress and feel comfortable before getting to the business at hand.

Exceeding customer expectations is your goal. That’s what makes people talk positively about you. Simply meet their expectations and at best you’ll get a “Thanks”. But when you go way beyond what they expect, they’ll tell their friends about you.

WOW Customer Service exceeds their expectations every time. It is as much an attitude as a skill.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If your staff doesn’t already have that attitude there are only two reasons. Either you aren’t modeling and teaching it, or they just don’t have it in them. More often than not it’s the former. But don’t be afraid to cut loose those who don’t have it in them.

The No List

Carole Bernstein owns Get Smart! Carole Bernstein is Smart.

She works on her business as much or more than she works in her business. But she still keeps a pulse on what is happening in her business at all times with a clever communication tool used by all her staff.

I don’t know for sure what she calls it, but I call it the “No List”.

At the end of every shift her staff are required to fill out a worksheet that includes every request to which they said “No” that day.

Think about that for a moment…

What if you knew every time your staff said, “No, we are out-of-stock”?
What if you knew every request a customer made for a product that you did not carry?
What if you knew about a service for which multiple customers were asking but you didn’t offer?
What if you knew exactly what your customers expected but didn’t get?

Would you be a better retailer with this information? Of course you would. And Carole just showed you how to get it.

That’s why I love attending good conferences and meeting smart retailers.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Not sure how to train your staff to communicate with you in this way or any other way you choose? Check out my free eBook Staff Meetings Everyone Wants to Attend and the accompanying worksheet. You’ll have your staff fired up and wanting to learn more in no time at all.

If You’re Gonna Do It, Do It Better Than Everyone Else

Today at Toy House we launched our Birthday Club.

We looked into what our competitors were doing and figured out we could do a whole lot better.

Our biggest competitor offers a small gift certificate of $3.
So we offered $10.
Their gift certificate had a strict time limit.
Ours has (virtually) none.
Their program ends when the kid turns 10.
Ours has no limit. Yes, even adults can sign up!

Then, for fun, we installed a Birthday Bell in the store. When a Birthday Club member comes in, he or she gets to ring the Birthday Bell to let everyone in the store know he or she is celebrating.

Oh sure, we have some ulterior motives in all of this. All such programs do. Here are the benefits we hope to reap.

  • More traffic in store. You have to come in to sign up and you have to come in to redeem the gift certificate and ring the bell.

  • More information. You have to give us your mailing address and there is a place to opt-in to our email list, too.

  • More fun and excitement. Ringing the bell in the store adds to the in-store experience for everyone.

  • More memories. Will you remember a $3 gift? Heck, some of our Facebook friends said it wasn’t enough to even get them in that other store. A $10 gift certificate means you can get something of value. Add it in with other money they received and the gift becomes even more special.

  • More sales. Yes, we expect to reap some incremental sales from this. The kid with birthday cash can go anywhere. The kid with birthday cash and a Toy House gift certificate is coming to see us.

  • More exposure. Word of mouth? You bet! Plenty to talk about. The size of the gift certificate. The Birthday Bell. The fact that adults can join (and the added benefit of reminding people that we carry toys for all ages.)

We could have copied the other store. But that isn’t us. We’re bigger than that. We’re better than that. You are too!

Is your competitor doing something positive that you aren’t? See how you can do it better than them, and blow them out of the water.

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If you would like details of how we’re running this program, how we’re marketing it, or anything else regarding it, send me an email.

The Importance of Fun

Are your employees having fun?

Do they enjoy coming to work every day? Do they smile, laugh and play? Do they make the tedious jobs seem fun and exciting? Do they brighten up the entire store?

Or do they drag themselves to work at the last possible moment? Do they start each day with a bitch session about last night’s issues with the kids, or yesterday’s customers, or just life in general? Do they roll their eyes when you suggest something to keep them busy?

If you’re a retailer, you have to have a fun place to visit. There are too many options for customers to have to go to someplace they dread. And that fun attitude starts with your staff.

Here are some things you can do to foster fun amongst the staff:

  • Hire fun people. Seems obvious, but are you willing to fire the sourpusses and start over?

  • Encourage fun on the job. Have games for the staff to play. Get products out for the staff to demo. Help your staff become experts by making them use the products you sell. Do something unusually fun on the sales floor, maybe even out of character for your industry like a TV in a jewelry store.

  • Encourage fun in the training. Make meetings and trainings fun by finding fun ways to teach. Have surprises, pleasant surprises, at meetings and trainings such as prizes, guests, food, or just unexpected activities.

Yeah, for me it’s easy. I have a toy store. It’s supposed to be fun. But even in a toy store I have to foster that atmosphere of fun consciously. And the more I foster it, the more fun it becomes.

Make fun a priority in your store and your customers will respond. And that’s the most fun of all!

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Fun can work in any retail situation. What it would be like for the guys if the jewelry store had a TV showing sports channels and all the sales people were having a good time? How about a grocery store with tasting stations and experts on grilling techniques that had serious passion and a light-hearted good nature? Or a hardware store where you could swing a bunch of hammers to see how each one is different while the staff egged you on to hit harder?

How to Remain Special

The independent retailers are often called Specialty Retailers because rather than carry a wide swath of departments, we specialize in one or two general niches.

Specialty was also a way of saying we offered a little more in the way of a shopping experience, something special that the discounters couldn’t offer, that the department stores couldn’t match.

Our stores truly were Special.

  • Special products not found everywhere.

  • Special services not matched by our competitors.

  • Special experiences enhanced by our staff.

Of course, those last two things cost money. Thanks to the margins on the first item, our special products, we could afford them.

But those margins are disappearing fast. The product that used to be found only in specialty stores is all over the Internet. Some of it is even on the shelves of gas stations and pharmacies. While the cost of those goods continues to rise, the retail price holds steady or shrinks.

Without that margin many specialty retailers are finding it hard to afford those services that made them special. But to compete, we have to hold the line. We have to find ways to keep our stores Special.

The best way to remain Special is to focus on your staff, on the frontline folks who make or break the experience for the customer.

It starts with hiring great people. It moves forward by constantly teaching and training them, never getting complacent.

Whatever you do, don’t give up being special. Start by making your staff special and the other stuff will fall into line. And don’t worry about the special products and lost margin. This is just a cycle we’re going through. They’ll be back soon enough.

Phil
http://www.philsforum.com/

PS In the meantime, there are some simple things you can do to make your prices look better and help you move some more merchandise. Check out my free eBook Pricing for Profit.

Convenience Versus Experience

A Convenience Store is always located on the easiest side of the road to pull in or pull out, no-hassle driving.

An Experience Store has you drooling with anticipation as you wait at the light to pull in.

A Convenience Store carries all the same merchandise you would expect to find anywhere, the most popular items, the most requested items.

An Experience Store is full of unique and wonderful treasures, amazing merchandise you haven’t seen.

A Convenience Store is open early and late, enough hours to be there exactly when you need it.

An Experience Store is open long enough for you to be able to take the time to explore all those treasures leisurely and when it fits in your schedule.

A Convenience Store has a staff that knows where everything is, and can get you through checkout in a hurry.

An Experience Store has a staff that also knows what everything is and how each product fits or doesn’t fit in your lifestyle, an can also get you through checkout in a hurry (because when the shopping is done, there’s no time to waste).

A Convenience Store wants your trips to be quick, painless, anonymous.

An Experience Store wants your trips to be comfortable, engaging, and relational.

A Convenience Store treats the customers as transactions, maximizing speed in the process.

An Experience Store treats the customers as people, maximizing comfort in the process.

A Convenience Store is measured by how little time you want to spend there.

An Experience Store is measured by how much time you want to spend there.

A Convenience Store is on the way to or from a Destination Store.

An Experience Store is a Destination Store.

Whichever you choose, now you know what is expected and what you need to do.

-Phil

Don’t Bring Me Down

At the trailer on the Manistee River where my family spent many a summer vacation there was a printed piece of fabric full of cliches. I loved reading those phrases and spent many a night asking my dad to explain what they meant.

One of my favorites was “Before you run in double harness, look well to the other horse.”

There is a reason we haven’t done a lot of collaboration marketing and promotions. Quite often the other horse wasn’t up to our speed. We weren’t willing to use (lose) our reputation because of an inferior partner.

We are All in Double Harness
The Shop Local movement has challenged all that. To get the benefits of a Shop Local campaign we have to allow ourselves to be defined under the umbrella of all local businesses. We have to allow ourselves to be defined by the local florist, the local shoe store, the local tailor, and many other businesses over which we have no influence or control.

That’s scary.

Especially when I read stories about local retailers failing their customers like this one by Rick Segal, this one by Cinda Baxter or this one by Bob Phibbs.

I’m not sure I want to run in harness with all those other businesses.

At the same time, however, I really don’t have a choice. The Shop Local movement is here to stay, whether it gains a lot of momentum in our area or not. We also face the issue of being defined as a downtown business, so I’m lumped in with all other downtown businesses and the perceptions they are giving customers (good or bad). And I’m a specialty toy retailer and specialty baby product retailer.

That’s a lot of horses tied together. And if we all run well, we can travel far. But if we don’t…

I’m Counting on You, You’re Counting on Me
We are in double harness whether we like it or not. And it raises the stakes for all of us. Not only do we have to do right by the customer for our own sake, we have to do it for every other retail channel we represent.

Makes you realize that more customer service training isn’t such a bad idea after all.

-Phil

Turning Nouns into Verbs

My friend, Rick Wilson DMD, is writing a novel.

The story features a wonderful brewery in England called Gack & Bacon Brewery, established in the 16th century, now fighting off its conglomerate rival, Slore’s. (Their motto? “It’s beer.”)

Gack & Bacon has an in-house pub called the Pig & Trebuchet. In a recent post (he’s sharing tidbits online with some of his friends), Rick shared with us a little of the magic of the Pig & Trebuchet – The Bad Table.

Every restaurant has one, that table by the kitchen or bathroom (or both) that has the built-in annoyances. No one wants to sit at the Bad Table. But the P&T leadership turned that negative into a positive by making the table special for all who sit there. Special menu, special visitors, special activities. Always some little surprise and delight.

And people come in asking to sit at the Bad Table. My favorite line from this part of the story reads…

…”I’ve been Bad Tabled,” was even local slang for being surprised by something excellent and unexpected…


How do you take a negative noun and turn it into a positive verb? The key is in the phrase surprised by something excellent and unexpected.

What are you doing to turn around a negative associated with your business with something excellent and unexpected?

  • If parking is an issue, do you offer a valet service?

  • If price is the driver of all purchases, do you have a lower priced item (from which you can upsell)?

  • If location is an issue do you have billboards or wall signs directing people where to go?

  • If convenience is an issue, do you go out of your way to make the experience memorable?

At this morning’s meeting my staff and I decided we are going to turn Toy House into a verb. To be Toy Housed is to be pleasantly surprised and delighted in such a way that you have to smile. We’ll accomplish that by first doing four things:

  1. Play More

  2. Listen More

  3. Ask More

  4. Know More

I’ll let you know when Merriam-Webster puts it in their dictionary.

-Phil

Surgery on Hold Because of Trust

I was supposed to have surgery last Friday. The appointment was canceled while I got a second opinion from a highly regarded doctor in the same field.

Now I know why the doctor is so highly regarded.

A Second Opinion
Quick background: I scheduled a surgery with a doctor in whom I had trust from our initial meetings, but not a lot of knowledge and history. So I had a friend who works at the hospital do a little asking around. This doctor is new to the practice, but certainly not inexperienced. But few people knew enough about him to have an opinion. They all universally raved about the other doc, however, so I scheduled a second opinion with her.

Then she told me something that blew my mind.

“If you are going to have the surgery, you should have [the other doctor] do it. He gets better results than I do.”

This is an expensive operation, one they both have done many times. And she told me to have him do it. Can you imagine what guts it takes for a doctor to tell someone that another doctor is better at a certain procedure?

And can you imagine what trust she just earned from me?

Put Their Needs First
There is a credibility you gain when you are honest. There is a credibility you gain from promoting someone or something other than yourself when you know it is in the best interest of your client.

You may have heard some retail expert tell you to never recommend another store. You may also have watched the movie Miracle on 34th Street and know that is bad advice.

The bottom line is that when you put the needs of the customer ahead of your own needs, you win her trust, which is often more important in the long run than her immediate business.

-Phil

PS Surgery is scheduled again with doc #1. But we’re trying a non-surgical alternative first. Second opinions are always worth the time and effort – especially with a doctor who has earned your trust.

The Weatherman’s Curse

Once again the storm wasn’t what we expected. Depending on your source, we braced for 3, 4, 5 or even 6 inches of snow last night.

At best I shoveled an inch and a half off the drive before heading to work this morning

My boys were devastated. They had already put their brains into “snow day” mode. Right now they hate weathermen (as do all their teachers who have rooms full of snow day kids).

The poor weatherman has over-promised and under-delivered once again.

Fortunately for him, however, he gets to keep his job. We don’t often get that second chance.

Mistakes Happen
If you have a retail store it happens. You will over-promise and under-deliver. Maybe it is a special order that didn’t arrive in a timely fashion. Maybe it is a product that wasn’t as advertised. Maybe it was a bad day for one of your employees and the great customer service you advertise wasn’t there.

How do you handle those moments?

I think the best thing to do is say, “I’m sorry. We made a mistake.”

No matter whose fault it is, no matter that you did everything right but your vendor failed you, your shipping company goofed, or your employee was totally misunderstood, it is still your mistake. So own it.

The customer doesn’t care about all that other stuff, the excuses. She put her trust in you and you failed her. So say you’re sorry, admit you made a mistake, then go about trying to fix it. That’s all she wants.

  • An apology
  • An admission of guilt
  • A solution

Give her those three things and I promise you the sun will come up tomorrow. Heck, I’m certain of it. My weatherman told me it would.

-Phil