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Great Service is Overrated

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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.

 

Why Do It at All

Go here to be inspired with a list of 16 questions you should ask yourself if you're starting a new project, setting out on your own, etc. I'll add my own...What happens (to you, the market, etc. ) if you decide not to do it?

Does someone else replace you? Do you a leave a void in the lives of prospective customers? How does the world not change? In other words, what's the consequence of not doing it?

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My Short List.. of Interview Questions

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There are a lot of experts that can tell you how to interview people. There are seemingly countless methods, techniques, tests and scenarios to sort talent into the right groups...or to vote them off the island. Over the years I have tried many of these with varying degrees of success. But, my short list...the questions that get me the information I absolutely, unequivocally must know...

  1. What do you want to do with your life (what are your dreams)?
  2. How can we help you get there?
  3. What do you like to do for fun?

If people can't answer these with some degree of certainty, they're likely just looking for a job. You want someone with dreams and a reasonably thought out idea of how to achieve them. You don't want someone who hasn't given this an ounce of thought or wants to do just enought to get by.

 

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Start with Hospitality

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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.

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Last Minute Marketing

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Recently someone asked me to weigh in on the concept of flash sales, specifically when used in the hospitality and travel industries. Essentially, a flash sale is a time dated offer that arrives unexpectedly and requires an immediate response to book the featured promotional rate. More back story can be found here.

I think these tactics are fine if they are relevant and anticipated by the customer and if they don't become too prominent in the marketing plan. In other words, they need to be the fallback during carefully selected periods. As booking windows become increasingly shorter, people are more comfortable with "last minute". But, penalizing the early birds, which often are your most loyal fans, definitely has consequences. What is gained short-term, might cost you more in the long run. Once the infrequent fire sale becomes the norm, fewer people are going to believe that your "normal" price is the real deal...then, trust is gone.

When making decision about marketing I often look through these filters...

  1. Does the idea support short-term or long-term goals? How much will the short-term gain erode long-term performance?
  2. Are we willing to offer this all the time and to our best customers? If not, why not?
  3. Will our customers trust us more or less when we do this?
  4. Does it build an audience of loyal, raving fans?
  5. Is the prospective idea or tactic easy or hard? Things that are easy (like buying ads) are not as meaningful and effective as doing things that are hard (building one on one relationships one customer at a time).
  6. If we do this, will it improve our care score? Will our best customers feel more cared for?

Nothing (no amount of marketing) replaces doing meaningful work that people are willing to pay a premium for. The keys are to find something you are passionate about and hoping there are enough people that agree with you.

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Good Service Disruption

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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.

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Replacements

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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.   

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First Hospitality Linchpin Award

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At least as far as I know it's the first. Inspired by Seth Godin's latest book, Linchpin, I was determined to replace the traditional and tired "employee of the month" award with something more meaningful. We awarded the first one yesterday...

 

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Filters

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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.

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Boxed In

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I experienced yet another one of those frustrating customer service moments today. This time a company promised through advertising to sell me something for a certain price. Turns out what I was attempting to buy had been discontinued some time ago...they just forgot to change the website. And, in the end, I was out of luck. Of course, this isn't alarming. It happens every day to many, many people. Like you, it happens to me on a regular basis...companies over promise and under deliver...no news here. What made this particular instance alarming was how three of the five people I spoke with were actually interested in solving my problem and making up for the mistake. They each expressed a sincere apology and empathized. The real problem...they couldn't do anything. The "system", "policies" and "company processes" stood in their way. Here were perfectly capable, caring individuals who couldn't do what was most important...solve a customer problem. What a shame to waste their talent and time this way.

Makes you wonder how long system oriented organizations like this are going to survive. Probably until people like you and companies like this come along, change the rules and disrupt everything.

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There's a Sucker Born Every Minute

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Not anymore. In fact, there never was. People have never been dumb. Most just weren't motivated to seek an alternative, especially about things that didn't originate in their own town. You knew if farmer John's milk was good...you could ask a neighbor. It was much harder to know if the Sears catalog was lying to you. The problem wasn't smarts. There just wasn't a reliable way to learn. Enter ubiquitous high-speed bandwidth...today's internet. It changed everything, especially the rules about keeping people in the dark.

Last week a company tried to sell me spark plugs and spark plug wires for more than five hundred dollars. The same products were available outside the shop for under a hundred. The jig wasn't hard to figure out. When I asked them about it, no problem..."just bring in your own parts". A sucker punch. Here's a national, well recognized brand, categorically ignoring all the new rules of customer care and marketing hoping to pull a fast one on people. What do they really hope to gain? Makes you wonder.

Most trickery is more subtle. An ad campaign that promises the best meal while the restaurant is consistently empty. A website that boasts fabulous customer service while overbooking practices drive people mad.

Try covering up your lousy restaurant.
Try hiding the fact that your hotel is dirty.
Try fooling people to pay more for an airline seat.
Try keeping people from talking with each other about your service.

You can't do it.

On the flip side, try hiding the passion and enthusiasm of your best people.
And, try keeping your secret sauce a secret.
Or, try keeping people from spreading your fabulous idea.

You can't do that either.

So, are you going to do average work, spending time to keep people in the dark, hoping to find a few suckers? Or, are you going to get busy doing things you want people to talk about.

Unfortunately, you have to decide.

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Be Like

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A lot of us spend a great deal of time, energy and resources trying to be like someone else. Our goal is to replicate everything they've done that's good, and then one up it. Better is the sweet spot. The problem is that virtually all of us will fail for two reasons. First, those that we are planning to overtake aren't standing still...they're getting better too. Second, we don't have the advantage of being first and owning the edge...they do.

The idea of being like the iPhone, Four Seasons or Haagen Dazs feels like a safe path. We rationalize that even if we fall short, we'll be good enough to steal a small part of the market. It's also much easier to copy someone else's story rather than inventing our own. That may have worked five or ten years ago because there weren't nearly as many choices and there was room for runner-ups. Now, there are hundreds and thousands of companies (often small ones) who are willing to risk everything to create their own stamp, their own edge. Those companies are the ones getting the attention, chipping away and stealing share. It's not the ones trying be like someone else.

Easy vs. Hard
Follow vs. Lead
Like vs. Unlike

You decide...choose wisely.

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Hospitality Hiring

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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.

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Keeping Artists Home

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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?

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Hospitality Work Available- Only Artists Need Apply

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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)