This will contain some josh and some news value.
—Harold Ross (in writing the 1924 prospectus for The New Yorker, which he founded)

Dear readers and friends, crowd around. Having you join our luncheon once again makes this a value-added treat. Harold Ross, loyal friend of the Algonquin Round Table, was a great fan of a fine story, and this week we’ve got stories he’d love, told in many fine ways to entertain, inform, and surprise you. I’ve invited new friends and old to share their fresh perspectives today. I hope you’ll enjoy getting to know them—leave them a comment, and come on back to share your thoughts around the Maximum Customer Experience Round Table!

A Web of Stories by Jon Swanson at Small Biz Survival starts us off today. “We know the web is a collection of links. But that’s just the technical definition. It’s actually a collection of people doing business the way it’s always been done, when it’s done well.” Well worth repeating: we’re the same folks as we are offline. Or if you like, the more things change, the more they do stay the same. A charming story that will get you thinking and leave you with a smile.

Yes, it can be hard to accept. We all could use a little professional help from our colleagues once in a while. “The good news was … when I started out as a marketing manager, I was given a lot of rope. The bad news was … I immediately went out and almost hanged myself.” Brad Shorr tells a story where he could have used some help in Don’t Let Testimonials Dictate Your Marketing Strategy at Word Sell, Inc.

Can this quickie get you through your long summer days without bourbon? Brands I Love: Knob Creek tells the world “Thanks for Nothing” by Dave Knox at Hard Knox Life. Knob Creek tells a story that resonates powerfully, in very few words—and makes a little Kentucky lemonade out of the lemons they were handed, too. Thank goodness my bottle’s half-full.

Looking through my Google alerts for this week, I came across several posts touting the amazing conversations you and I want to have with our brands. I’m not going to name names, but let’s just say I was surprised at some big bloggers who’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid this week. (Some dear friends and readers may not be quite as surprised as I.) Sad, really, because that pie-in-the-sky story isn’t relevant to your small business or mine, nor to the lives we really lead. Then thank goodness, Olivier Blanchard came along and saved the day with his practical wisdom. I should have gone to The Brand Builder Blog first! Read, and watch the utterly no-nonsense video, at Defining Social Media ROI once and for all. Return on investment!! Ah, yes. I remember it well.

You know I scour the Internet for witty takes on Customer Experience, y’all. That’s what the Round Table should be about—it’s Saturday, we’ve got our martinis in hand, and we want a laugh if there’s one out there! Boy, Randy Saunders really delivered this week, with his posting of Dave Carroll’s video “United Breaks Guitars.” Watch it at Frustrated Passenger Sings Out about United Airlines Experience at The Perfect Customer Experience, and just try not to laugh out loud. A rant, a super laugh, and a huge lesson. Social media hasn’t changed everything, we all know that—but oh ho ho, it has brought some changes.

Thanks, as always, for the pleasure of your company and your commentary. Let’s do lunch again soon.

Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Learn something fantastic as you clicked around? Think I missed the best one of the week? Have your say in the comments—you know you want to!

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

If you’re going to write, don’t pretend to write down. It’s going to be the best you can do, and it’s the fact that it’s the best you can do that kills you.
—Dorothy Parker

Last time, Mrs. Erickson and the Vision Circle (that’s you) entertained:

What’s Short, Sweet, Sparkly, and Ruby?

Craving dessert? Click here to see all the posts in the Round Table series, along with other great recommended reading from MCE!

Once you pass that last spot, believe it or not, you will thank the chef for the food, no matter that your dining partner died at the 67-minute-mark. It’s all relative.

Yep. There’s a lesson in here, too. I’m not all about ranting and raving.

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.

People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument.
—Will Rogers

Which is why saying the customer comes first, but breaking your promises, will eventually cause your stock prices to tumble, and your word-of-mouth to turn sour.

Which is why case studies and stories and great word-of-mouth referrals (and even some blogs) sell better than “push” marketing—though the volume of mass marketers can cover up this small-business advantage.

It’s why reading “sent from my iPhone” on an email makes me drool for one, more than all the glorious ads and perky salepeople and gleaming Apple stores combined. Why you want the grill your cousin Ferdie cooked the family barbecue on last week. Why a little wait at that hot new restaurant (behind other eager diners) convinces you that you’ve made a good choice.

And it’s why it’s time for me to shut up. 

Show, don’t tell.

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

A Four-Act Rant, including a Surprise Guest Rant

Down on my knees:

My local mega-cosmetics-store (yes, folks, you know you live in a super-urban area when you have a cosmetics store that’s larger than most people’s grocery stores) went through a massive renovation about six months ago. I found out about it five-and-a-half months late because cosmetics superstores are not my thing.

But I digress. Back to the reno.

This reno made the store look like a beautiful white chamber, very futuristic… in 1962. Okay, so I show up late and I don’t care for it much. But all I want is my usual mascara, which I’ve needed to get for a couple of months, but it’s not my thing…. oh, I already said that.

Lovely, white white white lab-style scene. I find it hard to orient myself. I make the classic customer’s decision that this is because I’m a dolt, not because they’ve taken all visual cues away from the huge space.

Your customers decide that all the time. Then they walk out or click away. That’s ‘cuz they don’t need my mascara, I presume.

In the section I’ve been hunting for, things are no longer grouped by brand. As they are in every other cosmetics section of every other doggone store I’ve ever set foot in. Now they’ve got me disoriented, they’ve violated conventions that make shopping easy for me to understand, and at last…

At last I find the Mascara Bar. Yes, now I must suffer cutsey indignities like calling this area a Mascara Bar. I am on my way to mildly annoyed, but I still need the stuff. My brand located, style spotted, all that remains is to find the shade I want.

This is when I notice that the racks go all the way to the floor. Not backstock, or drawers, or extras, but the actual hanging racks that I am trying to look through to find my mascara. The Kid happened to be with me, and she saw nothing wrong with crawling on the floor to look for me (thanks, Kid!), but I do. When she didn’t spot it, and I wasn’t sure whether she knew what she was looking for—yes, I had to get down, on my wool-clad knees, in my suit, to look at bloody floor-level to be certain that my mascara wasn’t there.

Which it wasn’t.

… …

If I go back, hoping it will be in stock, what I can’t decide is, will I ask for sales help?

What’s more awful: me on my knees just so I can give them money, or asking a salesperson to humiliate herself to keep my knees clean?

The new interiors are an Experience Design FAIL in every way.

UPS redux:

Long time readers may remember my difficulties in getting packages sent via UPS to my home address. I’ve even offered UPS tips to improve their Customer Experience, but it seems they’re a little slow in implementing the changes.

For nearly two years I have avoided UPS for personal and professional shipping, due to this impasse with the company. I’ll even find another supplier if I need to, when the company I wanted to do business with can’t ship via FedEx or USPS.

Except… when I’ve just got to have a certain something, and I can’t get it any other way. Such was the case a few weeks ago for a small package I wanted delivered to my home. On the delivery date, oh what luck, I even happened to be home with a sick kid. We’d have no delivery shenanigans this day…

I checked the tracking number a few times during the day. Out for delivery, out for delivery… no updates, but nothing going wrong either. I kept the blinds on our big picture window open and watched the long front walk for Brown, and continually scanned the parking lot for a truck. All day, while sitting at the computer, while writing, or while taking care of The Kid, checking out the window every few minutes.

At 7 pm I checked the tracking number again… UPS’ site says they can not give delivery estimates but they’ll deliver by 7, yet the tracking number still said out for delivery. The Kid and I were watching a movie so I kept one eye on the picture window, and didn’t bother the computer again until 7:45… when the website said “7:28 pm. THE RECEIVER WAS UNAVAILABLE TO SIGN ON THE 1ST DELIVERY ATTEMPT.”

For a package that did not require a signature. But as my past difficulties have shown me, with UPS that’s a mere technicality.

I’d been sitting there all day for nothing.

I called their 800 number immediately. I explained with a bit of agitation in my voice that I wanted the truck to turn around, he or she is supposedly only 15 minutes away at most, and NO attempt had been made—the truck had not been in the lot, no one had walked up the sidewalk, and of course, no one had been to the door, all of which I’d been watching like a hawk all day precisely so this wouldn’t happen. I explained that this has happened several times before—and variations on this—and that I avoid UPS like the plague because of it, though of course, I know it’s not your fault, Customer Service Guy, you’re just the one who has to hear this stuff. So please turn that driver back from wherever he is, and save him the faux trip that he probably won’t make tomorrow.

He said he was not able to have the driver turn around, because he could not contact the driver. He made me check my front door to see if there was a UPS “attempted delivery” sticker, which I assured him there would not be, and there wasn’t. Even after listening to everything that day and my history with the company, he still said “That’s odd. He was required to leave a note.”

“I am trying to tell you that he has NOT been here.”

The gentleman had been typing furiously the entire time I was on the phone with him. I made sure he understood that it’s not even the undelivered package that was really bothering me, but having the delivery person lie about his whereabouts and mine to save face. I don’t know where he was, but I know where I was. If they’re running too late they ought to write in the system, “ran too late.” Not lie about whether I was there, and think I’m too stupid to find out.

He said that so-and-so from the local office would contact me between 8 and 9 tomorrow morning, after she’d figured out what happened, and give me an estimated delivery time for that day.

At 11 am so-and-so called, and left a message to tell me that she was sorry I had not been there to accept the package, but a different driver would deliver it between 2 and 3 pm. No phone number to call her back.

So I guess the Customer Service Guy was typing an email to his girlfriend, because he sure didn’t tell her that I WAS there, every minute of the day, and the driver is the one who wasn’t. Which means the driver is not going to answer for this incident… which probably has a lot to do with why this is rampant in their organization, judging from all the UPS stories I’ve heard since I first wrote about them. After going through a telephone-labyrinth for the sole purpose of trying to help them fix this problem—after all, I knew they’d attempt delivery again the next day, so I wasn’t getting anything out of the call—there’s no accountability at the proper levels. I wasted my time and my breath.

C.S. Guy apparently also didn’t tell her he’d promised that she’d call hours earlier, when I was ready to take the call and try to straighten this out locally.

The UPS guy arrived at 3:45 pm. Right when you’d expect.

… …

Even a certain something isn’t worth this.

Independence Day:

The 4th of July provided a lot of surprises for me this year. Since we moved to this area, we always head to Philadelphia to take in the historic sites and the evening festivities, but maybe I have blinders on as I go. This time we needed a couple of items before running out of town and thinking a 24-hour drugstore would be my only choice, I discovered that most major stores were open. For my readers who are not in the States, Independence Day was once almost as closed-up as New Year’s Day… though New Year’s, I’ve noticed, isn’t as closed up as New Year’s anymore, either.

Is this a good thing? Not to me, for a variety of reasons, but there I go digressing again.

In Philly the story was the same. Many shops and restaurants were open, which was convenient, but distracting from our usual purpose of taking in massive amounts of history, starving until we head to the scene of the night’s activities, and then wolfing down large amounts of street-vendor junk food. I mean, we could eat good food and go shopping between Betsy Ross’ house and Ben Franklin’s! That’s just not traditional.

When it came time to head to the Parkway to meet up with Sheryl Crow, we stopped in a little shop for dessert before dinner (Mama and The Kid get to make up our own rules!). We’d seen people walking by us with cups of soft-serve and we were dying for a little ice cream without the long wait we’d have for some icky premade bar up on the Parkway.

Once inside, we tried to get the hang of things from watching other folks. The place was serve-yourself and pay-by-weight, which seemed interesting enough. We made up wild flavor and topping combos and paid, and only as we were grabbing our spoons did we hear the cashier explaining to another newbie that we’d just purchased frozen yogurt.

I’m not complaining about the concept of frozen yogurt, mind you, but astonished that I’d misunderstood, I looked carefully around the place—there is NO mention of that anywhere, and no hint from the names of the flavors, to the name of the shop.

Not telling your customers what they’re buying is a huge no-no in my Customer Experience book.

We wandered out, munching and walking a bit, and kids being kids, mine decided after we were blocks away that she wanted to use their restroom, so we headed back. I’d finished my treat, quite surprised at how much I liked it (frozen yogurt is not usually my thing), but The Kid, who does usually like it, hated this version. So when we walked back in one of the staff asked me had she liked it, and I could honestly say, “Not as much as I did! I surprised myself.”

… …

The big problem is that they surprised her. Expectations play a major part in enjoyment.

If we knew what we were in for, I admit I wouldn’t have wanted any because I’ve not enjoyed it elsewhere, but she probably would have enjoyed it much more. No matter how many “wins” they may achieve in a pleasantly surprised person like me, the losses will eventually outweigh them.

Broken English, Broken Promises:

Last, the fireworks for this show are provided by my friend and fellow blog author, the Urban Panther, who also contributed the title for today’s post. She wrote me:

There is a wood company offering a new type of wood (torrified) in Canada. They have established a market in Montreal, and are now trying to break into our region. We are their FIRST customer in the area. We hired them to build a $7,000 fence, plus told them that we will likely order more wood to build a deck, then next year a balcony, and in later years flooring for inside. In other words, there is the potential for a lot of business from us.

Well, they promised the fence would be installed six weeks ago. Personally, I lost patience with them the second week, after the third broken promise. Because they are French, my partner, the Urbane Lion, has been dealing with them. He has been cool as a cucumber, with the patience of Job, until last night.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a phone call from the fencing company. The Lion wasn’t home yet, so it was my turn to deal with them. The girl didn’t speak English, but she did manage to get out the following:

Fence Girl: Because it rain, no fence tomorrow
Me: It’s not going to rain here.
Fence Girl: Yes, rain.
Me: No rain tomorrow. I am looking at the weather report right now. There is no rain here tomorrow. You CANNOT go by your weather. You are 2 hours away!
Fence Girl: Please wait. I get someone.

Fence Girl 2: May I help you?
Me (after a significant pause): You phoned me!
Fence Girl 2: Yes, yes. No fence. It rain at your place. (Her English was marginally better)
Me: There is NO rain here tomorrow. I looked up the weather report.
Fence Girl 2: Yes?
Me: NO RAIN. I want my fence tomorrow.
Fence Girl 2: Installer phone you tonight. Bye.

The Urbane Lion got home, and Panther relayed the conversation.

Lion: Give me the owner.
Fence Girl: I told your girlfriend that the installer would phone tonight.
Lion: Yes, well, for 6 weeks now I have been told people will phone me and they don’t. I have no trust that he will.
Fence Girl: Okay, I will have the installer phone you now.

Installer: Because it’s going to rain at your place, I started another job today I have to finish tomorrow.
Lion: **&&^% there is no *&^% rain here *&^%g tomorrow. &^%$ You will &^%$ install my fence &^%$ tomorrow. (And it went downhill from there for about 5 minutes)
Installer: Okay, I’ll phone you back.

Note: $#@! = extremely colourful French swear words

Owner: Monsieur, I can assure you that you will get your fence tomorrow.
Lion: Thank you.

Installer: Monsieur, I will not be installing your fence tomorrow.
Lion: ^%$# %%$# %$# %$# %$# (you get the idea)

Lion: Give me the owner.
Fence Girl 1: He is unavailable at the moment.
Lion: tell him to come get his %$#@ wood.

Owner: Monsieur, the installer double booked himself. I will tell him that if he doesn’t install your fence tomorrow he will lose his contract with my company.
Lion: Okay because I am %$#@ tired of all the $#@! broken promises. You promise one thing $#@! and your staff $#@! break them.
Owner: I understand. I will keep you posted.

Owner: Monsieur, the installer will be there at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning.
Lion: Okay. But if he’s not, I would really appreciate your wood being gone before the weekend.
Owner: I will not need to come get my wood.

The installers are here. And, as I suspected would be the case, they had no clue what the design of the fence is. The Lion had to print off the picture we agreed on with the sales lady. So, if he wasn’t home, the installers wouldn’t know what to build. And, it means they are currently standing around scratching their heads on how to build the fence. But at least they are here!

… …

This story made me wonder, as I have many times in my adult life, whether people should be as patient as the Lion (and the Panther, and I) are. Whether we should be or not, many people are. And many companies abuse that good nature.

Until you want to expand into an area where English is the primary language, customer service staff who can’t speak fluently may not be an issue. For this company that time has come, but they’ve got far worse to deal with in their utter inability to follow through on their promises. Your word is all you’ve got in business—no matter what language the word is spoken in. There are many businesses in this super-urban area I live in with staff who are just learning the language, but I enjoy giving them my money because it’s clear that in any language they are pleasant, helpful people.

Post script: The Urban Panther and her Urbane Lion finally got the fence they’d been hoping for. Was it worth the horrors? Let’s see what they do about the deck.

Okay, so I don’t hate everything about this post, but I do hate everything that happened in this post. I hope you got a laugh and at least a couple of wows from it.

If these things are going on at your place of business, dear reader, it’s time to get back to work—Maximum Customer Experience is still a ways off.

Have a suggestion for these companies, or a rant of your own? Please share how NOT to woo you in the comments!

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

I can’t bring myself to say, ‘Well, I guess I’ll be toddling along.’ It isn’t that I can’t toddle. It’s just that I can’t guess I’ll toddle.
—Robert Benchley

Dear readers and friends, crowd around. Having you join the Maximum Customer Experience Round Table today, as the weather heats up and the excuses mount up, really touches me. Thank you.

I know you’ve got to be toddling along, so I won’t send you away to read for more than a moment.

Always, Seth Godin grabs my mind, but sometimes, he grabs my heart. “If you have no wish, how can it possibly come true?” Please read the short, very sweet Ruby Slippers at Seth’s Blog, because this is the one the will leave you scratching ideas on notepads for the rest of the weekend.

Yes. I’ve got my wish, Seth, thanks. But if I say it out loud will it come true? I hope so…

Let freedom ring all around the globe. And if you can read this, never forget how lucky you are. I get all cheesy and personally reflective on Independence Day. Freedom is so much more than most of us realize.

This happens to be my favorite Sheryl Crow song, and she’s clearly wearing her Birthplace of the Nation pants. I couldn’t resist!

I’ll be hanging with Sheryl tonight in Philadelphia, y’all. Wave if you’re there, I’ll be looking.

Wherever you are today—as they say around here, have a good one.

A joyous 4th to you!

Thanks, as always, for the pleasure of your company and your commentary. Go grill yourself a juicy burger, and let’s do lunch again soon.

Have your say in the comments—you know you want to!

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

If you’re going to write, don’t pretend to write down. It’s going to be the best you can do, and it’s the fact that it’s the best you can do that kills you.
—Dorothy Parker

Last time, Mrs. Erickson and the Vision Circle (that’s you) entertained:

6 Most Incredible Bloggers Who You’re Missing Out On

Craving dessert? Click here to see all the posts in the Round Table series, along with other great recommended reading from MCE!

Once upon a time there was a lady who wanted to buy a new hat.

A baseball cap, to be exact, but one that no ball player has ever worn.

Something extraordinary, something remarkable. A cap with meaning, a cap with zip. A cap with the verve of the giver and the class of the receiver.

Rarely has a ballcap been asked to be so much!

But the lady knew zilch about ballcaps. She did know something about the convenience-laden land of franchises in which she lived, and knew that no such gem would be found near home. She did a little research on the wild, wild web to find out about remarkable haberdashery in Big Cosmopolitan City, where she frequently travelled, and got addresses for purveyors of artisanal head-finery that would make a wonderful gift for a king… if kings wore baseball caps.

1.

At the appointed hour the lady drove in to the city and approached the first address. Their website hadn’t been much, but they came well-recommended.

They were also out of business.

Such are the times, folks, and I feel for you, really, but if you’ve gone out of business, either mention that on your site or take the site down, okay?

2.

The next two addresses were near each other, in the artsy-tony section of town. The lady parked, paid her 86 quarters to feed the hungry meter, and headed off to the closest one. The shop was tiny, immaculate, sun-filled, cleverly arranged, staffed by one, possibly the owner, who greeted her and her Kid pleasantly, and full to the rafters of all manner of hats. This was hat heaven. She was sure they’d go nowhere else. Oh, the prices stung a little, but she wanted to own twenty things for herself, they were so beautiful and unique, she’d spotted gifts for everyone she knew… she was almost distracted from the task at hand, finding The Perfect Gift for her friend.

At last, having gone through shelves, tables, and racks, nothing at all had truly grabbed her as belonging, perfectly, to her noble friend. Her standards were very high for this gift. Sadly, she thanked the smiling man still sitting behind the register, and wandered out as another customer wandered in.

Surprised there hadn’t been a match in such a wonderland, she peered longingly through the windows as they planned to make their way toward the next shop, when—she spotted The Hat! “Oh, yes, I like that one too, Mama,” The Kid agreed. They hurried back in, excited to tell the smiling man that they’d take the one in the window, no matter the price, please. “I’m sure those are on a shelf,” he said, still smiling, and among his vast array, he did find the cap displayed on a table.

“I’m so thrilled!” said the lady, noting the $86 price tag and swallowing hard, but grinning at the thought of the hat on its recipient. “I have a friend who loves….”

Between “I have a friend” and “who loves,” the smiling man had walked away from her, leaving her holding a very expensive ballcap, a rapidly fading grin, and a funny feeling, as he walked up to the only other customer in the store, who was admiring himself in the mirror, and asked if he’d like any help.

The Kid tried the hat on and turned to the mirror. “I don’t think I like it anymore,” she said.

“Me either.”

As they shuffled up the street they made up little things that were wrong with the hat once they’d closely examined it. The exact shade of olive was just a bit off. The shape was… well, it was a little too avant-garde, wasn’t it?

Fifty bucks lost today, who knows how many in the future, because… please tell me it wasn’t because I’m a woman? My money’s the same shade of green. Let’s just assume it was because you’re a jerk.

If that was a staffer, the lesson is don’t hire jerks, and if that was the owner, just remember what happened to the first hatter. Near-perfect Experience totally destroyed. I wouldn’t return to buy the twenty hats I loved if I won the lottery.

3.

They stopped at a few little shops for indispensable this-and-thats on their way down the street. At the final hatter’s that she had scoped out on the web, a place that was far more artsy-grungy than artsy-tony, a pleasant greeter took their bags, firmly but a bit apologetically, on the way in. She misunderstood for a moment, not having been mistaken for a thief at any other shops, but with an understanding laugh, she gave up her bags in exchange for a charmless clothespin, scribbled on in Sharpie. (Should’ve branded this, and should’ve used something cleverer, she thought to herself. Opportunity to turn my frown upside-down, missed.)

The shop had only one, large wall of hats, but there were only ballcaps, which meant plenty to look through. With nowhere else on the itinerary, surely they’d see something here.

If only they could see something… the wall of caps was behind an enormous cash-wrap area, at the opposite end of the counter from the sole register. The space behind the cash-wrap, plus the counter itself, put the lady and The Kid at least eight feet from the caps. They couldn’t tell if any of them were what they had in mind from that distance. A friendly-looking salesperson was hanging t-shirts on a rack near the ballcap end of the counter. “I can get something down for you,” she said.

“Well, I can’t see them to know what to have you get down. Can I get closer?”

“Oh, sure. You can get a little closer,” she said, returning to her hanging duties.

Relieved, the lady told The Kid to stay still and went round the end of the counter, quite far from the cash register, and of course, without her dangerous bags. She laughed again in camaraderie. “Thanks, because it’s really hard to choose one without being able to see them. Awful that they made this so inconvenient, huh?”

She stood at least two feet from the hats, not wanting to seem as if she might touch or disturb the grunge (dis)order of the store.

“Not that close,” said the exact same salesperson, with clear menace in her voice. “You can’t be behind the counter.”

The lady backed out. From the edge of the long counter, of course, the view was twice as bad—at a distance, plus now at a very acute angle.

“I cant buy them if I can’t see them.” It was a statement, not an argument. No point in that. She was already walking away.

“Mm. That’s how it is.”

They were back at the front door, waiting to be handed their bags in exchange for the cheesy clothespin, before the greeter had done whatever he usually did with people’s bags (they were still in his hand). The entire shopping experience took less than thirty seconds. Behind them she could hear baffled grumblings from all four of the staff, as she walked out, incensed.

If shoplifting is such a problem that everyone must be assumed to be criminals, you’d better find a way to make that mighty amusing. I don’t often pay money to be treated that way.

Your floorplan is a major player in creating, or destroying, the Experience.

Don’t let your staff grumble at anyone. Some folks are bloggers who seriously considered naming names today.

Once upon a time…

… there was a hot, frustrated lady, who just wanted to buy a cool doggone hat, wandering one of the most fascinating areas of Big Cosmopolitan City, attempting to talk straight to The less-annoyed Kid so her muttering would not be mistaken for insanity: “Can’t even throw my money at people. I’m going to write a post about this. I should take pictures… make a collage… ‘these are all the places I couldn’t buy a hat.’ I can’t believe how stupid this is…” when they wandered right by an unremarkable-looking store, ominously marked something boring to do with Hats.

Without looking at the bag I can’t even tell you the name. Big yawn.

The lady almost didn’t go in, because of the blah name, but she wanted a doggone hat, and doggone hats were here. She gave it a shot.

It wasn’t too well lit, but the store did have yet another incredible selection of hats. (Big Cosmopolitan City should be renamed from Sweatsuit Capital of America—sad but true in spite of all these cosmopolites—to Hat Capital of America. How does one city support four—okay, three—hatters in such a tiny area, and I suspect many more that the lady didn’t discover in other areas of the city?) The walls were lined with bookshelves, artfully displaying wares, and there were too many trees full of hats to count, dancing down the center aisle of the store. It took more than a half hour to peruse all the possibilities, to try on a few for fun, but mainly, to get the bad taste of the other shops out of their mouths and prepare to attempt human interactions. The Kid put one hat in the lady’s hand, insisting that they buy it for her, if ever a gift were located for the noble friend. As The Kid had endured quite a bit it was agreed to, as a reward for her help and patience.

Then The Kid noticed a hearing impaired man, attempting to make his interest known—a hat too high on the wall for him to reach. She pointed out to her mother how kind the cashier was, stepping out from behind the counter, coming closer to listen to broken speech, working with him through patient gestures, never once looking like this was something he didn’t deal with every day. The lady’s eyes teared up, just a tad, watching the elegant interactions between the customer and an unlikely, t-shirt-clad 20-something cashier. She put another hat in her hand that might look darling on someone.

Still, the perfect cap eluded them.

As she was about to give up, she noticed one last tree that she hadn’t examined the first time through the store. Ballcaps! and every one a delight. Soon she had several to choose from. Off to the mirror, to model them herself and let The Kid model them, trying to imagine which was right. The Kid took the caps back to the rack, carefully replacing them where they’d been, and the lady noticed a floorwalker, watching with a smile. She hadn’t “seen” him before but then remembered that for as long as they’d been in the store she had seen him… never pushing, never intruding, never helping (which they clearly didn’t need), nor warning in any way. Simply, and discreetly, there, letting them take their time to fall in love with the store. Almost falling…

The Kid walked back with one last cap from that one last rack, and from six feet away the lady knew it was The Perfect Gift. The Kid was already smiling, and they both began to laugh at how perfect it was. “But I can’t understand the price tag….”

She hadn’t said it very loudly, but the store wasn’t very big. The associate on the floor looked toward them and gave a half-smile. Still not pushing, only inviting.

“How much is this cap?” The lady knew that it did not matter at all what his answer was. When The Perfect Gift has been found, asking the price is only for curiosity. But she took careful note of his welcoming tone and friendly answer. She nearly sighed out loud with relief, and she walked with him to purchase all the hats she held. He’d even remembered which one The Kid fell for straightaway—though by then it had been in the lady’s hands for twenty minutes—and without so much as a wink, quietly offered to cut the tags off that hat if she’d like to wear it out of the store. Which she did. And for the rest of that hot, hot day.

At the risk of repeating myself—your floorplan plays a critical part in creating your Customer Experience. Make it a logical, but never boring, voyage of discovery.

When you’ve designed a floorplan for lingering, integrate it with customer service that encourages the lingering.

Hire human beings. Some folks say there are none to be had “these days,” but I say that some Mamas raise their babies right in every generation. Find those people, because you can’t train for empathy.

Discretion is underrated and in desperately short supply. Demand it of your help. Works for hats as well as it does for Mercedes-Benz. Just because you don’t sell high-ticket items doesn’t mean you shouldn’t treat your customers as if they’ve come to find a gift for a king—it’s your payday if they’re delighted.

And one more… get a website. With a fine enough web presence, I might have gone here first.

So ends the tale of the three mad hatters, and the one who got all my business. A not-quite fable of useful Customer Experience tips for you.

Had any fabled Experiences yourself lately? Meet me in the comments…

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.

Grace under pressure.
—Ernest Hemingway, in New Yorker (Nov. 30, 1929).

Definition of “guts,” in an interview with Dorothy Parker. The definition was also invoked by John F. Kennedy at the start of his collection of essays, Profiles of Courage.

It might be darkest before the tornado hits. Dawn is not always next. But every day is only 24 hours long, so it’s coming sometime. It’s not the crap you have to deal with that defines you, but the way you deal with the crap.

For George, who hates clichés.

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

Seeing ourselves as others see us would probably confirm our worst suspicions about them.
—Franklin P. Adams

Dear readers and friends, crowd around. Seeing you at our luncheon once again makes this a real treat. This week’s a bit different from my usual Round Table themes. I’d like to shine the spotlight on a few friends who I can say without any exaggeration, should be reaching the entire civilized world with their wit and wisdom. (I have no doubt this will confirm their worst suspicions about me!) I’ve linked to them before, and folks, it’ll happen again, just as long as they continue to amaze me each week with insights that make me say Thank Goodness for the Interwebs.

I don’t know what I did before I discovered these six authors, consistently churning out aha! moments for you and I to revel in, and I hope you’ll feel the same. Enjoy getting to know them. I’ve linked to some truly inspirational posts—please leave them a comment and then subscribe to each so their incredibly fresh insights can help you take your business to the next level, and come on back to share your thoughts around the Maximum Customer Experience Round Table!

George Tannenbaum writes on the future of advertising, the decline of the English language, and oh, so many other frivolities at AdAged. (I’m trying not to gush too much. Go subscribe, and you can gush over him, too.) With his keen eye for the absurd and the outrageous, he’ll often have you hopping mad, intensely thoughtful, and laughing out loud—all within the same post. Mrs. Parker would have loved to have him and his slicing wit at her own Round Table. Ah, I wish there were more Georges in the world.

Andy Nulman, author of this year’s most stunning book for your business, Pow! Right Between the Eyes! from the long-running and equally inspiring blog of the same name, where he gives away insights that could easily fill a dozen books with Pow! I’m happy to say I’ve been reading his blog since before he became a fancy book-author (when he was only a fancy blog-author), and I plan to keep reading until he does fill a dozen more.

Charlie Pabst says he writes Ignite Living to give you tips for simple, productive, and happy living, but I have to tell you, it’s the flame he knows how to light with his words that keeps me glued to my inbox, wishing he’d grace us with another post just as soon as his fingers can fly back to the keyboard. He never fails to ignite my thoughts, my imagination, or my actions.

Mark Stevens is, I believe, the only blogger who’s ever made me cry. Oh, I’ve sniffled at a few posts here and there around blog-o-land, and many thanks if you’re one of the folks who’s made me reach for a tissue, but at the Unconventional Thinking blog (from the author of one of my all-time favorite books, Your Marketing S**ks), one day you’re reading between the lines, taking notes on ways to dig deeper for your business’ growth; the next day, you’re reexamining your whole. darn. life. And maybe just once, crying your doggone eyes out for a million happy and sad reasons. That’s just how Mark writes. He’s an unstoppable thought-powerhouse.

Vicki Flaugher writes SmartWomanGuides from the unique perspective of empowering female entrepreneurs at what she calls the “magic age,” when we’re ready to do what we love instead of what we’re supposed to do. Hang on, gents, because when I’m reading there I frequently forget she’s aiming at women. You’ll love her. Vicki is full of good, solid business advice from the trenches—and because she is aiming at emerging entrepreneurs, she’s always got ideas that require only your dedication, not your thinly-stretched wallet.

David Sherwin: designer, Art Director, and chief-zen-thought-leader at ChangeOrder, is one of those rare folks deep inside an industry who can see it from the outside at the same time—which is what makes ChangeOrder such a delight to read. His great empathy for fellow designers might help you to understand why the job they do is so doggone hard. His empathy for his clients—and for their customers (that’s all of us)—is what separates this from any other design blog.

Full disclosure: I happen to know that each and every one of these folks is a truly nice person. As well as being a bunch of geniuses. Thought I should let you know.

Back so soon from subscribing? Well, in case you don’t feel I’ve engaged in enough fawning (with not a drop of hyperbole, mind you), I’m off to Princeton, New Jersey tonight to be enraptured by Tony Levin (he of King Crimson fame, one incredible band I hope you didn’t miss out on back in your spirited youth) and his wildly inventive new group the Stick Men. I leave you with taste of Stick Men from a few nights ago, thanks to yankeeG in downstate New York (the vid’s a bit spotty but the song, Relentless, is heaven):

Thanks, as always, for the pleasure of your company and your commentary. Let’s do lunch again soon.

Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Learn something fantastic as you clicked around? Think I missed the best one of the week? Have your say in the comments—you know you want to!

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

If you’re going to write, don’t pretend to write down. It’s going to be the best you can do, and it’s the fact that it’s the best you can do that kills you.
—Dorothy Parker

Last time, Mrs. Erickson and the Vision Circle (that’s you) entertained:

To Grow Your Business You’ve Got to Get Closer. Closer…

Craving dessert? Click here to see all the posts in the Round Table series, along with other great recommended reading from MCE!

P.S. (It’s my blog and I can go off-topic if I want to.) Was the show any good? Oh, yes. I’m still smiling. I can’t resist putting up a sketch I did, to give you a taste…

Tony Levin in ecstasy.

Favorite spots become our favorites for many reasons.

When you’re an Experience Designer, you find yourself poking at those reasons all the time, looking for things to enhance, modify, and maximize for the client.

Yet sometimes, I just want to be a regular customer. I shut down the analytical brain the best I can and enjoy the shopping like it’s not an Experience, capital E.

(The way you do… you may come ‘round here and say “Wow, yes, everything’s an Experience!” but then for much of the day you just get on with things. Shame on you. But I digress.)

So it was one day in a favorite shop outside of Philadelphia. Milling about, money burning a hole in my pocket, time to kill before my next appointment, thoughts wandering everywhere…

Until I noticed a guy with a clipboard. Subtle, I thought. No one will notice him doing an audit.

I fingered the merchandise in front of me with a bit less interest. Experience Designer mode was kicking back in, darn it.

He wasn’t making any secret of his trip, chatting with salespeople as he checked the racks and tables, observing them interacting with customers, coming back around corners like Columbo wanting to ask the perp “just one more thing.”

Did I mention I like the place? I like the place. It is one of my favorites. Because salespeople leave me alone (though I know it’ll come as a shock to you, I’m rather a shy type), because it’s well-worn and never pristine, because they don’t try hard, and when I’m there I don’t look closely. They’re part of a major chain, but this seems to be the quirky, black-sheep brother who won’t do as he’s told. Sometimes I just like to be alone in a crowd, and that’s how being in this place is. I make allowances for their flaws, which are many, and they seem to make allowances for mine. Our “relationship” works.

Like I said, I come to this shop when I don’t want to be an Experience Designer. Ironically, that’s the Experience they’re offering.

Not this day.

Bloody clean, the place was. It even smelled pretty good. Smiling, friendly staff everywhere. On top of things. No racks half-put-away, no chatty staff in plain sight doing nothing, no bits of paper stuck on the rug, not a single customer ignored. I’d been accosted twice by the help before I spotted Mister Clipboard, and was so bewildered by their smiles that I’d almost turned around to leave. Now it made sense, and I began to take note of everything that was “wrong” with my favorite place. Suddenly I started to think about whether the other days were the days that were wrong, which of course I know is true, but darn it I don’t mind that they’re not maximizing their business. I want the place to stay grubby and quiet.

No I don’t, says Experience-Designer-Kelly. Mister Clipboard runs across the store manager, whom I know by sight. They mumble together for a moment. He must go help a customer, of course that’s his first priority! he says with a big show, but he’ll be right back to discuss the results.

I’m writing on the back of my business card at a (thankfully unattended) table at this point. As soon as he hops away, I walk up to the regional manager, leaning over another table finishing his notes. I set down my card, nod politely, and walk away.

ASK ME WHAT IT’S LIKE WHEN YOU’RE NOT LOOKING, I wrote.

The regional manager called me an hour later, and we got the job of doing work that would really help the company improve this underperforming store.

Moral(s) of the story for you:

1. You can’t see the forest for the trees. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try, I’m just saying it’s nothing like getting the Perspective of an outsider’s eye.

2. Warning staff that it’s audit day is danged counterproductive. Do you leave your house messy when your mother-in-law’s coming over? Thought not.

3. Every day should be treated like audit day, because you’ll never grow your business off customers like me who’re glad no one else likes shopping at the quirky black-sheep store.

Moral for me: There are no days off.  

First, the question you can’t answer: What’s your business like when you’re not looking?*

Take a look around the shops, offices, and even websites you visit this weekend with an outsider’s eye, and take mental notes. What’s taking away from Maximum Customer Experience at those places?

What clues might other people’s trouble spots give you about your own place of business, if you’re ready to face them squarely?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

*Email me: kellye (at) visionpoints (dot) net if you’d like to get started with your own audit or Experience Design Solution. I’ll tell you what it’s like when you’re not looking and exactly what to do about it, and if you’re ready to grow, we’ll create the solution just for you, too. I’d love to help you maximize your business!

To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.

You’ve got to look for a gap, where competitors in a market have grown lazy and lost contact with the readers or the viewers.
—Rupert Murdoch

Staying above the fray, media-mogul-style. The harder you think about this one the more you’ll say, Yeah. I know just how we can do that. Make contact where others have forgotten how. You know the market’s there, waiting, underserved.

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson