Nifty ways to increase productivity now

A lot of business-related news lately has reminded me of one of my favorite South Park episodes, the one about the underpants gnomes. For the uninitiated, the underpants gnomes sneak into your room and steal your underpants. One night, the boys follow the gnomes to their underground lair to learn the secrets of corporate takeovers. The video below explains it all.

Translate this to how many companies are handling the current economic mess and you have a simple business plan:

I bet you have already skipped ahead and solved the puzzle, but just in case, step 2 is "people". A gut-wrenching, cost-cutting strategy won't make your company any stronger if your people don't execute. Your visionary, game-changing strategy won't make the company grow any faster if your people aren't carrying it out. Simply playing a recording that says "your call is really important to us" on your toll-free hotline doesn't mean your customers will feel their call is actually important to you.

The best way to get things moving is to engage your people in your strategy and ensure they are carrying it out. Here are five ideas you can use right now to make that happen.

Idea #1: Make a contest out of checking people's work. The best supervisors I've met make doing things right fun through contests and games. This approach can cause employees to welcome additional supervision and oversight since they know doing it right leads to positive results. Some enterprising employees may even bring their accomplishments to your attention!

Idea #2: Hold outsourced providers to the same service standards. Hotels, call centers, delivery services, and other companies often outsource business functions that have a high degree of customer contact. Outsourcing may save you money, but it will cost you customers if you don't hold these service providers to the same service standards you expect from your employees. Offer them training and resources to understand your service culture and check on them often.

Idea #3: Stand-up and listen. Many great supervisors use pre-shift meetings (often called "stand-ups" because they are so short) to keep the team focused and informed. Holding regular pre-shift meetings is a great idea, but you can also use this to gather and share valuable intelligence from the team. What is selling well and why? What problems are customers reporting that we can easily fix? Who has a success story they can share?

Idea #4: Don't miss an opportunity to upsell. Customers are pretty good at tuning out sales pitches, but you can train your team to upsell like a pro by arming them with a few simple questions they can ask their customers. A retail sales associate may ask, "Is there anything in particular you are looking for today?" to find out where to direct a customer. A hotel associate may ask, "Are you in town for business or pleasure?" to better understand which hotel amenities to recommend. Better yet, make it fun and create an up-selling contest!

Idea #5: Empower the team to do what's right. We all need a few guidelines, but make sure the guidelines you give your employees make sense. If there are exceptions to the rules, such as an opportunity to make a big sale or keep an important customer, let them know. At a minimum, train your employees to involve you if they think the rules need to be bent a little bit.

Poor service from the DMV (gasp!)

I had an experience today that was a lot like discovering Santa Claus has the same handwriting as my mother. Today, when I called the California's Department of Motor Vehicles toll-free 'customer service' number, I received poor service. Yes, you read correctly, I received poor customer service from the DMV. You may want to stop reading for a moment to verify the earth is still spinning on its axis.

The situation started when I received a 'delinquent renewal notice' for my auto registration. This struck me as odd since I had not received an initial renewal notice. The part that stood out was the $154 late fee, so I made the call. I should have known things were not going to go well when (after 10 minutes on hold) the woman who answered the phone identified herself as "Agent G-7".

That may be the first problem...
Customer service at its best is between two human beings. At its worst, "Agent G-7" works diligently at getting "Customer 1234" off the phone as quickly as possible because the call is viewed as a cost rather than an opportunity to delight a customer.

It gets better (the story, not my situation)...
Agent G-7 looked up my account and informed me a renewal notice had been mailed in May. It didn't matter to her that I never received it. I asked her what she suggested I do and she replied, "I don't know, we don't take payments at this number." I again asked her what she suggested I do to resolve what I felt was an unreasonable fee and she suggested I go down to my local DMV office. What she didn't add, but I will, is that the trip would have likely resulted in a wait of one hour or more only to speak with an equally unsympathetic person who would tell me, "You have to pay the fee."

I asked Agent G-7 if she had any other ideas and she replied, "We don't take payments at this number." Um, yeah G-7, I got that part. So what else should I try? "Well, you could try calling Sacramento." With that, she gave me a phone number and hustled me off the phone. You may be surprised to learn the phone number Agent G-7 gave me didn't go anywhere -- it just rang and rang.

Thank goodness my call is very important to the IVR
A little editorial: I don't like "interactive voice response" or "IVR" systems. Those are systems where a computerized voice tries to interact with you and asks you to say "Yes" for English, "Si" for Spanish, or "Account Balance" to learn your account balance. I don't like IVR for two reasons. First, it sends the message to me that I'm not important enough for these people to pay a real human being to talk to me. Second, IVR often doesn't work too well.

Case in point was the DMV's IVR system. I called it next to pay my bill, but it couldn't understand a word I said. It even lectured me on how to say my license plate number so it could understand me better. I followed it's instructions, but it still didn't understand me. I got so frustrated, I briefly thought of giving Agent G-7 a call back before I remembered they don't take payments at her number.

OK, DMV, you got me.
The end of the story is I paid the fee. Not happily, not proudly, but because I felt it was the best of my terrible options. As a California resident, I know it would be tough to take my vehicle registration elsewhere (without moving), but I do have a few suggestions for the DMV to save a few dollars.

1. Humanize your customer service representatives. Let people use their first names and give them the okay to empathize with their customers. Why? People like to be human, so your employee retention is likely to improve. People also like dealing with humans, so your average call time may go up a little, but your total number of calls will go down.
2. Ditch your IVR. It doesn't work and annoys customers.
3. Respond to the online customer service survey I completed. (The result on that one is still to be determined.)

Do you have a customer service success story?

Many of us, including myself, are guilty of focusing on what's wrong with customer service. Maybe that's because it's so easy to point out negative examples. At the same time, there are a lot of companies out there using outstanding service to stand apart from the competition, engage their customers, and make more money.

I'm collecting those success stories for the October edition of Service Sense, my email newsletter. If you, your department, or your organization has used customer service to make a difference in the marketplace, I'd like to hear about it. More specifically, I'm interested in hearing how a specific focus on service (employee training, strategic planning, process improvement, etc.) yielded great results. The best stories will be shared in the October Service Sense.

Please email me or post your comment to share a story.

Indifference Doesn't Pay

According to the American Society for Quality, 68% of customers who stop buying from a company do so because of employee indifference or the failure of employees to resolve a problem. It's a scary statistic that suggests many companies are missing out on a lot of revenue. Not because they don't have great products, or a killer strategy, or charismatic leaders, but because they don't have a clear and compelling vision for customer service that employees buy into.

Here's an example:

I like shopping at Macy's because they typically have reasonable prices and a good selection of the clothes I like. However, I often find myself wandering around the store trying to find what I came for. Most of the time, their sales people don't greet me when I walk into their department. They're usually too busy chatting with each other or walking in the other direction. The people don't have a customer-focused vision, so they focus on tasks, their co-workers, and themselves.

The last time I visited Macy's, I was surprised to encounter a very helpful sales person. (He must have been new!) He answered my questions and even made a few suggestions, including showing me a sport coat that was on sale for $150. I hadn't planned on buying a sport coat, but the sales person made a great recommendation, so I bought it.

Can you imagine what would happen if all the salespeople at Macy's had a vision to help customers make great purchases? If just 10 people a day spent $150 extra because a sales person spent a few minutes helping them, that one store would bring in more than $500,000 in additional revenue per year. This store has 3 floors and countless departments, so I'm pretty sure adding an additional $1,500 in revenue per day from simply helping people is a conservative estimate.

The Rising Cost of Recovery

A few months ago, I wrote a post about a service recovery related to my stay at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. (Read the post here.) Well, the epilogue to that story is quite interesting and also a great reminder that service recovery becomes increasingly expensive the longer you let the problem continue.

To bring you up to speed, the short version of the story is I experienced some minor problems while staying at the hotel in May. A few days later, I filled out an online survey noting the good and bad aspects of my visit. Not long after I submitted the survey, the hotel's Front Office Manager called me to follow-up and promised to send me a certificate for a free night's stay as an apology for the poor service. Unfortunately, the certificate never arrived.

The Story Continues
A week or so ago I received a phone call from the Front Office Manager. "Mr. Toister," he said, "I understand you never received that certificate we promised you."

"Yes, that's true," I said.

"Well, I don't know what happened, maybe my assistant forgot to send it. I'll have my assistant send one out to you first thing next week."

I got off the phone and thought about the conversation. It was great to get the follow-up phone call, but the manager was deflecting ownership. The certificate would have been nice to receive in May, but now it was not enough to entice me to return. So, I called the manager back and laid it out for him. I told him I was planning to visit the area again later this year and stay for three nights. I was also meeting a friend, so I'd need two hotel rooms for three nights apiece. One free night wouldn't get me to stay there, so was there anything else he was willing to do?

The manager offered to comp one of the rooms for the three nights and give me a good rate on the other room. Yes, that was enough for me to make a reservation and give the Sir Francis Drake another try.

Cost Escalation
If you look carefully at this situation, you can see how recovery got increasingly expensive.

1. An apology. I was impressed the manager called me to follow-up on the survey and apologize for the poor service. That was enough to make me consider his hotel the next time I traveled to San Francisco.
2. A free room night. The offer of one free night was very generous and I was even more impressed. Had the certificate arrived in a timely fashion, it is likely I would have made a reservation at the hotel for my upcoming trip.
3. Three free room nights. Of course, the promised certificate never arrived, so the manager had to up the offer to three free room nights to get me to stay there.

The purpose of service recovery is to retain the business and maintain the organization's reputation. In this case, the cost of service recovery escalated from a simple phone call and an apology to three free nights. The lesson here is the faster you can recover, the less it is likely to cost you.

Job Applicants Are Customers Too

It's amazing how so many companies fall all over themselves to serve their paying clients but fall well short when it comes to serving less obvious customers like job applicants. Job applicants not only represent potential great hires, they may also be current or future customers. Companies can serve candidates well by following a few simple steps.

1. Make a good first impression. Go to an office where people are warm, friendly, and having fun and you may want to work there. On the other hand, an unpleasant atmosphere and unpleasant people can make your organization a lot less desirable.
2. Respect their time. I once went to an interview where the hiring manager made me wait for an hour before meeting with me. On top of that, she seemed put off when I explained I only had 30 minutes to meet rather than our agreed upon 60 since I had another appointment. Hiring managers may get busy with other things, but job candidates are often busy themselves and may even be sneaking in from another job.
3. Sell your company. Yes, candidates should tell you why they are so great, but you should do the same. Your company is much more likely to attract great people if interviews feel like a courtship and not an interrogation.
4. Follow up. OK, show of hands, how many of you have been promised a phone call at the end of an interview, only to never hear from the company again? Recruiters may not want to share unpleasant news or they simply don't have any news yet to give, but not following-up as promised makes your company look unfriendly and disorganized.
5. Be honest, but be tactful. If you interview 10 people for 1 job opening, 9 people will probably end up disappointed. That doesn't mean they deserve to be ignored or treated rudely. Be honest and tell them they weren't selected, but also tell them how much you appreciate their interest. In some cases, you may even know of another opening in your company or someone else that may be a good fit.

Flying the Angry Skies

Have you flown lately? Not that flying has been a picnic for sometime, but it seems to have gotten even worse. Sneaky fees, frequent delays, and surly airline workers are all conspiring to make us give Amtrak and Greyhound another look.

Failure Breeds Failure...

Lack of success can be contagious. Among the major carriers in the United States (American, United, US Air, Delta, and Continental), all posted large operating losses in the first quarter this year. Losing money doesn't feel good for employees and it will probably get worse. There are painful mergers, cut-backs, contract concessions, and the doom and gloom of an uncertain by probably negative future hanging over the employees at these airlines. Those are the lucky people. Employees at Aloha Airlines and ATA abruptly found out they didn't have jobs this past April. In short, there's nothing to be excited about.

Unfortunately, these employees are increasingly disengaged with their employers and their customers. On a recent cross-country trip, I encountered one rude employee after another. One gate agent was typing on her computer while I approached the counter so I waited patiently. She said, "Yes" in my general direction, so I held out my boarding pass that required a seat assignment. Without looking up she said, "Can I help you?" in an exasperated manner. "It's right in front of you," I said, "but I didn't want to interrupt you." "Oh, I can multi-task." Great, lucky me.

Not to be a fear monger, but I really hope the mechanics and pilots don't get too angry. This happened last week at United Airlines when a pilot reportedly became too upset to fly. Fortunately he was self-aware enough not to fly the plane anyway. Check out this bizarre story here.

Self-Reinforcing Circle

When the employees on the front lines are disengaged and providing poor service, the customers begin to get angry too. Angry travelers are a notoriously difficult, impatient, and potentially dangerous bunch. They also make it that much harder for airline employees to do their jobs. So, the airline employees get more and more frustrated and provide poorer and poorer service and the passengers get angrier and angrier. I witnessed this self-reinforcing circle time and time again throughout my travels over the past several months.

United Against, Well, United (et al)

The problem as I see it is the airlines are becoming their own worst enemies. They are making air travel less pleasant through rude employees, ticky-tack fees ($25 to check a bag, $5 for a snack pack, $2 additional to check a bag curbside), cancelling popular routes, and frequent whining about the high cost of oil. (Southwest hedged their bet on fuel prices awhile back and had an $88 million operating profit last quarter.) Even the loyalty programs breed less loyalty with fewer options, higher mileage requirements, more blackout dates, and expiring miles.

There's nothing here to root for. No passion behind the brand. And customer service ratings prove it. Epinions has the big five carriers at 3 out of 5 stars (Continental is 3.5 out of 5) and JD Power's rankings leave even more to be desired with United bringing up the rear with a 2 out of 5 rating. Yikes!

Yes, times are tough for the airlines, but what they ought to do is invite employees and passengers alike to be a part of the process. Do something to make travel easier, less stressful, even pleasurable. Create a price structure that allows you to make a fair profit, but do it in such a way that customers see the value of what they are paying for, rather than making passengers feel penalized. Stop the doom and gloom conversation with employees and invest in employee engagement initiatives.

We Need a Hero

Southwest Airlines still stands out in my mind as a positive example. Their employees are typically much more energized and friendly than other airlines. Their fares and flights are usable reasonable and convenient. They have even taken recent steps to address their Achilles heal, the boarding process, but implementing a system that virtually eliminates the dreaded cattle call. And, get this, they are still profitable.

Fumble, Recovery, and Fumble Again at the Sir Francis Drake

A well-executed service recovery can go a long to towards cementing a positive reputation in a customer's mind. On the other hand, a poorly-executed recovery can make a bad experience that much worse. My wife, Sally, and I recently experienced both after staying at the historic Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. Here's a quick re-cap of what went right, what went wrong, and something just for fun.

The Stay
We decided to stay at the Sir Francis Drake hotel on a recent trip to San Francisco because of its proximity to Union Square, the fact it is a Kimpton hotel (we like Kimpton), and above all else the historic, but quirky image it projects. Overall, the stay was good and in line with our expectations, but we did experience a small problem at check in.

We arrived early, so our room wasn't yet ready. This wasn't a big deal, so went out for a bite to eat. We checked back after an hour and a half and were told the room would be ready in 20 minutes, so we continued waiting in the lobby. Another 45 minutes went by before we checked with the front desk agent again (who knew we were waiting) and she admitted she had forgotten about us. Finally, we got checked in, but then had to wait another 30 minutes for the bellman to bring our bags to the room (after being told they would be right up). None of this was major news, but it wasn't as high a level of service as we would expect.

The Recovery
Like many hotels, Kimpton sends out a survey to guests after they stay at one of its properties. I took a few moments to complete their survey, giving full credit for the exemplary service we received in several areas and also mentioning the small service problem at check in. To my surprise, the front desk manager called me a day or two later to ask for additional feedback. He was very polite, very apologetic, and offered to send me a certificate for a free night's stay to make amends for the problem. This was much more than I expected, so I was very happy. The manager's actions also caused Sally and I to rethink our decision to try another hotel the next time we visited the area.

The Fumble
The promised certificate never arrived. Maybe my neighbors received it instead, or maybe the mailman's dog ate it, or maybe the front desk manager never sent it. The reason it never arrived doesn't really matter at this point, and I don't plan on calling to ask for it. Yes, it would be nice to have a free night's stay, but the issue was great service (or lack of), not getting compensated. What is really too bad is Sally and I felt the front desk manager had worked so hard to recover our future business before this disappointing turn of events.

A Final Surprise
Did I mention 'quirky' was one of the reasons we decided to stay at the hotel in the first place? Our room was very small, but it did have a walk-in closet. In the closet was a set of leopard-print pajamas for sale. Simply open the plastic and enjoy, and a small charge of $30 will be added to your room bill. Nice.

Wine Tasting in Napa Valley - It's All About the Experience

My wife, Sally, and I recently made our annual trip to Napa Valley to do some wine tasting and stock up on wine. It dawned on me that we go back every year for the wine but also the experiences. There really is a lot to learn about service from these wineries! So, here's a quick summary of where we go, why we go, and what we can learn from it all.

Lodging

There are not a lot of major chain hotels in the Napa Valley area, so the way to go is a nice inn or B&B. We enjoy staying at the Napa River Inn in Napa. They've created a wonderful experience for their guests. A highlight is breakfast at the "Sweetie Pies" bakery, which is included in the room rate. They have two large community tables where you can often catch a hot tip from one of the locals that frequent the shop.

Wineries
We tend to stick with the smaller wineries unless we reserve a tour since you get a more intimate experience (and often better wine). The taste of wine is so subjective, so I'll refrain from commenting on quality (they were all good in their own right) but here are a few highlights of the experience.

Sterling. You get there via a gondola ride up the hillside to the winery and tasting room. The views of Napa Valley are awesome from this suspended cable car! Sally and I took a tour this time and had a wonderfully insightful and informative guide, Robert. Lessons learned: a great environment needs to be matched by great people!

Dutch Henry. This is about as informal as it gets. We did our tasting in a small office because they were bottling wine in their normal tasting venue, their barrel room. The lady doing our tasting was a lot of fun and drank wine along with us. Now that's being committed to your product! Lessons learned: breaking the ice and being less formal often creates great service situations and can overcome a lot of other deficiencies.

Cuivaison. It's a well-known secret that most wineries will pour wines not on their tasting list if you show an appropriate level of interest. The guy serving us did a great job of asking questions and learning our preferences, and he poured several "off the list" wines for us to try. (It worked quite well - we bought several!) Lessons learned: Listen to your customers before proposing a product or service! You'll sell more and they'll be even happier!

Frog's Leap. This winery is appointment-only, but they have a very cool tour. Mindy, our guide, took us through their gardens and wine making operation and told some interesting stories along the way. For example, the founders lived on an old frog farm and "liberated" the grapes for their first wine from Stag's Leap, thus the name of the winery. Lessons learned: Involving your customers in your story can help build passion and a deeper sense of brand-awareness.

PlumpJack. No time for tasting here, just a quick stop to buy a bottle of one of our favorite Cabernet Sauvignons. They were doing tastings for $10, but we just asked for a splash of the wine we bought, which we were offered on the house. A woman standing next to us noticed our bottle of wine had a screw cap and that launched also sorts of questions that probably deepened her experience too. Lessons learned: It pays to make your customers feel like a VIP, even if they only bring a small amount of business. And, it never hurts to have something unusual about your product or service that is a conversation starter.

Peju Province Winery. Most wineries have you saunter up to the tasting counter like you are in a bar, but Peju does it a bit differently. A greeter welcomes you in a lobby/gift shop area and asks you to wait a few minutes for the next tasting. They gathered about eight of us and led us to our own wine counter where a very knowledgeable and friendly gentleman led us through our tasting. We all received more attention, had a chance to ask more questions, and likely bought more wine than if we had to elbow our way in to get a tasting. Lessons learned: It costs more to have extra staff, but giving your customers the attention they deserve should pay off handsomely through higher average order values.

Hess Collection. This winery is another big producer, but they're off the beaten path, so they don't get extremely crowded. The lady who helped us was very friendly and knew a lot about their wine. She shared her knowledge, such as having us sample a few different wines side by side so we could taste the difference. That helped make it a very unique experience. Lessons learned: Make sure your people are able to educate customers on your products or services. This enhances your customers' understanding of what they're buying and can deepen their connection to your brand.