It's Not Our Fault...I Don't Trust You

One of the takeaways from my trip to Zappos headquarters last month...they give every customer the benefit of the doubt. Not some people or when the burden of proof has been met. But, every customer, unconditionally. They do the opposite of what most companies do...if there's a hint of a problem, they assume it's their fault, not the other way around.

Since most of their sales have shifted on-line (like so many other businesses), many of the people that call-in to Zappos have a concern or an order question (at least that was my impression from my time in the call center). And, if Zappos handled these people like most companies, there would be a vetting process to get to the bottom of every situation to guard against unnecessary discounts and refunds. In turn, the call experience would be just as expected...a royal pain in the butt, too long, unsatisfying and more likely down right aggravating. Perfect if you're in the business of average. Thankfully, Zappos is in the business of happiness. So, they simply act that way. They trust you.

Of course, many companies use clever disguises to give you the impression someone cares...a 24 hour support line, a handy "e-mail us" option or even "live chat". I recently had trouble with my Garmin 405CX running watch. So, I called Garmin support, twice, because the first time when I heard my wait time was 35 minutes I thought there was a glitch...there wasn't. I decided on the email option, made my way through the myriad of toggle options and drop down boxes, described my issue and off it went. Moments later I was greeted with an email (see below)...we aim to respond to you within 3 days. So, 35 minutes on the phone or 3 days for an email which will likely just lead to more email. Hmmm, do you think Garmin really has my best interest in mind? Do you think they trust me?

Trusting your customer is required if you want them to trust you. You don't get to do it part time and expect a dividend. Sure, by going into it with blind faith you're going to get burned sometimes. But, not nearly as bad as if you're worried about always being right.

How Do You Do You Provide Exceptional Customer Service?

I saw this question on LinkedIn...

How does your hotel provide exceptional and memorable customer service?

Here's my answer...

It begins with careful reflection on why you do what you do. When you're an innkeeper because you simply enjoy caring for another...you've found the key and most often lost ingredient. Any other purpose defines you as something else and moves you away from hospitality in it's true and root form.

You succeed as an innkeeper (notice I refrain from using hotel manager) by focusing on the meaningful delivery of service...not just the technical components of that service. Checking people in quickly might allow you to achieve productivity goals, but it can erode or destroy a warm, authentic welcome.

Use these filters for every decision...

Does it feel residential?
Does it feel familial?
Does it feel genuine?
Does it feel hand crafted?

And lastly, try to do things that are harder, not easier. Odds are, the guest will benefit.

Of course, there's a lot more to it than that...like hiring the right people. But, this is a good place to start.

Zappos Secret Ingredient

In case your wondering what makes them so fanatical about taking care of you...

Zappos Secret Ingredient from Michael Chaffin on Vimeo.

Great Service is Overrated

Not because it's not important. But, because it's just the beginning to a magical and memorable hospitality experience. Too often, we focus on perfecting the service, the technical part, and not the hospitality, the delivery and how we make someone feel.

Those who focus on hospitality will outperform the great service providers...every time.

Start with Hospitality

People accept that things break and that systems fail. Almost no one expects perfection with things that are mass produced. It's unrealistic. Weather impacts airline schedules and trash pick-up. A local flu pandemic slows restaurant service. 1 out of 5,000 new computer screens fail. As long as failure falls within normal boundaries, it's accepted.

But people are becoming increasingly intolerant of mediocre delivery. And, they certainly don't accept rudeness, neglect or bullying. They don't have to because someone else is working extra hard, emphasizing hospitality in their organization and placing a high priority on personal care. Someone else puts artful delivery first and darn near everything else second.

So, there's a good case to be made to change the way we think about starting something...to focus first on the how, then on the what. If you can make the delivery meaningful, caring and brilliant, you win...even if your stuff breaks.

Good Service Disruption

This is what good service looks like...

• Good service is attentive, friendly, warm and correct.
• People who perform good service are polite, they smile and use your name.
• Businesses providing good service are ethical, spend time training employees and apologize when things don't work out.

Here's the problem...if this is all you do, it's probably not good enough. Sure, there are plenty of companies that fail at the basics. And that gives you the edge. Being good enough earns you a fair share of a mediocre market and allows you to charge an average price for an average experience. But then there are also organizations that do more. They choose to do something really hard, create a new edge and be remarkable. They get attention, then trial and eventually erode your share of the average market.

So, you can choose to provide normal and expected good service and hope no one disrupts your plan. Or you can create your own insurance policy and be the disruptor.

Good service is the minimum expectation. It's the place to start. Not the place to rest or build an empire on.

Replacements

In good times, it's easier to find a replacement customer for an existing one in the event things don't work out. Of course, a steady stream of replacements is considered a good thing...marketing is working. Except that it makes us lazy. Why sacrifice everything to retain customers as long as there's a back-up? The obvious answer is that there won't always be one...called lean times.

It's a simple choice, work like heck to create some insurance. Or, hope to get lucky.   

Filters

In business, most decision making goes something like this...problem/opportunity arises, a path is chosen that solves it while satisfying the most people. Of course, the most people aren't always the customer. It's far easier to focus on solving internal problems first, than worrying about the customer. If this weren't true, we wouldn't have counters, automated call centers, or websites that don't work. We wouldn't have accounting processes that frustrate people. And, we wouldn't make people stand in lines without talking with them.

The best customer service organizations don't allow the wrong filters to cloud their judgment. They focus on customers first and everything else second. The companies who make it a priority to be the best at caring for customers don't use efficiency, market share or production goal filters to decide how to treat people. They use these instead: family, friends and home. Companies who care for people like they were friends and family and who welcome people like they were coming into their homes are far more successful than those that don't. It's the old and simple rule...treat others how you would like to be treated. Except, in order to be the best, you need to be fanatical about it. Anything less, and you might as well choose a different path.

Of course, it's no surprise that most of the hotels, restaurants, movie theaters and car repair shops that pull this off are small. There are exceptions. But, not many. Unfortunately, a by product of becoming successful and larger is that you stray toward the wrong filters. So, if you can figure out how to get big and remain small...you win.

Hospitality Hiring

Do your recruitment and hiring practices tell your hospitality story? Is it quickly apparent to an outsider that this isn’t just another job? If so, how? If not, why not?

Do you need to announce (post) job openings in the same place everyone else does? Why?

Does your culture and reputation attract the best prospects on it’s own?

Do you actively build relationships in the hives where your best prospects live/work/learn/play?

Which way to you lean with these practices?

• Application Process/Paperwork vs. In-Person/Conversation
• Resume/Q&A vs. Prospect led Presentation
• HCareers/Monster vs. Hive Immersion

Hiring for hospitality is much harder than posting a job and hoping applicants find you. It takes months, perhaps years of cultivation and nurturing of the right audiences.

Keeping Artists Home

Sometimes you have budding artists on your team. Have you recognized them? Have you nurtured them? Do you have a good chance (or any chance) of keeping them?

Do you…

• Explore/Harness Passion vs. Give Performance Evaluations
• Create Groups/Channels of Learning vs. Offer Training Classes

Sometimes you have people on your team that stand in the way…impede your progress and keep their colleagues from being successful artists. What are you doing to challenge them?

These people…

• Complain vs. Help
• Follow Instructions vs. Develop New Ideas
• Do their Job vs. Push the Boundaries

What are you doing to keep the passion and enthusiasm from escaping?

Hospitality Work Available- Only Artists Need Apply

If you’ll agree that a primary goal of any company is to create an audience of loyal raving fans, then you might consider the following…

Simply making something better or cheaper isn’t effective any more. You’re not likely to own cheapest or best quality. But, you have a really good chance of being the best in your market at the delivery…the use of care, warmth and comfort as your edge. The best chance to accomplish this is to infuse the Art of Hospitality into everything you do.

I define the Art of Hospitality this way…give people more than they want, deliver it in a meaningful way, and show them you care. Please give attention to some key words…

• Give vs. Sell
• Meaningful vs. Average/Expected
• Show vs. Tell

Now, here’s the hardest and most important step to reaching your goal…hiring the artists to do the work. Recruiting and hiring an artist is different than hiring someone to complete tasks. The idea flow goes like this…

If we are here to deliver the Art of Hospitality, we require artists.

If we require artists, we don’t need people who just do jobs.

If being an artist requires passion and enthusiasm for something, we deserve to know if a person has it.

They should show us. Not just tell us in an interview.

Artists can’t wait to show you what they’ve done.

If a person is an artist, how will their art and passion help our organization move forward?

Bonus: Can they lead? Do they solve interesting problems…in an interesting way?

Pitfalls…

• Remarkable vs. Same/Fit-In
• Robin Williams Effect vs. Order Taker

Every time we have a job opening, we have a chance to hire someone remarkable…an artist. Sometimes, we settle for less. We shouldn’t…because it greatly limits our ability to achieve our goal.

Pitfalls…

• Easy vs. Hard
• Fill a Job vs. Sacrifice Short-Term Gain to Hold-Out for the Best
• Focus on Trainable (Function/Technical/Efficiency) vs. Non-Trainable (Personality/Caring/Enthusiasm/Passion/Delivery)

Reverse Customer Care

If your client had a blog, would you read it every day?

If your customers have blogs, do you and your team care enough to subscribe to them?

Why do you expect these same people to subscribe to your email newsletter or your Twitter stream when you don’t return the favor?

Breaking Tradition

People change. Expectations change. The market forces us to get better and constantly improve. Hospitality offerings today are much different (and mostly better) than they used to be...new trumps old. Tradition evolves.

Most of us care enough to adjust practices to adapt to ever changing service expectations. Generally, we understand that if we don't change, someone new is going to come along and take our place. But, as you venture away from center...away from the core group delivering the experience...this comprehension depreciates. And sometimes, quite rapidly.

I recently sat in on some property management software training, specifically the "front desk" module. The very first thing I noticed...in the check-out screen, the cursor begins in the "room number" field. So, I asked the trainer..."can we change it so the cursor begins in the name field?"..."no, can't do it without rewriting the program code." Great, so we've been asking our front line employees to use guest names instead of room numbers for as long as I can remember, but the software can't be changed to accommodate that. Ridiculous. Obviously, the software company isn't selling hospitality, they're selling program code, check-out efficiency, i.e., software. They're stuck on traditional means and methods. And, that's a huge problem.

What's the biggest obstacle to delivering restaurant quality meals in a banquet setting? Probably moving the food from a central kitchen to the meeting room, and holding it until the group is ready to eat. So, why not design a mini kitchen at or near each meeting room allowing food to go from oven to plate to guest along an uninterrupted path? That would eliminate hot carts and allow you to cook to order (not from scratch). Too expensive? Not when you factor in how many people are going to leave your events completely underwhelmed...having experienced yet another mediocre banquet meal. Is the kitchen consultant selling hospitality...or kitchen equipment? Is the chef pushing you to deliver a meaningful dining experience? Or, are these people stuck in tradition?

If building strong relationships with your current customers is the key to finding new ones, why isn't your marketing firm pushing you to find ways of developing a permission asset? Why aren't they requiring you to ask every current customer to stay in touch? Why aren't they pushing you to spend more on creating newsletters, personal email communications, blogs and handwritten thank you notes than traditional advertising campaigns? Why aren't they moving you out of traditional marketing and into new marketing?

We're pretty good at evolving our own troops and motivating people to deliver better results. But, what about those companies we rely on as partners? Are they pushing us and moving us forward? Or, are they taking an easier more traditional path just to sell their product or earn a fee?

The Power of a Hug

The power of a hug is remarkable. It goes further than a nice smile, pleasant hello and a handshake. It goes further than using someone's name or recognizing a repeat guest...it goes a lot further. It crosses a line. It gets personal...it means you really do care. There's no disguising your feelings once you give someone a hug.

Doubletree can't buy enough ads to convince people they care this much...neither can you. So, spend the ad money on a Louree Jefferson. Better yet, a bunch of them.

P.S. Do you think Louree needs a resume? Most remarkable people don't.

Rules

Rules are good for a lot of things...keeping airplanes and cars apart, managing kids at school, getting people paid on time, etc. But, as much as they make things orderly, they can really hamper your chance of being remarkable, especially in hospitality. This was the scene at a local shopping center at 10 AM. Out of camera range were five other similar congregations...just waiting to get in other stores. Guess what time this store opens, yep...10 AM. So, does it make sense for a shop keeper to keep a group of people waiting outside in the heat until the rules say it's time to open? Of course, not. It makes more sense to welcome people as they arrive, even a few minutes early, invite them in, offer them a cool drink and allow them to browse while you get the register fired up. That's what a shop keeper who's livelihood depended on every customer would do. Problem is...not many of them around. But, plenty of clerks following rules.

Bezos on Customers

If you have a spare 8 minutes, gather some people around and watch Jeff Bezos (Amazon) share his insight on how to ahieve success. Oh, and they bought Zappos today.

"I Like People"

is the response I most often receive when interviewing people for hospitality work. My guess...you hear it a lot as well. Interestingly, it's not how much you like people that counts most. It's how much people like you.

The most successful people are those which others naturally gravitate toward. The ability to demonstrate care and to deliver it in a meaningful way are extremely powerful. Some of it comes naturally...a friendly smile and positive approach to things. The rest you pick up along the way through experience and mentors...handling unexpected challenges, calm under pressure, etc.

Technical competence is necessary. You don't get far being dumb. But, the highest levels of success are achieved with more than smarts. They're attained by developing relationships, no matter if you're a waiter or a CEO. Hopefully, you have proof how much people have valued your hospitality. Perhaps you have a drawer full of thank you letters, a list of promotions or you can point to comments of appreciation on your Facebook page. Sometimes, it's more subtle...people want to work the same shift as you, or ride on the same bus.

Liking people isn't enough to get by on, especially if no one likes you.