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Getting Internet Customers Back Into Your Store

I did a mash-up of two presentations at an event for the pet store industry last week. I took elements from Selling in a Showrooming World and Generating Word-of-Mouth and put them into a new presentation we called “Getting Internet Customers Back Into Your Store.”

It worked.

One of the reasons it worked so well was because it went beyond Showrooming. Showrooming is less and less of a thing as people are becoming more and more comfortable with shopping online. Customers used to showroom a lot when they didn’t feel they could trust what they saw online, but easy return policies and trustworthy sites are changing that.

Customers are going online first and staying online to buy.

The real issue today is that many people have become so comfortable with shopping online that it is now the default position. They would rather order it from Amazon than stop in and see you or the product.

That’s scary.

The problem is that you and I are partially to blame. Although roughly half of the population would love to shop for reasons other than price (“trust” and “experience” being the two biggest of those reasons), in the absence of those other reasons, price becomes the default, and, right or wrong, Amazon has won the minds of people believing them to be the best price.

ONE BAD EXPERIENCE SPOILS THE WHOLE BUNCH

The real culprit is the collective experience your customers have in all their brick & mortar shopping. Every time they step foot in a store, that store influences whether they keep shopping brick & mortar or go online.

Yes, you get hurt because JCP didn’t train their sales staff very well, because Macy’s cut back on payroll, because Walmart installed self-checkout stands. Yes, you get hurt by experiences out of your control.

How do you win those customers back that are defaulting to the Internet? By doing the kind of things in your store that get people excited, the kind of things that get people talking about you to their friends.

In short, you do the same things you would do to generate Word-of-Mouth advertising.

GO OVER-THE-TOP

Make your services, your events, your store design, your displays, and even the simple little interactions you have with your customers so over-the-top and unexpected that they can’t wait to tell their friends and are already planning their next visit to see you.

There are four words that pretty much define most peoples’ choices for where to shop—Price, Convenience, Trust, and Experience.

All the big chains have been fighting over those first three (well, really, the first one or two) to the detriment of the Experience, not realizing that Experience is the one thing that brick & mortar can always win over the Internet. Plus, Experience is a short path that leads to Trust.

Want to win the Internet customer back to your store? Give her an Experience worth sharing. She’ll be back and will be bringing her friends with her.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS You and I both know Amazon isn’t always the best price. You and I both know the hassles and inconvenience of shipping (lost or stolen packages, missed deadlines, etc.). You and I both know no one cares as much about their customers as you do. No other retailer frets over a mistake or bad experience like an indie retailer. Yet your customers don’t judge you solely on you. You are judged three ways—as yourself, as part of a collective known as “indie retailers”, and as a collective of “brick & mortar stores.” One bad experience in those latter two groups hurts you. Your best defense is to play the Experience card. Play it hard and play it often until you become the unicorn in those other two groups.

PPS Indie Retailers used to own both Trust and Experience. Go read that third paragraph again. I shuddered when I said it last week in the presentation. I shuddered when I wrote it today. If we lose that word to the Internet, it will be a game changer.

How to Get a Block of Time to Work ON Your Business

The phone rings. The email dings. The customer clings. The UPS driver brings.

When you run a retail store, your schedule is not your own. Too many distractions, too many variables, too many interruptions for you to get any kind of time to work ON your business.

It helps to have a clean space to do your work, too.

Yet if you don’t get those orders placed, those forms filled out, those bills processed and paid, you won’t have a business to work on. How do you find the time?

BEFORE AND AFTER

The easiest way is to come in early or stay late. I used to drop my boys off at school at 7:15am and get two whole hours of uninterrupted work before the store opened. I know some retailers who take their work home and do some of it in the evening after the kids are in bed.

Unless you get to leave early or come in late, those time slots make for long days. Use those opportunities accordingly.

HIRE MORE PEOPLE

If you are scheduled to work the sales floor more than 75% of your time at the store, you need to hire another worker ASAP. A part-timer working 10-15 hours a week will give you that much more time to do what you need to do.

If you’re trying to get other work done in between the customers while out on the sales floor then you are NOT giving either your full attention or best service. 

You’re hurting your business if you try to do both at the same time. You’re costing your business the money it would have to pay for that part-timer.

More time to work ON the business means more time for marketing, more time for keeping inventory levels balanced, more time for planning training sessions. All of those lead to more revenue to pay for the extra help and then some.

As long as you …

EMPOWER YOUR EMPLOYEES

Give your employees the skills, the responsibility, and the green light to solve all of your customers’ problems. Let them handle all the unhappy customers who want to speak to a manager.

Teach your employees how to handle cold calls (which ones to blow off, which ones to reschedule, etc.). I had a hard, fast rule on cold calls. If you stopped by my business and this was the only time I could sign up for your program, then I didn’t want it. Period. Anything that has to be decided “under the gun” is never going to be in your favor.

Let your staff know you are in a block of undisturbed time. No phone calls forwarded, no cold calls, no customer complaints, no “quick questions”. Take a message for later. (Note: give them parameters for what is a reasonable reason for a disturbance such as a visit from government officials or the police, a friend in the store from out-of-town, a car crashing through the front window, etc.)

LABEL YOUR TIME

When you make your schedule, label your time. It doesn’t have to be labeled publicly, but you need to label it internally so that you know your priority for each block. It could be something general like “Order Writing” or more specific like, “Order LEGO.”

The better you label your blocks, the more productive you will be.

While it has been scientifically proven that we cannot truly multi-task, some people are better at switching gears back and forth between projects and interruptions than others. Even if you are blessed with that skill, your business will be even more blessed when you build blocks of time solely for the purpose of working ON your business.

Now you know how.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I liked two-hour windows of time. Two solid hours is a long time for you to do one thing. After that your production will decrease over time. If you can get two of those blocks a day, you’ll be amazed how much you can accomplish.

I’ll Get Right Back to You

You know those little red numbers on your iPhone? The ones telling you how many unread emails and texts you might have? I hate those numbers. I am obsessed with getting rid of them.

You should be, too.

I know you’re already too busy. You barely have enough time to read this blog. You find value in it, so you make the time.

Sending back quick acknowledgement emails doesn’t seem to have the same value so you don’t make the time. But it does.

Not counting spam, most of your emails are either questions, answers, or documents. Some require action, some, such as answers to questions you asked or documents you need, just require acknowledgement. I want to talk about the latter.

SAVING TIME

Taking a quick moment to shoot back an email that says, “I got it,” or “Thanks!” or even just “Received,” will actually save you time in the long run.

Why?

Because of the person on the other end of the email.

If your insurance agent, accountant, or payroll specialist sends you a document and you don’t acknowledge receipt, they are going to fret. Did you get it? Did it end up in your junk folder? If you don’t respond, they are going to send you another email, or worse yet, call you and take up your time in another way.

If someone sent you a thoughtful answer to a question you asked, they want the feedback that the answer was received. They’ll also get back in touch at the least opportune time to say, “Did you get my answer?”

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

Acknowledging emails will also raise the bar.

Acknowledgements are courtesies. They tell the other person you value the work they did for you. They tell the other person you think about them, too. That makes your relationship with that person even stronger and makes them more willing to go to bat for you should the need arise.

BEING PROFESSIONAL

Little details like this make a difference in how your business is perceived. If you ignore emails, don’t acknowledge receipt of documents, or thank people for answering questions you asked, people will think less of you and less of your business. When the easiest way to grow business is through repeat and referral customers, the last thing you want is for anyone to think less of you in any way.

You know the equation … Time = Money.

Not acknowledging emails sent to you with documents or answers to questions you asked won’t save you time and will probably cost you money.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS One disclaimer. It is acceptable for you and the person you’re emailing to set ground rules of when you will and when you won’t acknowledge. Without that conversation, though, you run the risk of wasting your own time, the time of the other person, and the reputation of your business.

PPS In my new job, I know that quick responses to emails is essential. In a customer-centric business, other people’s needs always trump my own. Yes, it does mean I’m constantly starting and stopping the projects I’m working on. I’ve also learned how to plan blocks of undisturbed time to get stuff done. Shall we talk about that next?

When a Raise Isn’t a Raise

A friend of mine posed an interesting question a few weeks ago. He asked, “How much of a raise should you expect each year?”

In light of what is happening with the Sonic restaurants in Ohio, that is a valid question.

The problem is that the answer has too many variables to fit into a Facebook comment.

For instance, is the employee hourly, salary, or commission-based? Does the employee get any benefits such as healthcare (and how much does the employee have to pay out of their paychecks for these benefits)? Is the company experiencing growth or decline? How is inflation (and not just the overall number, but also locally)?

TAKE HOME PAY

A salaried employee is the easiest to figure out an appropriate raise. The employee should be getting at least enough of a raise so that his or her take-home pay is larger than the previous year adjusted for inflation.

If it only equals inflation, it isn’t a raise, it is a cost-of-living adjustment. If it is less than inflation, it is a pay cut.

I say take-home pay because if the employee has to pay any portion of his or her benefits, those often go up much higher than inflation. I heard the story of an employer who gave everyone a 4% raise because inflation was 3%. Unfortunately, because healthcare premiums went up 15% and the employees paid a portion of that, they had less take-home pay than the prior year to cover their other increased expenses.

Hourly employees follow the same rule, but the issue then becomes one of how many hours do they get? If you’re keeping the hours roughly the same, the same rules would apply.

Commission-based salary is different. In theory, the increase in prices of the items they are selling should lead to higher pay through higher average tickets. But if your prices didn’t go up (even as all other expenses did) you put your employees in a position where they have to work harder just to pay their bills. You may have to reconsider either their commission or offer them a base salary to compensate.

I tell you this because I always want you to think of your employees as assets to your business, not expenses.

I had another friend of mine get told in a review exactly how much this person had “cost” the company in terms of salary and benefits. The boss made no mention of how much this person had “made” in revenue for the company. Do you think the employee felt valued after that? Do you think the employee felt like the company had the employees’ backs?

EMPLOYEES AS ASSETS

When you think of your employees as assets, you invest in them to get the kind of return you want. You educate and train them. You give them actual raises, not just cost-of-living adjustments. You focus on the value they bring to your company, not the costs. You treat them as partners, as living, breathing, full-of-dignity human beings.

Do that and your staff will never walk out on you. In fact, you’ll rarely ever have to advertise for help again.

My grandfather always said, “You can never overpay for great help.”

He was right.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I was reading a Forbes article on 13 Employee Benefits That Don’t Actually Work. The second line in this article tells you all you need to know … “[Employees] like to feel valued and appreciated by the company they work for.” If your business doesn’t have the resources for raises, find other ways to invest in your team and make them feel valued and appreciated.

PPS If you’ve invested heavily in someone and that employee doesn’t bring you value, you need to cut him or her and move on. If you’ve invested heavily in several people that haven’t brought you value, you need to revamp your hiring and training programs. The problem is you, not them.

Upgrades Versus Shifts – Choose Wisely

Back in the 1990’s we had four big spiral notebooks on a table in the office. I’m talking huge, four-inch-wide, thick plastic covered, heavy-duty spiral notebooks. They contained our Inventory Sheets and tracked all the inventory in our store by vendor, item number, and price.

My dad created these sheets. Designed them himself and had them printed by the ream. There was a stack of blanks in the office right up until the day we closed.

These sheets were awesome for tracking purchase orders, receiving, and sales. If you wanted to place a new order, just do a quick physical inventory of that vendor, enter it onto the sheet and you could see what we had sold and needed to reorder.

That’s my dad with some old school cash registers behind him

Prior to the computer, this system was a godsend for us to keep track of 500 plus vendors and 30,000 skus. After the computer it was a relic.

When we switched to our second computer system in 1998, the inventory sheets were completely obsolete. My dad held onto them until he retired, but the computer streamlined the process so much that the sheets became a waste of time. In the old days it took my dad three days to write a Mattel order. With the computer I could do it in under an hour.

Sure, there was a learning curve to the computer. But the end result was a huge savings of time and resources. It was a major Upgrade.

I’m going through another form of Upgrade in my new job. Today I have been learning how to use Microsoft Teams. In my role I have to communicate with several people about several issues all day long. Often I have found myself sending out multiple texts and emails to try to stay in touch and get info. Teams is going to help me keep that organized and eliminate a lot of the time I spend tracking down old email threads, texts, and contact info.

Sure, there is a learning curve. But I can already see the end result being much better communication and less time spent tracking down information. Pretty soon it will be as natural to me as sending out a text or sharing something on Facebook.

Upgrades exist to make your life easier in the long run. 

That is the important distinction. If you look beyond the short-term pain and see the long-term gain it is an Upgrade. If there is no gain, it isn’t an Upgrade, it is merely a Shift.

Shifts can be dangerous. They often are sold as Upgrades because of their newness. They sometimes masquerade as Upgrades because of new features they offer that you’ll never use.

Just like the Upgrade, they take up a lot of time and money at first, causing a lot of short-term pain. Unlike the Upgrade, they have no long-term gain. They only move your resources from one place to another.

You’ll see these Shifts most often in advertising. Online advertising, social media advertising, and mobile-marketing are all Shifts, not Upgrades.

The best way to avoid Shifts is to ask this most important question …

Will this shiny, new tool save me Time or Money?

If you cannot answer Yes, it is most likely a Shift, not an Upgrade, and probably not worth your limited resources. Now you know the difference.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Sometimes you have no choice but to make a Shift because the old way is obsolete and no longer available (think credit card chips). Hopefully you can find a new way that also brings you a benefit (like Apple Pay capabilities.) When someone pitches you a shiny, new tool, ask yourself if it is merely a Shift or truly an Upgrade. Always wait for the Upgrade.

Make Your Lists Now (You Can Thank Me Later)

Our store had 16,000 square feet of carpeting. The original carpeting was laid in 1967. It lasted twenty years. Fortunately for me I was on a canoe trip in northern Ontario in 1987 when my parents decided to replace it.

Replacing carpeting in a store that size while remaining open was no small task. First you have to move everything from one-third of the store into the other two-thirds. All the products and all the shelving had to go. The shelves were made of steel and assembled with nuts and bolts requiring screwdrivers and wrenches and dollies and strong backs. Then the carpet guys would rip up the glued-down carpet and replace it with another glued-down, industrial-level carpet, before the staff rebuilt the shelves and started working on another third of the store.

My dad told me he would retire before he ever did that again. He was right.

Phil W Cleaning the Floor

The next carpet was over 29 years old when we rang the Birthday Bell for the last time. It had lived long past its 15-20 year life expectancy. Yes, by 2016 it looked dated and had some stains no solvent or steam could remove, but it was still in decent shape with all the seams intact. We kept it that way by vacuuming it daily and having it professionally cleaned twice a year—once on Memorial Day Weekend, once on Thanksgiving Eve.

We chose those days for two reasons: first because they offered a full day (or two) for the carpet to dry before being used again, and second because they made the carpet shine for our two busiest seasons.

I almost didn’t get the carpet cleaned one Thanksgiving. I forgot to schedule it. For whatever reason, it wasn’t on my Prep For Christmas Checklist. You know the list. The one that had …

  • Order bags
  • Check giftwrap inventory
  • Go over buying goals with all buyers

… among other things.

I also had my Thanksgiving Eve Checklist, my Christmas Eve Checklist, my Summer Fun Sale Checklist, and my Easter Prep Checklist.

The other thing I had was time. In twenty-four years I found myself adding something to at least one checklist each year because I forgot to buy coffee for the coffee pot we put out on Black Friday or I forgot to change our hours online or I forgot to call and schedule the carpet cleaning. There was always something new I forgot to do.

I was quickly becoming the expert by making all the mistakes I could and learning from them over the years.

You might not be a list person. I admit, I wasn’t. I made those lists, but didn’t always look at them or use them. Fortunately for me, making the list helped burn them into memory so that I rarely made the same mistake twice. But that’s one of the keys.

Just make the list.

The process of making the list does several things …

First, it helps you organize your thoughts. It puts you into a mode where you are thinking about all the things that need to be done.

Second, it reminds you of things to do. It helps cement all those actions into your memory. I know writing things down always helps me remember them better—even if I never look at the paper again. I have encouraged both of my boys to take copious notes in college and rewrite them daily to help remember what they are learning.

Third, it helps you delegate. When the list is only in your head you are less likely to assign other people to do things. When the list is on paper you can easily see tasks that others can do to lighten your load.

Fourth, it helps you visualize all the things that need to get done. Visualization helps with execution. We are more willing to do that which we have already seen ourselves do in our own mind.

Fifth—and most importantly—it helps you be ready to put your best foot forward for your customers. The last thing you want is to be running around Black Friday like a chicken with your head cut off because you weren’t prepared. You don’t want customers thinking this is your first rodeo.

You want them thinking you are at the top of your game.

Right now, while you’re hunkered down in your office lamenting the weather and the lack of traffic, pull out a notebook or open up a word doc and start writing out those lists. Whether you ever look at them again, just this one little act will improve your business dramatically. (Hopefully you will write it all down and then use those lists. That would be best. But just the act of writing it down is so much better than trying to wing it every year or season. Baby steps.)

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS When I started writing about the carpet up above, I thought maybe I would take this blog in a different direction and talk about regular, preventative maintenance. We got an extra nine years out of our carpet and I avoided a retirement-inducing carpet replacement through preventative maintenance. We took our snow blowers and lawn mowers in for preseason and postseason maintenance every year. We took our vehicles in to winterize them and followed all the maintenance schedules to the tee. Those, of course, were all items on the Checklist along with Order Salt for the Sidewalks. (Yeah I forgot to do that once. Once!)

PPS Black Friday is November 29th. Christmas is December 25th. Neither of those dates should surprise you. You know they are coming. Get your lists ready for them now. (For those of you in industries where it matters, Valentines will be February 14th again, Easter is April 21st, and Halloween will be October 31st again—although I’d love to see it moved to “last Saturday of October” but that’s a discussion for another day.)

When to Close for the Weather

Right now the Weather app says it is minus ten degrees outside. The “real feel” is minus thirty-five. Thank goodness I don’t have any presentations or travel scheduled for today. My office is only a wall away from my bedroom. I’m going to work today.

But if Toy House was still open, would I be going in?

That has always been the question. We’ve done really good business on snow days when the schools were closed. We’ve also been really slow as traffic crawled to halt on the slippery roads. Sometimes we have opened only to close early so that my staff could get home safely. Sometimes I have staffed the store with a skeletal crew by volunteer. Who wants to brave the conditions to make a few bucks?

One thing I always looked at with bad weather days was that the mail was still coming, the phones were still ringing, and the email never stopped.

Today, however, we would have been closed.

Why?

The guys and gals who brave rain and snow and sleet aren’t even going out. You know it is bad when the USPS takes a day off for weather.

Another reason is that the governor declared the cold weather a “state of emergency.”

Now that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have braved the cold to go in myself. I have been out in this cold several times before in my life (I used to go winter camping—there’s an activity for brave of heart or insanely stupid). That’s what scarves and face masks and hats and gloves are for. But I wouldn’t want to put my staff in serious danger. When the governor or the mayor declares a state of emergency for the weather, they want you off the roads.

The interesting thing about weather days in Michigan is that some people see them as a good excuse to cuddle up with a blanket and a good book. Others see it as a challenge.

(“What do you mean it was cold outside? I shoveled my walk, went to the gym, ran some errands, went to the grocery store, and came home and made French Toast with all the bread, eggs, and milk I bought. It wasn’t that bad.”)

When do you close for the weather? 

  • When USPS says Nope.
  • When your local government says Nope.
  • When it is a danger to you or your staff to be on the roads or outside. (If you can’t make it in, you shouldn’t ask your staff to come in, either.)

If you’re the kind of defiant person like I was and are going to brave the elements no matter how stupid, make it voluntary for your staff. When we would close early for bad weather I sent those who lived the farthest away or had the worst cars for snow home first. Then I’d ask, “Who wants to stay? Who wants to go?”

You can run your store on a skeletal crew on bad weather days because your traffic won’t be as busy. You can also get a lot done in the office and re-merchandising the floor. Just don’t turn your staff into skeletons by forcing them out on those days.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS One other criteria that always seemed to play into the equation was the time of year. It was a lot easier decision to close for the day in January than in December. Stay safe and warm out there.

How Much Would You Pay?

Have you ever walked through a store, saw a display, and thought, “Wow! Someone would actually pay that much for that?” Of course you have. We all have. It is the internal pricing game we all play called …

“How Much Would You Pay?”

Unless you’re the only option in town, pricing is a game of finding that sweet spot in price that matches the answer most people would pay for your product or service. The better you determine that price, the better your sales and profits.

And before you think that lowering the price is the only way to go, remember that some people will look at a really low price and think, “What must be wrong with it?” You can cheapen the perception of your products or services by pricing them too low.

I knew a guy who sang at events. He was getting tired of the gigs. He asked me if I thought it was smart of him to double his price so that he would get fewer gigs and still make around the same amount of money. I told him to expect the opposite to happen. I was right.

His bookings doubled with the doubling of his price because people figured if he charged that much he must be really good. In other words, his earlier price was too low. Fortunately, the extra bookings along with the higher price re-energized his career.

I call this concept Perceived Worth. It is something we all do when shopping. We look at an item and determine its Perceived Worth (PW). Then we look at the price. If the price equals the PW and we’re in the market to buy it, we place it in the cart. If it is too high or too low, we hesitate. We won’t make the purchase until we can justify the price discrepancy.

If we don’t need the product, our PW for that item is zero, and we move on, but we’ll still play the Pricing Game to see if what we would expect to pay matches the price.

I NEED YOUR HELP

I tell you this because I would like your help on the PW of a service I have been asked to perform.

You may recall a couple weeks ago I gave you five Self-Diagnosis Tools to help you take a critical look at your business. Those tools were:

I was asked what it would cost to hire me to come to a business for three days to perform those five diagnostics.

I would like to know what you think the Perceived Worth would be to have someone like me do a complete diagnostic evaluation of your business using those five criteria.

I would visit your business for three days. I would need access to your financials (Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss plus your Average Inventory at Cost). I would need to see what Advertising you have done (and any contracts you’ve signed for advertising). And I would need a couple hours of your time over the three days to answer questions here and there.

At the end I would write up an evaluation showing where you were doing well, where you needed attention, and recommendations for what to work on next, including a priority of where to put your resources first.

Two Questions:

  • What would you EXPECT to pay for such a service?
  • What would you be WILLING to pay for such a service?

I am curious to see your responses. You may send them to me via email or PM, leave a comment on this blog, or comment on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Even if you don’t own a business I am curious to see your response. I am trying to gauge whether there is a viable market for this service or not. I’d love to know what people perceive such a service to be worth. There are no wrong answers.

The Heart of Customer Service is the Heart

I did a presentation for the City of Mason this morning. Not their businesses, their employees—DPW, Police, Fire & Safety, Bill Payment Desk, Clerk’s Office. Debi Stuart, the City Manager, hired me to talk about Customer Service. Debi recognizes that even a city office and government employees need to be constantly working on offering better services and better service. She is transforming their government into a model that every city should follow.

My usual Customer Service presentation is to take a look at every interaction a customer has with your business through the eyes of the customer to see what she expects, what you’re actually doing, and how you can raise the bar. Unfortunately with five departments, three distinct customers for each department, and several different types of interactions per department, we didn’t have the time to explore each of those interactions.

(Yes, I did say three distinct customers—the Citizens, the Business Owners, and the other Departments within government. Make sure you are identifying all the different customers you have for your business.)

Because of the time limitation, instead we focused on feelings and emotions with goal of getting the “customer” from Grumpy Cat to Happy Cat.

When you stop and think about the average citizen’s interactions with the different facets of government, more often than not, the citizen’s default mode is Grumpy Cat. If I tell you that you have to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles (or SOS office here in Michigan), you instantly go Grumpy Cat.

If you are pulled over by the police, have to call for a firetruck or DPW, or have to go in to pay a bill, you are a far distance from Happy Cat. The goal of customer service in most of these situations is to change the customer’s feelings. (Okay, maybe you won’t change their feelings for the better if you have to arrest them or write them a ticket, but there are still better ways to handle those interactions.)

This approach is no different than it is for a retail or service-based business.

Your goal is to make the customer happier than they were when they first entered your business.

And you have to do this while making them part with their money.

George Whalin was the first to teach me that a sale only happens when the customer decides she wants the product more than she wants the money. The customer only gets there, however, when she feels that her life will be better with the product. That is an emotional response.

The heart of Customer Service is your ability to touch her heart and make her feel better. Products are simply the means we use to make our customers feel better. We weren’t in the business to sell toys. We were in the business to make people happier (“We’re here to make you smile.”)

  • If you sell shoes, you’re doing it to make people feel better about their appearance and/or their health.
  • If you sell jewelry, you’re doing it to connect people to each other, to build lifetime memories and moments of nostalgia.
  • If you sell pet supplies, you’re doing it to bring joy and comfort to people.
  • If you sell cameras, you’re doing it to spark creativity, preserve memories, and bring joy.

This morning we looked at the emotions of the typical customers each department interacts with the most. Then we looked at how to change those feelings from Grumpy Cat to Happy Cat. I could already tell that this was going to be an easy transition for the employees of Mason based on the answers they were giving me.

Wanna live in a small community where the government really does care about the citizens and shows it through their interactions with you? I’d recommend you look at the City of Mason, MI.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS It was an interesting exercise looking at the emotions of the different customers for each department. For instance, some people who interact with the police are Angry while others are Relieved. Identifying the emotions and looking at each one differently, however, gives you the chance to explore how to make that particular customer feel better. Have a discussion with your team about emotions and what it takes to make people happier. When you get into the mode of looking at the customer’s emotions, you will find yourself adapting to their needs more quickly and easily, which will help you change their hearts. We had Listen, Show Empathy, and Treat Them as People (because they are) as our responses quite often today.

Don’t Make the Simple Things Difficult

I borrowed my buddy’s Ford Transit Van. You’ve seen these vehicles. Big, tall, lots of seats, or in my case, lots of room for hauling stuff when the seats are removed.

When I got to my first destination a warning light came on telling me the tire pressure was low. It didn’t say which tire, but no problem, right? I’ll just check them all at a nearby gas station.

Unfortunately the tires on this vehicle required 86psi and $1.50 later I found out the little silver box at the far side of the gas station parking lot didn’t have the power to get me more than halfway there.

Again, no problem. My Honda dealer where I take my Pilot for service has air hoses right inside their service bay drop off. The Ford dealership is right by my house. I assumed they would have the same.

At 4:15 pm I pull into the Ford dealership’s service bay. No hose. I get out of the van and head to the service desk just in time to watch three people walk out of the room, leaving me all alone.

I look for a bell. No bell. So I wait.

Five minutes later I am joined by a lady with a white Ford Taurus. We stand there wondering where everyone went. She mentions the lack of a bell. Just then a guy in a Ford shirt walks in with his head down, goes over to the desk where I am standing, picks up a brochure and starts thumbing through it. I didn’t want to disturb him while he was deep in thought, so I waited to speak.

I never got the chance.

Without ever looking up—as though he was trying to avoid eye-contact—this guy took the brochure and a stack of papers off the desk and walked out of the room. He was gone before either of us could utter a word.

At 4:23 pm another guy walks into the room and starts shuffling papers. I say, “Hello,” for fear he might walk out before speaking, too. “Hello. What can I do for you?”

“I just need to get air for my tires.”

“Oh, you need to go around the corner to the other side of the building to our tire department.”

“Oh, okay.”

As I head to the van I see him exit the room, having never acknowledged the lady with the white Taurus.

I pull the van around the corner. There are several bays, but none that you enter like the service bay, so I find a parking spot and enter an office/waiting area. There is a gal at the counter with the employee.

The employee has the customer sign several papers and they leave together with paper floor mats and a mirror hanger with her service number. I wait.

The employee returns, starts shuffling papers, places them in a folder, then places them in a filing cabinet, not once looking up at me or even acknowledging my existence at the counter. I wait patiently. At least—unlike the service area—someone is actually there.

At 4:35 pm, after doing something on her computer, she finally turns to me and asks brusquely, “What do you need?”

It took every ounce of restraint by now to not blurt out, “Someone who gives a shit?”

Instead, I explained I just needed air in the tires of my van.

“I don’t have an open bay right now. Have a seat and we should have one open in the next hour.”

“No thanks.”

I drove the van down the road to the Honda dealership.

At 4:42 pm I pulled into the service bay. Brad looks at me quizzically in the Ford Transit Van and says, “Hi Phil. What are you doing with this vehicle?”

“I’m borrowing it from a friend. Had to move some furniture. I just need some air in the tires.”

“Give me one second to finish up with this customer and I’ll be right there.”

I knew how to pump air, so while Brad finished with the other customer, I grabbed the hose. I was on the second tire when Adam, one of the other service folks, came over to check on me.

“Hey Phil. Are you trying to take our jobs here?” he joked.

Two minutes later the tires were all filled to 86psi. Brad, Adam, and I had a nice laugh about my trials down the road at Ford. I thanked them. They thanked me. And I drove away.

Wait, did they just thank me for coming in to their building to get free air? Yes. They. Did. And they were upset that they didn’t get to inflate the tires themselves.

The Ford dealership …

  • Didn’t greet me.
  • Didn’t have a way for me to let someone in service even know if I was there.
  • Didn’t acknowledge my presence on three occasions.
  • Didn’t have an easy solution to an easy problem.

I left twenty-two minutes after I arrived without solving my problem.

The Honda dealership …

  • Greeted me immediately (and by name)
  • Told me when they would help me
  • Allowed me to help myself
  • Had an easy solution to an easy problem.

I left five minutes after I arrived with problem solved and some friendly banter on the side.

Which dealership would you rather visit?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I told this story to a friend of mine who drives a Ford. He started defending the dealership saying it was probably just a perfect storm of timing. I told him he was probably right, but they still lost a potential customer because of their inattention and poor attitude. Whether you like it or not, you are often defined by your worst moment—at least on Yelp. If you greet customers and keep the easy stuff easy, you’ll have far fewer “perfect storms.”

PPS I actually liked driving the Transit Van. In fact, I’ve driven several Ford vehicles in the past. I left Ford when this same dealership screwed me over with no remorse on a service call twenty years ago. Doesn’t look like things have changed. Brand loyalty only goes so far.