The Perfect Customer Experience

Your Passion Is Showing

2009-07-12T20:38:01-04:00

One of my best students, a manager of one of the largest Home Depot stores in Southern California, just finished off his MBA thesis. His research centered on how Home Depot could become more customer-centric by trimming back IT systems and processes to free up more time for associates to focus on customers. In his thesis he shows how cutting out entire layers of management could make the entire company more efficient and customer-driven. Clearly this student has a passion about making his store entirely focused on the customer experience.

Curious to see if he had been implementing programs he discusses in his thesis in his store, I decided to visit yesterday.

Three Offers of Assistance in Seven Minutes

Every employee I walked past, even the ones rounding up carts just past the entrance stopped and asked if they could help me. When was the last time anyone in a Home Depot did that? Usually I am hunting for help. I have to point out that I never said a word about knowing the manager or having him as a student.

The floors of the store glistened and the grouping of products for cross-selling in the lighting area, where I went to get a replacement fluorescent bulb for my laundry room, were within reach. I recalled in his thesis how he mentioned the studies showing that investing in better stock room management systems to coordinate cross-sells and up-sells led to 36% gains in comparable stores. Clearly, he had pushed this to his store.

Glistening Barbeques All in a Row

Our BBQ is getting a little worn out and I went to check out what they had. Amazed to see two dozen models, all dusted, shined, and perfectly aligned, this was unusual for a Home Depot. Others I had been in were often covered in dust and helter-skelter in appearance. If that was not enough a person from hardware stopped by and asked if they could answer any questions. Now this is going on around seven offers of assistance in less than 15 minutes. I did not let on at any time I knew the manager by the way; I was a regular guy walking through the store on a Saturday afternoon.

Self-Service Checkout – Pain or another Opportunity to show A Passion for Service?

In his thesis he had been really torn about the aspects of self-service check-out and challenges to adoption. Home Depot corporate had been telling managers they must drive a high percentage of sales through these lanes, yet he felt this would detract from the experience. I was really interested to see if he took his own advice in the thesis and staffed this area with three associates instead of one. As I approached these lanes, associates were coming into the aisles to help get the automated process started. I’ve never seen this before. The checkout process for the fluorescent bulbs went fine and at the end of the transaction the lead cashier said thank you for coming in.

As I looked up to say goodbye I saw a picture of my student, the manager of this store, in a poster-size picture with his pledge of excellent service, his name, telephone and cell phone number, clear for any customer to see. I’ve never seen that in a Home Depot before either. Yet his thesis had shown that accountability and associating a face with a store was critical to generating customer loyalty.

Bottom line: Your passion for delivering excellent customer experiences is showing all the time, you can’t turn it on or off. It’s constant; it’s visible all the time. When leaders get passionate about change, they can revolutionize massive stores and companies with an intensity to continually improve.

Flickr attribution: http://bit.ly/23oCT

Frustrated Passenger Sings Out about United Airlines Experience

2009-07-09T21:51:49-04:00

By Randy Saunders

In the spring of 2008, Canadian musician Dave Carroll and his band were changing planes in Chicago’s O'Hare International Airport. During the stop-over, the band watched in horror as baggage handlers threw their guitars around. Later when Carroll arrived in Omaha, he would discover that his $3,500 Taylor guitar had been damaged.

For nearly a year, Carroll has tried to get United to pay for the damage. But he got nowhere.

So he promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation that he would write and produce three songs about his experience with United Airlines and share his videos with everyone worldwide. They should have taken him seriously. On Monday he delivered on that promise by posting the video, “United Breaks Guitars” on YouTube.

United Breaks Guitars
Instant YouTube Hit and United Airlines PR Nightmare

This catchy revenge video has become an instant viral hit. After only a few days, it’s already attracted more than 600,000 views on YouTube. Carroll's story has been picked up by CNN, ABC, the Chicago Tribune, and many other major media outlets. And when you Google "United Airlines," it ranks third.

With all this attention, it appears that Carroll is now getting through.

"This struck a chord with us," said Robin Urbanski, spokeswoman for United. "We are in conversation with one another to make what happened right."

At least in this case, the airline is finally listening to the customer. Of course if they did the right thing in the first place, they wouldn't have to suffer this public embarrassment.

Seeing the True Nature of American Freedom

2009-07-04T19:37:15-04:00

Louis Columbus
Cincom Systems

The 4th of July's many festivities from parades, to fireworks displays, from entire blocks getting together to decorate in red, white and blue to even one story I heard of a daughters' friend painting the family beagle red, white and blue while he slept on the back porch this afternoon all make this such a genuine American experience.

Over the last several years I've taught more students in international business and strategy courses than any other time. Like anyone, they love a good party that is nationwide, and the 4th is a reason from them to celebrate their freedoms here in America too.

I am Learning From My Students What The Reality of Freedom Is

It is quite moving to be running a class in international business and have a young student under 30 tell you about how there were wars raging in her home nation of Bosnia and one wrong street selection on the way home from school could have gotten her killed. She is Serbian.

There are students from China, some from Hong Kong, others from Beijing, who are remarkable in their writing abilities yet still afraid to speak. Their tales of harmonization in Beijing and the tight lid the government has on businesses there, many of which are run by their parents and families, are moving.

Or the students from the Middle East who faced persecution because of their religion and their families' beliefs and businesses.

I've had more than a dozen Vietnamese students, who as toddlers and even infants, escaped that nation on boats, drifting in the South China Sea waiting for the U.S. Navy to show up and rescue them. Clearly, the Navy did a great job, they saved tens of thousands of lives in that region and I am sure they still do.

There are those students from Russia too. Some from parents who were members of the party and others barely scraping enough together to get out. Talk of how even party members must abide by rationing is fascinating.

Seeing Freedom In A New Way

Just out of curiosity, I took each significant speech in America in the last 217 years and quickly ran them through Wordle this morning.

Here's what I found out. In the most troubling and most difficult of times in this nations' history, freedom is the catalyst so many of our leaders have turned to as our core strength, our catalyst. It is what many have come back to as the reverberating strength of America.

From Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech The Four Freedoms given on January 6, 1941 to the many speeches that John Fitzgerald Kennedy gave, including Ich bin ein Berliner ("I am a 'Berliner'") delivered on June 26, 1963 in West Berlin, freedom reverberates through these speeches. Faced with an increasingly aggressive Russia who appears intent on war, President Kennedy chooses this speech to come back to America's greatest strength and contribution to the world, freedom. Below is the Wordle of this speech.

The speech with the greatest mention of freedom in the history of the United States from this analysis isn't an elected politician, President, military leader, or a powerful cabinet member. It is a southern minister who in 1954, became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Far from the media centers of the time, Dr. Martin Luther King showed in his life just how truly different this American brand of freedom is. Below is Wordle from his I Have A Dream Speech.

In the story of a minister from Montgomery, Alabama whose impact in America is still being felt today is the story of what American freedom is really all about. Reaching out, inclusive, celebrating diversity and looking to strengthen others by building bridges out to them, this is America at its best.

Bottom line: No nation is without fault, but if you want to see the true nature of American freedom, meet eyes with someone today who had to fight to get here, or who is putting their life on hold to serve, or who has served earlier. In that moment, you will know the true nature of American freedom.

Customer Service Secrets from Zappos

2009-06-23T21:35:04-04:00

By Randy Saunders

In the latest Customer Creation podcast, Blake Landau interviews Maura Sullivan and Rob Siefker from the Zappos call center management team.

Maura and Rob have both worked for Zappos since the early days when there were only a few dozen people in the call center. Due to the company’s phenomenal growth, today Zappos has more than 350 people in the department.

"Zappos is all about service," says Siefker. "Everything we do is based upon customer experience."

The company and its call center operate differently than most — they ignore traditional call center measurements. Customer service representatives don’t use scripts, have quotas, or try to get customers off the phone. In fact, Zappos actually encourages customers to call the contact center.

The formula seems to work. While many retailers have struggled this year, Zappos continues to grow in 2009.

When asked about the secret ingredient behind Zappos’ success, Sullivan replies, "I don’t think there are many secrets to it — it’s about empowerment and being friendly and helpful."

"At Zappos we really want everyone to be themselves and be able to put their personality into their work," Sullivan continues. "We don’t think that can be achieved if we give them a script to read or if we told them they can only have two minutes with each customer. If we really want to provide the best service, then we need to allow people to be helpful and friendly over the phone, email or chat."

That’s just a few of the many Zappos lessons you’ll hear in this podcast. So make sure you listen to this fascinating interview at http://www.customermanagementiq.com/podcenter.cfm?externalid=136.

New Customer Experience Management Benchmark Study Finds Leading Companies Increase Customer Experience Investment in Tough Economic Times

2009-06-13T13:14:05-04:00

By Randy Saunders

Strativity Group has published their 2009 Global Customer Experience Management Benchmark Study that finds savvy companies increase investment in customer strategies during tough economic times to build competitive advantage.

In an economic downturn, the first thing companies are conditioned to do is cut costs. But this new study indicates that they should be doing just the opposite.

“The biggest surprise in the study was that certain companies decided to INCREASE their investment in customer relationships rather than decrease it as the majority do. These companies reap the rewards already through more profitable business with their customers," offered Strativity CEO Lior Arussy.

Despite the uncertain economy, 80% of executives surveyed said that customer experience strategies continue to be a more important part of their organizations’ agendas than in the past three years. In fact, over this time period:

48% report that their companies have increased investments in customer experience by 10% or more
17% reported increasing investments by 20% or more

The dividends for companies that have invested in customer experience are significant. The study finds in contrast with organizations that invest less than 2% of revenues on customer experience, companies that invest 10% or more:

Have significantly lower customer attrition rates
Enjoy referral rates that are twice as high
Are twice as likely to have customer satisfaction scores of 81% or more

When comparing companies that increased customer experience investment over the last three years with those that decreased spending, the former:

Report satisfaction scores that are 60% higher
Are 30% more likely to have attrition rates of 5% or less

You can download the complimentary executive summary of this report at:
http://www.strativity.com/products/2009-experience-management-benchmark-study.aspx.