Experience in an Environment of Fear
Since 2001, I have travelled many times on September 11th. This weekend, however, my travel felt different. From my origin location Denver International Airport through my connections and ultimate destination, travelers appeared anxious and/or apprehensive. In fact, each time we touched down the passenger cabin’s erupted into applause. It seemed as though people had a…
Caring for or about your customer?
It is a subtle but powerful distinction – do you care for or about your customers? I’m not suggesting that you can’t do both but I am asserting that most businesses struggle to do the former let alone the latter. The “caring for” dimension emphasizes service competence while the “caring about” aspect focuses on the…
Why you have to earn trust!
I recently had 3 contractors give me bids on a minor home improvement project. The three bids ranged from $350 to $10,500. WOW – did these three building professionals actually bid the same job? Upon receiving these bids, I wasn’t sure if the high bid reflected price gauging or if the low bid evidenced a…
Tell me a Story – Amplify and Humanize
I will make a bold assertion. To be an effective leader YOU MUST be a consummate story teller. The art of inspiring people to engage in consistently extraordinary service behaviors begins and ends with stories. While I can teach many transactional skills, amazing service is not a paint by numbers enterprise. It takes impassioned, other-focused…
Why your staff won’t think or act!
Ok, I know the blog title is harsh but today I observed a defining moment in staff disempowerment. I was in an airport (which shall remain nameless) watching a staff member at a food cart take complaint after complaint about a non-functional coffee vending machine by their cart. Each time the employee told the customers…
A Tasty Meal of Strategy – The Triumph of Service Culture
My new book The Zappos Experience is at the printer and should be in stores thanks to McGraw-Hill, as scheduled in October. During the time I worked with Zappos, I often heard the company’s CEO say “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” I always loved the moxie of that sentence but initially cast it into the…
She held her brains in with her hands – Misperception Abounds
I was drawn in by a story that was shared on the radio by a typically reliable source. The announcer shared that recently a couple went to a business establishment and the wife waited in the car as the man engaged in an extended appointment. Upon returning to the car the man noticed his wife…
Back from Sabbatical:Product OR Experience?
It is terrific to be back from my “blogging sabbatical!” During my absence, I have been blessed with the opportunity to complete two customer experience book projects. Both books will be published this year by McGraw-Hill (one about UCLA and one about Zappos). In fact, the first Prescription for Excellence will be released on May…
Who’s in Charge? The Customer or You
I see it all too often but today the confrontation was epic! Let me set the stage in my best boxing ring announcer voice…. “In the red corner, a loud, brash, entitled customer and in the blue corner a poorly selected and ill-trained staff…..” Cesar Ritz, the founder of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, iscredited with…
Lessons from the Road
I have been traveling and consulting a great deal lately and each day serves as an amazing learning lab. Here are some random lessons from my journeys, which I hope will relate to your business: 1) A man in a coffee shop started talking to me about a concept he called “otherness.”. This made me…
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