"Yes! You may bring in your ice cream cones --just be careful of their drips." (The welcome sign at Chris Cambridge's Scrimshaw Workshop, Bar Harbor, Maine)

Hello and good-bye are two of the most critical points in a customer transaction. So learning to properly greet and bid farewell to your customer is the greatest shortcut to customer delight that I know of, as I demonstrate here with the help of a blindfold.

I then offer the dubious-sounding but entirely true story of the warm welcome worth $100 million, a subset of the concept that service begins when a customer comes in contact with you (not necessarily waiting until you make intentional contact with the customer).
In the physical world, it’s time to realize that your receptionist is actually your all-important department of first and last impressions, while in an online environment, you need to plan for the reality that your best laid plans to greet your customers will likely get waylaid as soon as Google, Wikipedia, and other drivers of traffic get involved.

Barriers, such as those that hamper the disabled and other minority groups actually affect more potential customers than you think. Avoid barring them at the door. On a different note, as Chris Cambridge so wonderfully illustrates in his Bar Harbor, Maine gift shop, make it your goal should to encourage, rather than deter the pet-wielding, ice cream licking customers who, if you’re lucky, will make a (profitable) mess out of your store. More generally, the way you treat customers when you greet them sets the stage for all of your customers’ expectations, most specifically which of the three basic levels of service you supply at your establishment.

Finally, I mention the ultimate reason to be kind to a customer or a vendor: it may be an unexpectedly permanent good-bye.

–Micah Solomon

(Jonesing for more on this specific subject? Check out Chapter 11, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon, foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Publisher AMACOM BOOKS, international distribution by McGraw-Hill, available here.)

Hermes guiding the departed Myrrhine

Not that it comes down to this often, in most lines of work. But an ultimate reason to be kind to a customer (or, for that matter, a vendor) is the off chance it’ll be the last time you interact.

Opening the Times one bright morning I saw what no business owner ever wants to see: my customer’s face looking back at me from the obits. A customer we were all proud to work with here, a well-loved veteran of our industry.Somberly, I took a moment to look over my notes of our last interaction – hopeful, at least, that we had done right by him.

Here’s what I found looking over my notes: a project that had actually started with a small bump, and a customer who was gracious in giving us a chance to make things right. On what nobody could have known was to be his last project.

To speak with precision, he made our error seem small and merely bumplike, because that was his way: starting out a letter of very valid grievance with “First the good stuff–your staff has been excellent” before getting to the meat of what needed to be addressed.

So the transaction felt roundly satisfactory in the end, through his gracious way of bringing our attention to the issue, and, I’m hopeful to think, our way of resolving it.

That’s a nice way of leaving things, because you’re a long time gone.

]]> http://collegeofthecustomer.com/customers-and-vendor/feed/ 1 http://collegeofthecustomer.com/anticipatorygreeting/ http://collegeofthecustomer.com/anticipatorygreeting/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:52:29 +0000 customation http://collegeofthecustomer.com/?p=60 One of the first things you let customers know with your greeting is the level of service they can expect from your establishment. Are they going to get non-compliant service, compliant (reactive) service, or true anticipatory service?

The lowest level of service, non-compliant service –

“May I get some water from you, please?’’

‘”Uh, I think there’s a vending machine at the end of the block.”

will of course push away customers every time. They asked for a glass of water and received nothing—except a grudging set of directions.

Compliant service (‘‘May I have some water?’’ ‘‘Certainly. Here you go!’’) is pretty much the baseline for the contemporary business world. It doesn’t offend customers, but it won’t win them over either. Compliant service can be well-executed, but it’s not going to build loyalty for your brand.

Anticipatory service (‘‘Welcome. It is such a hot day today. May I offer you a glass of water?’’) is extremely rare. But this is where customer loyalty is created. When customers’ wishes are anticipated, they get to bask in the magical feeling of being cared for. That feeling creates loyalty, which builds strategic value for your company. So, you can tip your hand at the front door that this exceptional level of service is what they can expect—if you can manage to literally ‘‘have them at hello’’—you will predispose your customers to think well of you throughout the rest of the service experience.

–Micah Solomon

(Jonesing for more on this specific subject? Check out Chapter 11, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon,  foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Publisher  AMACOM BOOKS, international distribution by McGraw-Hill, available here.)

Chris Cambridge, a merchant who is one of the few local holdouts against this tide of “nos,” is aware of the suicidality evident in his compatriots’ approach.  And Chris goes decidedly in the other direction, even though his  Scrimshaw Worshop gift shop would seem to be the likeliest of candidates for a similar customer-deterring sign: It’s perched next door to by far the most  popular ice cream store in town, and probably in the entire state.

Chris understands the  importance of a good ‘‘hello,’’ and has fearlessly (or more likely, in spite of his fears) decided to approach the neighboring store an opportunity rather than a threat. Imagine how many more customers Chris wins by upending the local norm with this welcoming (and brave) statement:

YES! YOU MAY BRING IN YOUR ICE CREAM CONES

—Just be careful of their drips.

To make sure you know his store is a welcoming place, Chris add the following in a smaller font, as a nod to the pet-supply store that is his neighbor up the street on his other side:

P.S. We love your dogs, too!

Of course, this isn’t an article about the fine town of Bar Harbor, Maine.  Again, my guess is that you’ve found this virus afflicting your town as well–perhaps your own establishment, even. Whether or not you find ways to actively welcome customers as Chris Cambridge has done (and I encourage you to look at opportunities to do so), the first thing to do is to scour your entryways for all “nos.” The ubiquitous “No Soliciting,” for example– what is with that?  How much of your day is actually lost to solicitors compared to the loss of a smile from a subtext of “no” in a prospects mind?

–Micah Solomon

(Jonesing for more on this specific subject? Check out Chapter 11, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon,  foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.)  AMACOM BOOKS, internationally distributed by McGraw-Hill, available here.

A warm welcome, 30th St. Station Philadelphia

When you give a warm welcome (or you don’t) to what you think of as a small, invisible group of customers, the effect goes beyond that immediate constituency.

So, when considering “doing the right thing,” think beyond what you think is the affected group.  One case in point: I ride Amtrak all the time, yet I have never seen a uniformed serviceman or woman take Amtrak up on the offer below.  Still, the welcoming sign they post in their stations for servicemen and women stays in the back of my mind when I think of Amtrak: I like to think it would be appreciated by my brother-in-law who has seen three tours in Iraq (so far).

Unmaintained disabled access, suburban public library.

Probably the most common place that you have an opportunity to visibly put up or break down entry barriers to a minority group is to people with disabilities. An office building with obstructed ramps or heavy, hard-to-open doors: What does that ‘‘say’’ to a customer who is in a wheel chair or has arthritis?  Whatever it says, it says the same to anyone who cares about them — a group that is far larger than you may have ever imagined.

–Micah Solomon

(Jonesing for more on this specific subject? Check out Chapter 11, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon,  foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Publisher  AMACOM BOOKS, international distribution by McGraw-Hill, available here.)

Here’s an online conundrum: How you greet prospects and customers is crucial—but these days, by and large, you don’t actually get to decide where you greet them. Google, in general, is in charge of where most of your visitors will land. And, of course, Murphy’s Law will ensure that they land on some arcane, highly technical back corner of your website—one that definitely doesn’t put your best foot forward.

Let’s outwit Murphy with this three-pronged strategy:

1. Anticipate that ‘‘lost’’ visitors will arrive (via Google, links embedded in Wikipedia, etc.) on obscure inner pages of your site, so respond by making each page of your site extremely welcoming. Include:

• The name of the proprietor (and often a portrait with some words of welcome)

• A live chat link

• A ‘‘first time here?’’ tour button

• A ‘‘contact me now’’ button

2. Consider paying to reduce the wrong points of entry, via Google Adwords and other vehicles that allow you to specifically direct potentially lucrative visitors to where you want them to go.

3. For visitors who, happily, do arrive directly at your main home page, provide different experiences for new (unrecognized) visitors than for returning customers—just as you would in the physical world. For returning visitors, welcome them back and invite them to personalize their visit. For new visitors (or ones you can’t recognize), welcome them with a ‘‘New here?’’ screen and invite them to start a dialogue with you: take a guided tour, receive some free information—anything to keep them from wandering off before you (gently) extract some way to keep in touch.

–Micah Solomon

(Jonesing for more on this specific subject? Check out Chapter 11, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon, foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.) AMACOM BOOKS, internationally distributed by McGraw-Hill, available here.

Whatever you call it, ‘‘First and Last Impression Creator’’ is among the most important positions in your enterprise.

Quick, think: Who is the first and last person your customers talk to when they’re on your premises, or on the phone?  It may be your receptionist,  office manager, host, or another employee who greets most of your visitors — and who later bids them farewell; regardless of title,  did you carefully vet this person?  Train her? Supervise her?  Or is this an entry-level position, a stepping stone, almost a “throwaway?”

I’ve  talked already about the huge influence that first and last impressions will have on your customer’s overall evaluation of you.  Truly,  these moments can make all the difference in your brand image.

Greeted with genuine caring and courtesy, a customer will forgive later minor problems, and will be more pleased with your later successes.  Start off  your customer’s visit with a good feeling, and the rest of their time with you is so much more likely to feel good to them, too.  And a caring farewell has the power to assuage a customer’s lingering concerns., and it can transform a fairly positive experience (“Most things were pretty good”) into a wonderful memory (“Everything was just perfect!”).

–Micah Solomon

P.S: Sometimes — many times–it’s not a person but a physical impression, left by a now-invisible person, that makes the first and/or last impression of caring or not caring.   For example, this first impression when I opened the door of my hotel room: a bicycle-style security chain implying I wanted to make off with their $1.75 wine key:

(Jonesing for more on this specific subject? Check out Chapter 11, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon,  foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Publisher  AMACOM BOOKS, international distribution by McGraw-Hill, available here.)

For example: suppose you’re the manager for the suburban superstore pictured below –

Suburban superstore (broad view from sidewalk approach)

and a customer has just pulled up in front of it. When and where will her welcome begin? Well, probably we’re overlooking  important parts of her welcome that happened even before she pulled in: She Googled the store to find the nearest location and related information. How smoothly and appealingly did that interaction go? Was she able to see a professional, appealing photo of your store (and, if appropriate, you) in the search results? Were your hours and services clearly stated?

Then, as she pulls up to your store, she begins to contemplate what doing business with you is going to be like. And, she infers your traits from a thousand things around her: the condition of the asphalt,  the condition of the buildings and objects that abut your store (why are some of the newspaper dispensers full of garbage, apparently months-old, some of it wrapped in a bag from that self-same superstore?), the condition of your store’s facade window (“Why is it so dark in there? Why is so much of their window space obscured with boxes stacked floor-to-ceiling–apparently more precariously than the leaning tower of Pisa?”) Clearly, her visit with you has already begun — and you haven’t met her yet! If bad first impressions are building up, you’ll have a bear of a time undoing them–and you don’t even know you’re making them yet.

Suburban superstore (detail from sidewalk)

Of course, often, the sources of these first impressions are unfair.  Your business is quite possibly a tenant, and the responsibility for the upkeep of, for example, the parking lot may be the responsibility of someone else. But you can’t take finger-pointing to the bank. (The prototypical American merchant, Benjamin Franklin, organized street-sweeping in Philadelphia because of the boon he knew it would bring to the businesses fronting the sidewalks, not because he had any legal responsibility over those sidewalks.)

As my co-writer and I suggest in our new book,  try instead taking a  cue from carefully-managed resort hotels: They pay attention to the guest’s arrival sequence: the flowers, the signage, the friendly security guard at the gatehouse, the doorman. By the time the guests get to their room, they should feel gently transported to another world. And, that’s not a bad way to think of warming up your customers in a more mundane storefront setting, either.

–Micah Solomon

(Jonesing for more on this specific subject? Check out Chapter 11, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon,  foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Publisher  AMACOM BOOKS, international distribution by McGraw-Hill, available here.)

The most astonishing example I know of is the case of pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly and her nine-figure bequest to Poetry magazine.

As the New York Times described it in her recent obituary, Lilly was “an aspiring poet for much of her life whose work had been declined for publication by the magazine”–nicely. “Ms. Lilly was reportedly moved by the encouraging rejection letters she had received.”

Apparently very moved.  Toward the end of her life she endowed the tiny magazine (staff members: four;circulation: 12,000) with $100 million from her fortune as the last surviving great-grandchild of pharmaceutical magnate Eli Lily.

Think on your own business dealings.  I’ll bet you have similar examples, likely not as dramatic, but possibly just as important to the health of your own business.  There are a lot of sheep in wolves’ clothing, and vice versa, in this world. This is one reason to not screen your phone calls.  To give your personal email address to anyone who asks for it.  And to always, always be a gracious loser.  Because losing is temporary, and one of the best ways to ultimately win a lot of business deals is to come in second a lot of times.  Ultimately, folks will remember how graciously you came in second all those times, and call you when their first choice proves to be not-so-much a first choice as they thought.

{This is a subset of a broader principle. I  suggest next the post  “Service begins when a customer comes in contact with you (not the other way round).“}

–Micah Solomon

(Jonesing for more on this specific subject? Check out Chapter 11, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon,  foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Publisher  AMACOM BOOKS, international distribution by McGraw-Hill, available here.)

If you were here with me right now, the first thing I’d need to do [if you really want to learn how to serve your customers] is blindfold you. Then, I’d read you this list of spices:

Tarragon.

Lavender.

Cardamom.

Chicory.

Safflower.

Cinnamon.

Turmeric.

Marjoram.

And before things could proceed any further between us, I’d need you to write down all the words you remember from the list.

Sounds like you’d be on a date with a control freak. In reality, I just walked you through a traditional experimental demo, used hundreds of times each semester in introductory lectures by cognitive psychology professors all around the world. Here’s the point:

Imagine that each of, say, a hundred people took this test without peeking. Which spices would they remember best? There’s a very particular pattern that researchers always see:

Serial Position Curve Graph

This is known in psychology as the serial position effect: People most clearly remember the first thing that happened to them (Tarragon) and the last thing (Marjoram). The stuff that happened in between? It’s a bit of a blur.

Firsts and lasts really are the spice of life!

This insight provides us with an extremely valuable shortcut in providing great–i.e., perceived to be great– customer experience. Here’s how:

The way you greet and say good-bye to your customers are your “firsts” and “lasts”–the high points on the serial position curve pictured above. Handle them superbly, and your customer will recall — and will describe to others — an overall superb experience. And they’ll be able to immediately call to mind specific examples of how you were superb. Conversely, if you only excel in the middle of your interaction, you won’t get full credit for all that hard effort.

-Micah Solomon

(Jonesing for more on this specific subject? Check out Chapter 11, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon,  foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Publisher  AMACOM BOOKS, international distribution by McGraw-Hill, available here.)