More reasons why names matter

“Thank you (fill in the blank) for your business.”

Don’t you hate form letters? I do. But I have a small problem and I hope that you can help me solve it.

First the good news. I am proud to say that my post yesterday – “Why names matter” – is now my all-time best in terms of the number of readers who clicked on it. Thank you one and all! And that is my problem.

I was able to personally respond to the readers who sent me an email commenting on the article. We started a dialog because the first barrier was crossed – we now know each other’s names and we can start to talk to one another. In a manner that is meaningful to each other.

But how do I start to have a dialog with each of you? In a manner that is meaningful to you? Are you interested?

I suppose that you could say that we already have started. You wouldn’t be reading this post if the content didn’t provide something of value – to you. But you know more about me than I know about you.

It all starts with a name. Knowing your name. Addressing you by your name. Getting to know what makes you unique. Getting to know what we have in common. Where we disagree.

In order to start a conversation with a stranger here are two points to consider:

  • An excerpt from Seth Godin’s post “Name tags:”
    • I love name tags.I think doing name tags properly transforms a meeting. Here’s why:
      a. people don’t really know everyone, even if they think they do.
      b. if you don’t know someone’s name, you are hesitant to talk to them.
      c. if you don’t talk to them, you never get to know them and you both lose.
      d. if you are wearing a name tag, it’s an invitation to start a conversation.
  • An excerpt from the www.chrisg.com article, “10 Reasons Commenting is Good for Bloggers:”
    • Make friends and influence people – Blogging is partly a networking activity. People are more likely to link to you (or more) if they have heard of you. Get yourself out there, make friends.
    • Clicks – People click your link to see what other interesting stuff you write about. Obvious but true.

I do believe that my blog is getting more attention because I am paying more attention – to what others are writing about and commenting about on various blogs. I have started to add my comments when I feel that I have something to contribute. I always leave my full name and email address. I never hide behind a pseudonym. I am curious – I enjoy exploring different points of view. I like to ask questions. I like dialog. How about you?

“If you don’t know someone’s name you are hesitant to talk to them.” – Seth Godin

If you are reluctant to post your comment here on my blog, that is okay! I welcome your thoughts. I invite you to send me an email – danny@thecompanyrocks.com. My name is Danny Rocks. I am interested in whatever you are interested in.

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Why names matter

“If you want to make friends, make it a point to remember them. If you remember my name, you pay me a subtle compliment; you indicate that I have made an impression on you. Remember my name and you add to my feeling of importance.”

– Dale Carnegie

I like to be remembered. I like it when people address me by name. I give my return business to those airlines, hotels and service providers who consistently remember my name.

Remembering my name is more than just a courtesy. It is recognition of my lifetime value as a client. As Dale Carnegie reminds us, “Remember my name and you add to my feeling of importance.” And when I feel important – to you – I am more likely to pay attention. I am more likely to purchase your product or service. I am more inclined to recommend your business to my friends and colleagues.

Over the years, I have made it a point to address the people that I meet by name.  I am pretty good at it. It takes practice to acquire this skill. It is a skill that you can learn. But this skill is more than just a fun “parlor trick.” It is your key to connecting with people. The people who matter. To you personally, to your business, to your feeling of richness.

Daniel Scocco wrote an interesting article on this subject on the “Daily Blog Tips” site. Click here to read it – and the comments that follow.

I’ll be attending a conference next week. It is an organization that I have belonged to for many years. The people in the organization matter to me. Enough so that I will make a deliberate effort to address each person that I see there by name – before they have a chance to put on their name badge! Here’s what I do:

  • I request a pre-registration list from the organization.
  • As I read each person’s name, I try to picture their face – what they look like.
  • After this step, I go back and review my notes about the last time we met. What is their spouse’s name, the names of their children, their hobbies, etc.

It is an investment in time. But it is an investment that has paid off handsomely over the years. I remember more than their names. I remember the moments that we have shared together. I remember why names matter.

If you want to pick up a few “tricks” to remembering people’s names, click here. It is a good article by Kelley Robertson.

I you want to establish long lasting relationships with friends and clients, think about why names matter.

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” – Dale Carnegie

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When things go wrong – What will you do?

How did I get so lucky? I flew American Airlines this week – but on Monday. One day before thousands of flights were canceled to comply with an FAA Maintenance requirement. Were I not so lucky, this is all the information that I would have received from the American Airlines’ website:

“We are very sorry for inconveniencing you with the cancellation of a portion of American Airlines’ flights which started on April 8. Additional inspections of our MD-80 fleet are being conducted to ensure precise and complete compliance with the FAA’s directive related to wiring in the aircraft’s wheel wells. For more information about the progress of the inspections, please check our Press Releases. Please be assured that safety of our customers is, and always will be, American’s first priority. For more information about your flight, please check Gates & Times. “

Thanks, but no thanks! I am sure that you are sorry. And I know that this is an extremely stress-filled situation. An airline can not jeopordize passenger safety. But… what about the information break-down? What options do I have? Please direct me to a web-page where I can determine my options for alternative travel.

Here are some comments from the aviation.com website about this “break-down:”

“This writer was one of the thousands of passengers on American who was grounded. I found out about American’s cancellations because, as a journalist, I receive AA press releases. Other passengers were not so lucky: Many didn’t get any heads-up notification about the problems.

I was fortunate. Arpey acknowledged that many AA customers were not notified promptly or at all; some arrived at the airport only to discover that their flight was not going anywhere. “Our employees did the best they could. We apologize for the inconvenience. We did try to reach them,” said Arpey. He didn’t explain how communications broke down, or what American will do differently should cancellations continue in the coming days.”

Look at the televised news reports. See the long lines of frustrated customers waiting (not so) patiently for the chance to talk to a ticket agent. Try to call the airlines reservations number – all circuits are busy; Your business is important to us, please continue to hold…

Where is the technology to help customers obtain information?

One news shot showed a bank of idle ticketing “kiosks” in the middle of a sea of angry, displaced customers. Are the ticketing kiosks only programmed as “dumb terminals?” Can they only spit out boarding passes once you supply them with your ID for a current reservation?

Customers want options. Unfortunately, very few businesses offer these options. Customers are quite willing to “help themselves” if only your business will allow them to do so.Customers want to help you when there is a problem – but you have to provide them some “self-help” options. Continue reading “When things go wrong – What will you do?” »

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People, Products and Price

“People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.”

– Mary Kay Ash 

You can compete on price – and most often you will lose (both customers and profits.)

You can compete on products – and sooner rather than later, a competitor will match your selection or copy your technology.

Or …

You can compete by hiring the best people and investing in their development.

The latter is harder to do. But done correctly, it gives your business the best competitive edge. If it is hard for you to develop an outstanding staff, think how difficult it is for your competitor to do. Your people do make the difference – but the leadership of the company has to be invested in hiring and developing the best people possible.

One company that owes its success directly to its investment in its people is Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I was reminded of this twice recently:

  1. When I rented a car on my last trip – I enjoy having their employee walk me out to the car for a final inspection before handing me the keys.
  2. Reading a post on the Brand Autopsy Blog.

Here are the 8 criteria that Enterprise uses in their hiring practice:

ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR
Critical Customer Service Skills

1. A passion for taking care of customers.
2. A willingness to be flexible.
3. A work ethic based on dedication to the company and its mission.
4. An eagerness to learn a new business and work their way up.
5. Self-motivation and goal-orientation.
6. Persuasive sales skills.
7. Excellent communication skills.
8. Leadership ability.

Source | EXCEEDING CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS (Kirk Kazanjian)

It is not enough to just spot this potential when you are hiring staff. Each of these 8 qualities must be developed – and that require leadership. And… it requires a company culture that expects, rewards and embodies each of the 8 qualities.

How does your business stack up?

How do you compete? On price? With your product? Or with your people?

Share your story or your experience with our readers. Add your comments below.

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What Do Retail Sales People Do?

Consistently, the post on my blog that has been read the most is “Short-Circuit” City Admits Defeat.

I criticized Circuit City for their decision to lay off their most highly compensated sales staff. I was assuming that they paid their staff a combination of salary and commission. So my conclusion was that they were laying off the sales people who earned the most commissions. Rather short-sighted in my opinion.

Last week I was speed-reading through a stack of old magazines and I saw an article praising Circuit City’s new “24/24 Pickup Guarantee.” You order the product on-line and Circuit City promises that you will be able to pick up your order at the local store within 24 minutes. If they do not fulfill their promise, the customer will receive a $24.00 Circuit City Gift Card.

OK. Fine. “Bricks and Clicks” in action. Order it on-line and pick it up in the store. Order it on-line and return it at the store, No hassle. No big deal. No need for salespeople.

I was passing by a Circuit City store over the weekend and so I stopped in for a visit. I wanted to see if the “vibe” in the store had changed. Not much. The store was better merchandised. But one thing remained the same:

All of the sales people were milling around. Either walking aimlessly or chatting with their associates. Not once, in the twenty minutes that I spent in the store, did one sales person approach me. I tried picking up some product (pretending that I was interested in purchasing it.) I tried my best to act like a customer in need of assistance. No luck.

No sale!

I left with this question: “What actually is a front-line” sales person employed to do in a retail store?”

  • Stock the shelves and re-merchandise the product?
  • Greet the customer and answer their questions?
  • Pretend that you are helping a customer on the telephone?
  • Actually, help customers to make a purchase?

For the most part, I never expect any help from the “front-line” staff at a retail chain store. Not just Circuit City. This also applies to Best Buy and Barnes & Noble, etc. When I go to Costco I know what to expect. It is a warehouse / members-only store. It is set up for self-service and this is reflected in the lower prices that they offer.

Why do we need sales people? If a store does employ sales people, what do they tell them to do? What is their goal? How do they train them?

Personally, if I ran a consumer electronics store, I would imitate The Apple Store concept of “The Genius Bar.”The place to go for advice, insight and technical support. Brilliant! Simple! Valuable!

I think that you could have a variation of this in a book store as well. Have a few knowledgeable and personable staff members share the advice and insight about a variety of books with the customers. Go beyond having a selection of “Our Staff Recommends” books. Actually interact with your customers. Make it memorable. Make it an experience! Make sales!

When I do have a positive experience with retail sales people I make a point of writing about it. Here is a short list of positive posts. See if you can find the common element!

What experiences have you had? Please share your stories. Write your comments below.

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The Magic of Hyper-Links

For some reason I missed this story when it was originally published in The Wall Street Journal:

“Borders Tries About-Face on Shelves” – by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg

I am always on the look-out for stories on In-store merchandising, book publishing and bookstores. But I missed this one.

However, I stumbled across it via a series of hyper-links:

  1. A post on Seth Godin’s Blog – “Do you have” vs. “Do you want” which referenced…
  2. A post on the Brand Autopsy Blog – “Borders Reducing Its Borders” which was commentary on the original WSJ story about Borders Bookstores’ decision to:
    1. Place more of their books “face-out” on their shelves vs. the traditional “spine-out” style (common in libraries)
    2. This means cutting back on the number of individual titles stocked in each store by @ 10% (9,350 titles)
    3. Because when this new merchandising strategy was tested in a prototype Borders Bookstores, sales of the individual titles placed “face-out” increased by 9%

For anyone who has a life outside of book publishing, book selling and libraries this may seem like a “no-brain-er.”

“Some think the move is overdue. Unlike modern supermarkets, booksellers haven’t done enough to make books look attractive on the shelves, says John Deighton, editor of the Journal of Consumer Research.

“Breakfast cereals are not stocked end-of-box out,” he says. “You want to your product to be as enticing as possible. It’s a little bizarre that it’s taken booksellers this long to realize that the point of self-service is to make the product as tempting as possible.”

“To be as enticing as possible…” As in to pick up the book, look inside and decide to purchase it! Continue reading “The Magic of Hyper-Links” »

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WOW Your Customer! – The Power of One Front-line Employee

customer-satisfaction-book.jpg My birthday is this week and that always brings back many memories. I like memories. I like to tell stories of memorable experiences. And I like to hear about the memorable experiences that other people experience. Memorable experiences in customer service are rare. That’s why I like to celebrate them when I hear about one.

I was re-reading Jeffrey Gitomer’s book, “Customer Satisfaction is Worthless. Customer Loyalty is Priceless,” and I want to share a personal story that ties both my birthday and this book together.

About 15 years ago I was flying home from a convention in Germany. I presented my passport to the ticket agent at the Frankfurt Airport. After the usual pause, she looked up at me and said, “Mr. Rocks – may I be the first person to wish you a Happy Birthday today!”

I thought that that was a nice gesture. It put a smile on my face and I walked away from the counter feeling better than usual. I like to be noticed. I enjoy being recognized. I like it when the hotel operator calls me by name. I have come to expect it. The hospitality industry trains its personnel to recognize people by their name. This has become standard operating procedure.

So back to my story. I was making a connection in London and had about an hour between flights. I checked in at the front desk of the Airline Club at Heathrow Airport and got my second surprise of the day. The concierge said, “Welcome to London Mr. Rocks. We are delighted that you can spend part of your birthday with us. Would you like a bottle of Red or White wine? German or French? Happy Birthday!”

How did they know it was my birthday? I did not present my passport; only my membership card. Did they have this information flagged in their computer system? I had to find out, so I asked.

No, they were not able to capture that information in the computer but they thought that that would be a nice touch. Rather, they told me that they had received a message from the lady who ticketed me in Frankfurt. She sent a computer message to the club alerting them that I would be stopping by while in-transit and that it was my birthday.

WOW! Now that was something special. That caught my attention! What a fantastic gesture from the lady in the Frankfurt Airport!. Front-line service at its best!

Why did she take the time to send this message? What made me special? What made me stand out? Is this something that she was trained to do? Or did she just take the initiative to do something out of the ordinary? Regardless, she really made me feel special! Continue reading “WOW Your Customer! – The Power of One Front-line Employee” »

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Training Can be Fun

I made a quick stop at my local Starbucks yesterday morning to see, first hand, if there was any noticeable changes after the training session Tuesday evening. Granted, this was 6:00 AM and the store was just opening up. I did notice a few more smiles and a more energetic approach to greeting the customers. It will be interesting to observe changes over the next few weeks.

In order to get a better assessment I searched the web for news stories on this topic. Not much beyond the basic reporting. However, I did come across this “fully tongue in cheek” article on the www.howto.tunafish.com website. It illustrates creative ways to really irritate your customers – who said that thy come first? (laughing out loud)

Click here – http://howto.thetunafish.com/?p=18 – to go directly to the article. I hope that you laugh as much as I did.

If you don’t have the time to read the complete article, here is an excerpt:

In order to better prepare you for this sort of “customer handling” we here at Starbucks offer these helpful tips:

    Make sure the customer waits in line for a minimum of 5 minutes before receiving service- even if he/she is the only one in the café.
    Anything over 8 minutes before the customer receives service is too long, the smooth jazz music will only relax him/her for so long, and they may leave with our money.
    Be extremely apologetic with large dashes of sarcasm in the voice. Add different flavors of syrup or make the drink decaf if the customer talks back. You don’t deserve this kind of treatment!
    Call out drink name very loudly, even if they are sitting at the table next to the bar. Walk away before they can ask you for a straw/extra syrup/napkins.
    Correct the customer if they call a drink by the wrong name, even if it is only off by one word.  

As the late, great political satirist Art Buchwald used to say, “I don’t have to use my imagination to be funny. I just report what actually happened today in Washington. I don’t have to make it up – people wouldn’t believe me if I did.”

Do you have a funny story about customer service? Share it with our readers.

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Starbucks – This is Not About Training

starbucks-closing-stores.jpgI applaud the leadership of Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. As you may know, Starbucks closed all 7,100 of their stores yesterday for a 3 1/2 hour training session. Here is a short excerpt from Mr. Schultz introductory remarks:

“This is not about training,” he said to his employees, looking somewhat somber. “This is about the love and compassion and commitment that we all need to have for the customer.”

I like to remind myself that “A business without customers is not a business.” Customers define your business. Attracting and retaining customers is the number one job of every employee. Starbucks is selling much more than coffee. It is selling the “Starbucks Experience.”  And recently, customers – as well as the CEO – have found that experience to be lacking.

Mr. Schultz and others had a mission and a vision to elevate coffee from a commodity (10 cents a cup and free refills) to a lifestyle choice. He wanted to recreate the experience he enjoyed on a trip to Italy, sipping espresso in a cafe. He wanted to create a sensual experience for customer when they visited a Starbucks location. He wanted to create a sense of theatre as the barista prepared each special beverage. He wanted the exchange between the barista and the customer to be personal.

This is what Mr. Schultz had to say  (in a recent memo) about the present state of Starbucks:

…one of the results has been stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store. Some people even call our stores sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion our partners feel about our coffee. In fact, I am not sure people today even know we are roasting coffee. You certainly can’t get the message from being in our stores.

Definitely time to wake up and smell the coffee!

I promised to go out to my local Starbucks first thing this morning in order to observe any immediate changes as a result of yesterday’s training. It’s now time to go … I’ll report on my experience later today.

Let me know what you think on this topic. Share your experience with our readers.

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Closing Your Business to Work On Your Business

News Flash! Starbucks is closing all 7,100 of their USA stores today at 5:30P.M local time! Incredible!

Except … They are not permanently closing up shop. That would be drastic!

Rather … They are holding a 3 1/2 hour mandatory, company-wide training session for all 135,000 store employees. That is dramatic!

That takes guts! And Howard Schultz, the founder and CEO has consistently demonstrated his vision and leadership. We know he has guts!

(Click here to read more about this dramatic event.)

I am sure that many business owners are saying, “How much is that going to cost them to close down all stores for 3 1/2 hours?”

The bigger question – one that I am sure they will be addressing during their training session – “How much will it cost Starbucks if we don’t invest the time to restore our enthusiasm, improve our service and revisit our company’s culture?”

Starbucks has two choices :

  1. Allow themselves to sink down and accept that they have become a commodity as they face increased competition.
  2. Rejuvenate themselves through special training. Re-visit what they must do to elevate the “Starbucks Experience.”

Happily, they chose Option #2.

Whatever short-term loss they have in lost revenue will be gained back in long-term profits and improved customer loyalty.

Here’s my resolve – First thing tomorrow, I am visiting my local Starbucks to see first-hand how they have changed as a result of today’s training!

I realize that it will take some time to rebuild the romance of the “Starbucks Experience.” I am eager to watch it evolve!

What do you think about this? Please add your comments below. This is a great topic for discussion!

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