When Policy Trumps Practice

It doesn't happen often, and thankfully when it does...it usually gets corrected.  When policy trumping practice doesn't get corrected, it's a pretty poor reflection on a companies pulse of what the customer wants and needs.

As many of you know, I have two young daughters.  Having young kids (obviously) comes with some challenging situations.  One example of this that we (specifically my wife) has to deal with on a regular basis is the art of grocery shopping.  Juggling a crying baby with a 2-year old that wants to run up and down the aisles while avoiding oncoming shoppers is in fact challenging to say the least.

Recently, my wife told me that she was switching grocery stores.  Knowing how much she loved the one she shopped at...I asked her why she had made this decision (expecting it to be product based or the distance she had to travel to get there).  I was incorrect, as she informed me it was much more simple: They changed their grocery carts from being able to hold 2-kids down to a smaller 1-child cart. 

WOW.

Being that we are not the only family in Oakville with 2 young children, I am sure this decision was not an isolated incident.  Surely someone at a boardroom table at head office had this idea (most likely not having young children) in an effort to cut costs in making smaller carts and reduce the space of carts in the aisles.

Unfortunately, this decision has alienated any shopper with 2 children.  Sobey's, Loblaws, Longo's...they all have 2-child carts...so maybe at the outset, this cost-cutting measure was deemed a competitive advantage.  Also unfortunate, loyal business is now leaving for the competitor in a VERY tight-margin business...and all because a policy enacted miles away didn't take into consideration the needs of customers.

Lesson learned: Every business decision has a downside, if you don't understand it...you cannot mitigate it.

The 3 Lessons I Learned By #Failing

It's not that common of a topic.  Realistically, behind every successful person are a few failure stories.  It's one of the things I love doing when speaking with uber-successful people...everyone has a great #FAIL story.  A bad decision, a series of unfortunate events, or maybe just misplaced trust...failure is inevitable.  Whether you failed because you didn't strategically quit soon enough...or the idea was just bad from the start, it's not the failing that kills...it's the repetition!

1) Learn the Lesson...Move On - Too many times do I see people punishing themselves for previous failures.  Not only does this prevent you from amortizing any lessons learned...it cripples your decision making process.  When I skinned my knee by falling off my bike when I was 6...I could've committed to never ride a bike again.  Instead, I committed to try harder, learn from others AND wear pants until I figured out what I was doing.  Learn your lessons, leverage your knowledge and put into practice some safeguards to help steer you clear of your skinned knee in the future.

2) Quitting ≠ Failure - Similar to my post on the discipline of strategic quitting...often, your best out is your first out.  By improving how you a)Identify pitfalls that lead to failure & b)Avoid them at all costs you are already amortizing previous failures.  If you measure success over a life-time, not a week, month or even year...your definition of failure will change and evolve to include refreshed perspective.

3) Failure Should be Amortized - It's really simple, your failures teach you lessons that last a lifetime (read THIS if you don't know what Amortization means).  When you touches the stove at age 4 and burnt your hand...you learned that it was hot, and it hurts.  Today, you don't touch the stove because you remember...it's hot, and it will hurt.  The pain at age 4 has been amortized over the course of your X number of years since than, making the experience of pain at age 4 well worth the lesson of not burning your hand regularly for X number of years.  Failing in business can be viewed the same way.  I've learned to double check financial information that I once took at face value...learned to not let an employee borrow my car unless I'm willing to pay personally to have it fixed...and most importantly, learned that if I don't prioritize my wife and kids and they feel neglected...Kraft Dinner loses it's appeal 3 nights in a row.

Learn your lessons, Quit before it's too late, Amortize failure over a lifetime.

Employees: Owning the Business without Owning it

It's an age old discussion.  You can't just grant/sell shares to anyone that asks, but yet...there is an attitude and altitude (of service & commitment) that comes with ownership.

Some brands have been able to do it, some try and fail, and others just don't try at all...believing that they (the owner) is 100% committed and they will get somewhere between 25% and 75% from their staff at any given time.

A pessimistic outlook...of course...but what else would you expect?  I believe that there are 3 keys to helping your employees "own" without owning.

1) Treat them fairly and with respect at all times - Pay them well, treat them like adults, give them the benefit of the doubt...all of these things are basic management 101...but many business owners lose control of their staff simply because they either stop caring or start focusing on the wrong things.  A happy & healthy staff is a productive & loyal one.

2) Leverage their knowledge & understanding of the business - One of the best resources you will ever find is not in a consulting report, but in the minds of your staff.  They know things about your business and customers that you have no clue about...so ask!  How can we improve? What are the 3 most common problems you hear from customers? These questions enable the conversation to move from the present to the future.  Good staff want to stay with you...so ask them what they want the company to look like in 10 years...because keeping them around that long is great for both of you!

3) Use words like "our" instead of "my" and "we" instead of "I" - This is the real way to ensure you get the most from employees on an active and continual basis.  By involving them and giving them ownership through verbal cues, you are in essence tasking them (as a part of their job) to own the portion of the business that they are responsible for.  For example, "Our clients need to be served in the most efficient way possible...how can we ensure that happens?"  By involving them in the process of development (internal & external) you provide them with a sense of belonging and the ability to look beyond the 9-5 job and see the bigger picture.

A Tale of Two Companies

So it seems like I'm on a bit of a Customer Service kick lately..but didn't want to NOT write about something just because of recent discussion in last weeks post.

Most people that know me well, and specifically those that also follow me on any of my online platforms know that I often speak my mind about when a company or organization serves me poorly.  I am trying to improve at also giving kudo's to Customer Service "wins" as well.

For the purpose of balance...I want to share two short examples; one positive, one negative about how Customer Service can create buzz and lead to building or tarnishing a brand.

Story One - Expedia
Over the past year, I have unsubscribed to  Expedia's newsletter dozens of times.  For whatever reason, a few weeks ago, I had had enough and tweeted that I was upset about the lack of customer service I was experiencing in that I was still receiving these emails.

Within a few minutes, I received a msg asking me to DM them my email for the matter to be looked into.

Within an hour, I received a phone call on my cell phone from a woman in customer service at Expedia ensuring me that all was looked after, apologizing for the oversight and asking if there was any way she could assist me further.

My first response after I got off the phone was: WOW!  Mainly for 2 reasons;

1) Social media is great.  It gives the individual a voice and allows for connections and community that would not exist without it.  But there is something about good 'ol fashion (offline) customer service.  When the two combine (online complaint and offline resolution) it truly embraces the strengths of online service with bricks and mortar execution.

2) The short response time tells me that expedia understands that customer service is everything.  I'm selling their business right now and they're not paying me a dime.  Talk about ROI on the person watching their twitter account...here's part of it!

Expedia's handling of my concern was a positive example of a company using social media and

Story Two - Harbour Sixty
For those of you that haven't heard of this restaurant before, it's a very high-end steak house in downtown Toronto.  And if you haven't guessed it already...they will be my negative example.

Being a high-end restaurant, one would expect that the service would be...high-end and that when a problem arises, the staff and management would handle it with the same (or better) intentionality of a lower-end service provider like Expedia did noted above.

That would be an incorrect assumption in the case of Habour Sixty.

After pressing the issue with management, a token gesture was offered which did not come close to redeeming the situation.

The owner was then called and apparently said that if that was "not acceptable to us, he did not want our business anyway."

Again (like Expedia), my initial response was; WOW.

I guess the people at Harbour Sixty don't like money...or business.

But as I thought about it...it's much more simple than that.  They just don't understand business and specifically customer service.  Fact is this: the cost to aquire a client that would spend what our firm does in a year on nice meals downtown is multiples of the cost of reconciling our needs.  Further, although this blog doesn't have thousands of readers, I am using my own platform (online and offline) to voice my disgust with the management of Habour Sixty.

The cost of strong customer service is like the cost of anything in business...relative.  Although there was no monetary reward/cost in the Expedia example...a reputation was at stake, and Expedia did what they needed to do to make the situation right (they could have corrected it without calling and/or left it alone).

I can only assume that in a booming economy like this one, that Habour Sixty has plenty of business and can afford the costs associated with losing business and failing in serving the reasonable requests of customers.

All I know, is that I have since booked 2 separate trips on expedia and will never go to Harbour Sixty again...you be the judge.

A Customer's Problem IS Your Problem

I was driving home the other week...the day Apple failed to meet the standards set by the rumor mill (launching iPhone4GS rather than iPhone5), thinking about Apple Inc, product innovation and of all things...customer service.

Customer service is a funny thing.  I wrote about it more HERE, but wanted to touch on another aspect as it related to the purpose behind customer service.  Companies generally put hard-nosed "never-back-down" types at the desk to meet the customer's needs while not giving away the store and its margins.  Very soon I will write about my extraordinary experience with Expedia and their customer service...but until then, I will say this:  Customer Service is a function of sales...plain and simple.  Customer service uses the guise of fixing problems and attempting to help the customer to feel loves...BUT it is ALL about sales.  If you want to sandbag your chance at getting top-notch customer service, make them feel like you're going to leave and never come back.

Customer Service uses retention as a tool to sell.  I feel better because they fixed my problem, so I will come back.  I had an experience a few months ago at Harry Rosen.  I bought a few pairs of dress pants and within a few weeks, they were falling apart.  I took them back and the sales guy gave me all brand new ones...so I bought another pair as well.  Now subsequently, they fell apart and I'm never going back to Harry Rosen...but you get the idea!

So knowing this, what opportunities did Apple miss?  Well, the rumors were that iPhone5 was coming out.  Clearly Apple knew that was not true...MONTHS ago.  But true to form, Apple allowed hype to trump good business and their stock and brand took a hit.  Twitter went crazy and RIM stock climbed out of a bit of a pit all because Apple could not (or would not) seize the opportunity to "make lemonade out of lemons."

This didn't surprise me as I remember all the commotion over the antenna issues with iPhone4 and Steve Jobs' famous "So don't hold it Like that then.." comment that had customers up in arms.  The funny thing is that...it's true.  If you just don't hold your phone in that one specific way...everything is fine.  Problem is, it sends mixed messages to customers:

- Our product isn't the best, so make do with what you have.
- Our product isn't sophisticated, so slap on some tape and move on.
- We hate you, our customer.

In spite of the eventual outcome (overall bad product) the guy at Harry Rosen made me feel like my business was very important and that he wanted me to be happy.  I knew that with thin margins, to replace 3 pairs of pants...at best he would be breaking even, and that is why I appreciated the gesture.

Whether it's a defective product or the customer is just an idiot...their problems ARE your problems.  I don't like the saying "The customer is always right" because, it's not true.  Often the customer is wrong.  Lying to say the TV had that crack in it or demanding unreasonable discounts, the customer is NOT always right.  The customer IS however, the customer and can take their business to one of many competitors who will then take their abuse and make the same decision you have today.

Serve the customer by exceeding their expectations.  Not necessarily in a monetary way, but at a minimum in your responsiveness to their concerns and by demonstrating a true desire to help them fix their problem.