Easy Money

When you meet your customer, is it a slap or a kiss?

We are all constantly looking to improve our business results, especially in challenging times like these.

There is a source of easy money right in front of your nose. It is also right in front of the noses of everyone in your company, especially those on the “front” lines.  This source of easy money is called “Our Customer.”

The quickest route to improved business results is to encourage your customers to do things, such as buy more, pay more or rave more.  If a customer walks away from an interaction with your company feeling better about you, more clear about you, and more connected to you, she will be much more likely to do these things. And you will make more money.
Every time you come in contact with a customer, you have an opportunity to improve your business results.  Every time.  No exceptions. So, the question you need to ask yourself:  When we interact with a customer, is it a slap or a kiss?

I walk into my doctor’s office at 7:45 this morning.  They were already prepared for the mid-morning rush, and had set up “Public Guidance Stanchions,” like you would see at an airport checkpoint. However, there were no patients at the office yet, except for a very old, frail man, slowly walking “the long way” around this barricade, struggling to make his way to the reception desk.  Slap.

I check in very late at the Doubletree Guest Suites in Boca Raton.  I need to print something for a morning meeting, and I can’t get the printer in the business center working.  The front desk agent sees I’m having trouble, offers to print my document at the front desk, patiently finds the file on my thumb drive, and prints it for me.  I ask her when breakfast is served in the morning, and she tells me it starts at 7AM.  I mention that I have to leave before seven.  The next morning, as I walk by the front desk in the morning she has a bagel and a cup of coffee waiting for me.  Kiss.

What prevents the receptionist at the doctor’s office from standing up, walking out from behind her desk, and retracting the stanchion barricade while the office is empty?  What encourages the Doubletree front desk agent to do things that aren’t specifically listed on her job description?

Two recent experiences in the check-out line at Whole Foods:

1. The cashier is engaged in a conversation with a colleague the entire time she is processing my order.  The first time she looks at me or talks to me is to tell say, “Your total is $43.87.” Slap.
2. Two weeks later: Another cashier is processing my order, giving me her full attention, talking to me, relating to me as a human being.  Kiss.

Like a yoga practitioner paying attention to his breathing, I continually try to remind myself to focus on the most basic elements of customer interaction because they hold within them the secrets to improved results.  Here are some of these fundamental elements that I try to live with every day:

• It’s not about customer service.  It’s about the relationship-building encounter.

  Customer service is not what you should strive for; it has become basic hygiene. (Yes, some companies still don’t brush their teeth.)  The goal of every interaction your company has with  a customer is to ensure that the relationship with the customer is better at the end of the interaction than it was at the beginning.  The receptionists at my doctor’s office were focused on transactions, and it left me with a cold, relationship-eroding feeling.  The Doubletree front desk agent was focused on ensuring I had a better connection with the hotel.  I think I’ll stay there again.

  Do people in your company think customer service is the point of customer interactions, or do they recognize the opportunity, need or obligation to build relationships during every customer interaction?

• Every point of contact affects your bottom line.

  Everything is marketing, and marketing isn’t everything.  We all know this, but do we practice it?  If you want to improve your business, you need to look at every point of contact, with your customers, looking for opportunities to kiss instead of slap, create Brand Harmony instead of brand dissonance, create relationship-building encounters instead of relationship-eroding transactions, and communicate a clear story instead of a jumbled story.

  How well does your organization create Brand Harmony?  Is your story clear and compelling, or jumbled and confusing? Your internal brand is the most important brand you have.

  I don’t care how cool your products are. I don’t care how cool your ad agency is.  I don’t care how slick your packaging is.  If the brand inside your company is not clear, compelling and meaningful to your, encouraging them to engage in the right “Brand Habits,” all is for naught.  If you internal brand isn’t what it could be, then I will tell you, right now, what to do: Go steal money from your advertising budget, your direct mail budget and your PR budget and focus that money on engaging your team, building your internal brand.  (Do it. Now. What are you waiting for?)

  How clear and compelling is your internal brand?  Do people in your organization have a shared, enthusiastic idea of “who we intend to be,” and do they engage in the right “Brand Habits” based on that shared idea?

Yes, I believe this is where the easy money is for most businesses.  As you tackle the really tough questions in your business, don’t overlook the opportunities right in front of you: Customers, and how you interact with them.

As you are in “customer mode” this week, notice how companies interact with you.  How often are you slapped, and how often are you kissed?  Do you walk away from interactions felling like your relationship improved, or suffered erosion?

Now, look at your company.  Are you guys slappers or kissers? When do you tend to have relationship-building encounters, and when do you blow it, creating relationship-eroding transactions?

List out, on paper or a white board, 25 different touchpoints your company has with customers. Include the major touchpoints (closing sales, delivering your product, etc.) and the mundane (your equivalent of my doctor’s reception process). Then, go through this list and evaluate whether you slap or kiss at each of these touchpoints. Are you creating relationship-building encounters or relationship-eroding transactions?

Do this exercise with a number of your colleagues.  Be hard on yourselves; self-scrutiny is critical in a world where customers are so unforgiving.

Rereading what I’ve written above, I found myself pondering the comparison to the yoga practitioner focusing on breathing.  Basic customer interactions are the breath of your business, providing nurturing oxygen when the go well, and suffocating you when they don’t.

Focus on the basics of customer interaction... and find easy money.

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steve@yastrow.com
P 847-686-0688