May 13, 2013

A very clever restaurant receipt technology innovation

0 (480×640)Restaurant receipt technology has been the same for a long, long time. And when you are out with friends it’s always the same drill when you divide the bill – you either figure out what everyone ordered and how much they owe or you simply divide the total bill by the number of people in the party.

There are over 200,000 restaurants in the United States and people have been eating out for dinner since restaurants first emerged in the 18th century. At some point in the 20th century, cash registers and receipts became the normal way of tallying bills for dinner.

But it wasn’t until now that the clever receipt technology has emerged that addresses the persistent need to divvy up the bill. Enter Legal Seafood, the first and only place I’ve seen that has made the innovation.

See the photo of one of their receipts and note that each guest’s complete meal is conveniently subtotaled. Also note that the grand total is also divided by the total number in the party should you just want to split the bill evenly.

What a great and simple way to add value to your customers’ dining experience. A nice upgrade to an old technology.

 

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August 14, 2012

Do not reply to this email

In the early days of this digital revolution, this seemed acceptable:

Do not reply to this email. This is an unmonitored address and replies to this email are not read or responded to. If you have any questions, please go here and do something else.

Communications were one-way. We understood that big, important companies were spending time and money organizing ways to send messages to the masses, just the way they used to send us form letters in the mail.

Things have changed.

Communications are two way. Messaging is expected to be personal and relevant. Engaging the company is expected to be easy.

We want to respond easily. And we want to be heard.

Twitter accounts that ignore direct contact and mentions, blogs where comments are turned off or not responded to, and emails from systems rather than people are all turn-offs. We all know that technology has evolved to where it’s possible – easy, in fact – to establish and maintain a personalized, responsive, and engaged posture with your customers.

We know that there are people behind the curtain. Let us see them, let us hear them, and let us reach them easily.

Photo credit: Kt Ann

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July 26, 2012

Getting it right

Working to do things quickly, efficiently, and via the standard protocol helps to ensure that you run a profitable operation. Checklists help make sure things aren’t missed, and guidelines help make sure that things are done in a certain timeframe. Polishing it off with good communication and politeness helps with customer service, or at least to minimize complaints.

But another way works too, perhaps even better. A focus on getting it right. Speaking the truth to the customer about the product, service, or product – ensuring that you understand not just what they’re asking for, but what they really want. And then using your expertise and experience to help them get it. Taking ownership of the matter as if it were your own and collaborating on a solution together, leaving open the possibility that it may be difficult or impossible to achieve the desired result with the products and services you have to offer.

A focus on getting it right may be inefficient. It may slow things down. And it’s certainly hard to standardize or build a checklist around – it requires active listening and creative thinking. But you’ll likely end up with some pretty happy and loyal customers.

Photo credit: Jordanhill School

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June 6, 2011

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

This book gives you fascinating details of Zappos.com, from its inception to its growth into one of the strongest customer service brands on the planet. The story of how this e-tailer emerged to such large-scale success from a sea of such companies, surviving (among other challenges) the dot-com bubble burst, is amazing.

The book starts with Tony’s upbringing and education and follows the story of the founding, growth and sale of his first successful company. These experiences shaped his thinking and helped to form the strategy for success at Zappos.com. Interestingly, it’s really old school ideas like great customer experience and leveraging tools like the telephone to build the brand that make this e-tailer successful.

There are big lessons in strategy – ideas like investing in customer service rather than advertising to build the brand, establishing core values that one is willing to “hire and fire by” in order to drive company culture, and sacrificing short-term gains in favor of long-term goals. There are also big lessons in the human element of business – ideas like empowering employees and vendor/partners in innovative ways, the power of “wowing” people, and yes, the value of helping people find (and finding your own) happiness.

If you’re interested in strategy or customer service, this book is a great read. Enjoy.

Also: see related post What Did Tony Hsieh Have to Say?, notes from the time I saw Tony Hsieh speak live.

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May 13, 2011

IT departments and McDonalds

McDonald’s is fast, efficient, and cheap. They achieve this through a functional breakout of the workload. Each person on staff has a specific specialty and they all work together to deliver your custom order, overseen by a general manager.

Five or six people could easily be involved in processing your order, all working together seamlessly. And none of them really needs to understand the bigger picture and how the components fit together – the unique combination of items you selected to make up your order, the specific customizations you requested, the price being paid, how many people are in line, or how clean the tables are in the dining area – to make up your dining experience.

This all works quite well, until it doesn’t. The system designed for fast, efficient, and cheap via a pure functional breakout isn’t usually so good at providing the best overall experience. It can be a real recipe for apathy and “it’s not my job” syndrome – something that’s difficult to counter with the addition of a layer of general management, no matter how well-intentioned.

The challenge in IT today is to be cheap, but the expectations of service are growing higher. Much higher.

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October 1, 2010

What did Tony Hsieh have to say?

Earlier this week I saw Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com and author of Delivering Happiness, speak at Bentley University. His talk was great – interesting and inspiring. It was fascinating to see how his thinking has evolved in concert with the growth of Zappos, and moved beyond to a larger mission and movement. The secret to success? Happiness.

Tony has pursued, as he puts it, a path to profits, passion and purpose that leads to sustained happiness, and he encourages you to do the same.

The Evolution of the Zappos Mission and Brand

A central theme to the Zappos success story is customer service. That’s the standout feature of their brand, but it was interesting to see the much larger vision of extending that attitude to employees and vendor-partners.  To get a sense of the context, here’s how the Zappos mission and brand has evolved over the years:

1999 – Selection
2003 – Customer Service
2005 – Culture and Core Values as Our Platform
2007 – Personal Emotional Connection
2009 – Delivering Happiness

The Zappos culture

The Zappos culture is wildly unique and driven by the employees themselves. It’s supported by senior management through the careful year-long development of 10 core values, which Tony calls “committable.” What does that mean? It means that Zappos will hire and fire on those values. You’ve got great skills that the company needs desperately? That’s great, but if you’ve got a big ego or are rude to the Zappos shuttle driver on your way to or from the interview, they won’t hire you. “Be humble” is a core value. You think they’re kidding? 50% of employee performance reviews is based on culture fit as defined by the core values. That’s commitment to core values.

Vendor-partners

So, what about vendor-partners? Well, they are given access to the same information as internal Zappos buyers. This means they can see information on sales, profits, inventory levels and more. Seems a little crazy, right? Information is power in vendor negotiations. Well, not if you view your vendors as partners. Tony views the vendors as extra eyes and experts helping to manage the business, for free. Vendor negotiations aren’t viewed as win/lose battles, but rather explorations of ways to benefit both sides for the long-term. And, just like for customers and employees, Zappos likes to “wow” vendors too. They don’t even let vendors pick up the tab for lunches or dinners.

Customer service

The strategy set in the early days that led to the evolution of the broad “Delivering Happiness” mission of today was to leverage customer service as an asset rather than a liability. Tony decided to invest in customer service instead of marketing. Rather than spend money on advertising campaigns and Super Bowl ads, he decided to invest in customer interactions.

The idea was to pay attention to the emotions of customers. To create stories and memories. To get that interaction “right” even if the customer only calls once in a lifetime. In his presentation, Tony had a slide with this quote:

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou

Taking this approach shifts thinking away from traditional call center management. Zappos does not try to increase efficiency in the call center, or to make it a revenue generator. Rather, the call center is viewed as a branding opportunity. The goal is to maximize for customer experience.

There’s tons more to learn from Tony and the Zappos story. If his current tour is stopping by your town, go check it out. The book is a great read too.

Slide deck

You can find the slide deck here. And you can find out more about the Delivering Happiness book and road trip here.

Photo credit: libraryman

Filed Under: Communication, Leadership Tagged With: , , , 1 Comment
September 10, 2010

Zappos versus Ikea: two systems, two totally different experiences

I made two purchases this week, one from Zappos and one from Ikea. Both lived up to their respective value-proposition hype, and the experience was wildly different with each purchase. Here’s the story. See which system you’d prefer to do business with.

Zappos

I needed new shoes and had been happy with my current pair, but wanted to see if I could find a less expensive alternative. The Zappos website was well-organized and easy to use, but I wasn’t quite sure how to compare shoe features to find what I was looking for, so I gave them a call.

Calling Zappos is a throwback to the days of yesteryear, it seemed. I called, someone answered. The person on the other end (Donna) was ready, willing and able to help. No automated systems. No call routing. No hold time. The only thing that was a little unusual were a couple of outbursts of cheers and clapping in the background during our call. Routine celebrations, I was told, as customer service reps reached certain personal goals.

Donna patiently helped me search through and compare various options and I found a pair I liked. Placing the order over the phone was quick and painless, and because it was the Friday before a holiday weekend, she upgraded my shipping to overnight (instead of the normal two-day). To top it all off, for some reason that’s still not clear other than the fact that Donna had the authority to do this at her discretion, I was elevated to a VIP customer which will give me overnight shipping with all future orders. Maybe she was sensing that I was quickly becoming a fanboy and she wanted to seal the deal (she did). This system was working for me – literally and figuratively.

Ikea

A different kind of old school. There’s an online site, but I was buying a modular closet system with all kinds of options to figure out, so I needed to see it in person and needed help with the configuration.

When my wife and I got there, the overwhelming size and confusing layout set the tone perfectly: we were going to do business on their terms. The staff was friendly enough, but having been completely assimilated into the Ikea system, they mostly helped us quickly learn to subordinate ourselves. The customer is not the driver here, the system is.

The knowledgeable staffer helped us make the key decisions and place the order – or so we thought. It turns out that you can’t order something if it’s not in stock. This was a big ornery piece of furniture (made up of 37 different parts actually), so we were going to have it delivered. Well, that one part that’s not in stock – they can only reserve it for us. We can’t pay for it, backorder it, or arrange to have it shipped to us when it’s available. Guess how this works? Ikea sends us a postcard when the part arrives. Yes, that’s right. No phone call. No email. A postcard. And then we drive down and pick it up. We can’t have it delivered. Why? That’s just the way the system works.

Turns out that Ikea doesn’t deliver anything, it’s all done by a separate company. So, we go to the check out (our salesperson has no ability to actually place the order), wait in line and pay for our goods. We then wait while the order is picked from the warehouse. Wait, you say, the order is being shipped. Ah yes, but not until we gather everything and physically bring it to the shipping company. This turns out to be largely ceremonial as we simply wheel our stuff a few feet down the hall. Still, it takes time (a good 25 minutes) and helps to bring home the theme once again: the system is not working for us, we are working for the system.

Is the Ikea stuff that good, that reasonably priced, and that unique? In this case, we think so. We expect to be happy with the purchase (friends have raved about this item).

Two systems

In one case, the system was the reason I made the purchase. I could get those shoes anywhere. But Zappos is the only place I can get them with that level of service, with a system designed totally around me, the customer.

In the other case, I had to bow to the system in order to get the goods. I got what I wanted and am happy, but had to spend a lot of time (two visits so far, and one more to pick up that last piece) and energy to pull it together.

I’ll go back to Ikea again when there’s another specific item they offer exclusively that fits a precise need. I’ll go back to Zappos again much sooner, whether I really need shoes or not.

Twitter

I tweeted about both experiences. Someone from Zappos sent me a response right away, and we exchanged a couple more tweets.

No response from Ikea. So they’re not on social media, that’s ok. But they also haven’t responded to the feedback we gave on the survey system in the store (even though we checked the box that said please contact us). Maybe that system isn’t working for us either. Or maybe we’ll get a postcard someday.

Photo credit: Bill Ledbetter

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June 23, 2010

Be a good con artist

Con artists have a nefarious reputation, and for good reason. Still, they can teach us a key element of customer service of any kind.

People are looking for confidence. Confidence that you are the right person (place or thing) for their particular need at the moment. Confidence that you will do the right thing. Confidence that you will do it the right way, and as quickly as possible – without letting it fall through the cracks.

You have the expertise. But, rather than educate them with numerous details of unclear relevance, or burden them with a flurry of decisions for which they don’t really understand the implications, you guide them (confidently) to the right solution for them right now. In short, they want to feel taken care of, so don’t overlook their feelings. The one that’s sought in many cases is confidence (in you!).

Photo credit: Symic

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