All service is personal

What do you remember most about your experiences throughout the day?  Any that connect with you emotionally.  Most often it’s the people delivering the interaction that you either connect with or don’t.   When we get great service, we associate it with John the waiter or Sue the carpet cleaner but when we give recommendations to our friends, we rarely say “Eat at Joe’s and make sure you have John as your waiter.”

On the flip side, companies take the blame when we have a less then satisfactory experience with one employee.  The Crowne Plaza in Albuquerque is a good hotel – clean, bigger than usual rooms,  with couches and desk space, conveniently located and priced well.  The hotel served a fajita buffet for dinner and the food was quite decent.  But (Didn’t you know the ‘but’ was coming?) when I asked the server if they had corn tortillas, he pointed to the flour tortillas and said with an inflected roll of his eyes, “They’re right there.”

“Those are flour tortillas.  Do you have corn available?”

“I don’t know.” Long pause while I waited. “Would you like me to check?”

“Yes, please.”

He never checked. (I was watching so he could catch my eye and let me know the outcome.)  I should’ve gotten his name so I could record it on the 12 page email survey I’m sure to receive after this visit.  (Assuming I have the patience to finish the survey!)

What memory of the Crowne Plaza am I taking away with me? Decent place but the service sucks.  Not a fair assessment but a great illustration of why it’s so important to have A++++ front line representatives.  If you’re not sure what every aspect of the face of your company is, you’d better find out!

Service Failure!

Cinetopia, a local theater with locations in Beaverton, OR and Vancouver, WA, has a great idea but is challenged some aspects of the execution. They recently opened their second area store which they built from scratch. The theory is that folks will pay extra to sit in a comfortable chair and get served food and beverages (including adult beverages) while they wait for and/or watch their movie. Big screens, great sound system, really nicely appointed comfort seating. Besides the extra high ticket price, patrons have the pleasure of paying high food and beverage prices, too!

Our son-in-law and daughter live close to the newest location and are movie buffs so love the amenities. We thought we’d get them a gift card for Christmas but my website search was in vain. Nothing anywhere about gift cards and, since their locations are a bit off my usual track, I wasn’t keen on swinging by and picking one up. The website did have a “contact us” email option so on December 10, 2011, I used their form and asked, “Can I buy a gift card online?” Last week – 6 weeks later, I receive an answer. “I’m sorry but you’ll have to stop by the theater or call us.”

Really? Six weeks later? 4 weeks after Christmas they answer a Christmas gift question? I responded, “Seriously? Six weeks later you’re going to respond to your emails?” They responded, “We get a lot of messages so we’re a little behind.”

Why even have the ‘email us’ option if they’re not going to respond? PET PEEVE!!

Please! If you’re going to pretend you offer customer service, please actually give a little bit of it! Over promising and under delivering is not a good business practice. Turns out that this very fancy, expensive, trendy theater is struggling financially. Coincidence? I think not!

Here’s remarkable customer service!

I had the great honor of helping with the American Marketing Association West Coast retreat last weekend in Livermore, California. Why Livermore? Good question. The retreat was hosted by the Silicon Valley chapter and they chose to hold the meetings at Wente Vineyards just outside of Livermore. Very nice winery, great venue and, best of all, good wine! There were 22 attendees from five California chapters, some great presentations, terrific discussions and passionate idea sharing.

I was staying at the Courtyard by Marriott and made it back to my room by 10:00 pm without having had too much wine after an evening of good food and fun conversation. It seems that since there are a number of wineries in the area, local hotels are frequented by wedding parties either the night before or the night of the celebration and one such gathering was happening in the room next to mine.

I’m not normally a grump but I do value my sleep and I was giving the first presentation the next morning so was not happy to have the walls shaking from the pounding of the neighbors’ sub woofer. (They must’ve drug the whole car sound system up to the third floor.)

I called the front desk and explained the situation and was rewarded with the sound of the phone ringing next door and the instant peace of the cessation of the thumping. Ahhhh. Time to settle down to sleep. Alas, even with ear plugs, the rumble of male voices with the accompanying shrill cackle of at least a few females with a little too much libation woke me half an hour later.

Feeling much less patient I called the front desk and was greeted by Christie asking, “Are they still being too noisy? I’ll send someone right up with keys to another room AND we’ll upgrade you to a suite. Would you like me to have your bags packed and moved for you, too?”

Now THAT’S how you do service recovery. And it’s remarkable enough that instead of complaining to people about my miserable sleepless night, I’m telling everyone about Christie’s helpfulness and recommending the Livermore Courtyard by Marriott to anyone who will listen (or read!).

How can you give that kind of remarkable service in your life?

Unexpected

In their book “Made to Stick”, Chip and Dan Heath share their thypothesis that memorable ideas have six common traits. The authors go on to give examples of communications that use each of the six attributes and talk about ways to apply their thoughts to real world ideas. Simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional and stories.
Being a concrete person, I struggle to use unexpected. (See, I’ve already listed the six attributes instead of leaving them dangling for personal exploration.) The element that makes jokes funny is the surprise ending. Hence, telling jokes is not a strength as I always get to the punchline too fast. Guess that’s what vacations are for – slowing down and removing the day-to-day expectations.
It’s really nice to get up whenever, start the morning with no particular plan and eat, read, walk, play, explore or nap without a timeline or goal.
Is that part of what makes vacations so memorable? Having no plan, nearly everything is unexpected. For the rest of this vacation, I’ll try not to anticipate what surprise may be around the next corner. Now, what are we going to do next?

and the sun comes out…

Sure Oregon has a rap (perhaps deserved) for being gray and wet but few things are more beautiful than a bright, sunny spring weekend.  Today marks the first time in 9 months that the temperature hit 80 degrees.  People are smiling, drivers are more patient, the number of walkers and runners has quadrupled and everyone seems to be in a better mood.

I was having coffee a few weeks ago with a friend who moved to Oregon in November.  It was one of the first really nice early spring days.  Scott said “Finally I understand why people love living in Oregon so much.  Everything looks different when the sun’s out.  Everyone’s talking about what kind of outdoorsy activities they have planned.”  True.  We love to get out of the house and play.  The long wait appears to be over.  I’m glad that summer’s here but now it’s time to get back to the weeding.