The Illusion Of Being In Business

Do you earn your money or do you simply give your employer the illusion of earning your money? What I mean by that is are you actually giving your best effort to get the job done in every moment of your day or are you simply doing just enough to not get fired? Are you actually busy or just giving the illusion of being busy so people don’t end up tasking you with new work and projects?

The guy who walks around the office all day with a phone glued to his head or constantly on his Blackberry can make you think that he is busy but may, in fact, be just trying his best to look busy so no one questions his work ethic. Appearing busy is not necessarily being busy. Why is it that some people get their work done during the day and others, doing the same job, end up taking their work home with them at the end of the day? I believe it is because one is productive and one gives the illusion of being busy.

So let’s say that you are the person who is actually productive during the day. You manage to get your work done on time. You even have time to help others out by taking some of their workload when you have a little extra time in your day. At the end of the day, you managed to help a co-worker out of a jam by helping them with their project. Should you be compensated more than the person who simply gives the illusion of being busy? Of course you should. Do you get compensated that way? Not likely because when it comes right down to it, you seem as busy as the guy who gives the illusion of being busy even though being productive and being busy are two different things entirely. Most workplaces don’t bother to check the difference because why would you question someone who seems like he’s always doing something?

Being productive is the right and honorable thing to do. Giving the illusion of being busy is stealing. Some businesses give great service. Others give the illusion of service.

So, let’s say you actually earn your money – fair work for fair pay. If you’ve worked to earn your money, why would you then give up that hard-earned money to another business who doesn’t earn it? I’m speaking of businesses who don’t give you the same service you give your customers and co-workers. I’m speaking of businesses who give the illusion of being in business but fail in the “service” area. Given the option of buying the exact same item from a business who gives great service and one who simply takes your money with no real “gratitude attitude,” why would you freely give up your “earned” money to an organization that doesn’t earn it?

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: You need to set a standard in your life – a line that says “I will not accept service less than this.” Lay out your expectations to yourself. Prepare yourself to walk away if they fail in service that is not up to your standard. You can fire a business just like a company can fire an employee.

You vote with your dollars. A company that does not earn your business shouldn’t get your business because of convenience – because they were easier to get to.

Some grocery stores will bag your groceries for you and then walk your groceries out to your car Yet others will make you pay for the bags to put your groceries in and you will have to bag your own groceries. If the groceries are virtually the same price, wouldn’t you prefer buying from the store that gives you the bags for free, bags them for you and then loads the groceries in your car for free as well? That’s service and you deserve to be served well. It’s your money. You earned it. Or is it that you just give the illusion of earning your money and are unable to tell the difference between service and the illusion of service?

Five Serious Problems In The Retail World

I happen to be a big fan of Seth Godin – author of such books as All Marketers Are Liars and nine other bestsellers in the area of Marketing. I read Seth’s Blog religiously as it gives quite a great take on how we are exposed to marketing messages daily and how marketers are finding new and unique ways to cut through the marketing clutter to reach us and convince us to buy their products and services. It helps me to better understand why we are, as consumers becoming increasingly frustrated when it comes time to make a purchase and how the marketers seem to be becoming complacent with product selection and how most seem to be competing in the same price arena.

Because of the tweaking of my marketing mindset, I notice and pay attention to businesses more and how they conduct business. I have come to notice five things that are becoming quite disturbing.

1. For the most part, you will find the same products in virtually every store - all relatively close in price. That means that the selection of brand names is fairly limited in an effort to not keep a competitive edge in the market but instead be only as good as the competition. Business seems to be spending more time focusing on their competitors (and keeping the same stock and price) and not focusing on the customer and offering something superior.
2. By keeping price-point as a key component of being in business, the cheapest price usually wins. Unfortunately, cheapest price almost always means cheapest quality. You’ll be back looking for a replacement before long.
3. Although you may find the item you’re looking for a store by visiting their web site, there is no guarantee that the item is in stock. Don’t trust the “Check Store Stock” option on a web site. Inventory tracking isn’t working the way it is supposed to. You may think there’s one in stock, but when you get there it isn’t, so most people end up buying something else in its place. (Always make the phone call first, get them to physically check to see if it’s there, offer a credit card number to hold the item and then go get it right away.)
4. High-priced quality products don’t sell well in a Wal-Mart priced world. If it’s quality you want, you’ll need to find it on-line from specialty stores and have it shipped to you. Otherwise, it’s a frustrating experience.
5. Businesses only seem to stock what they think you should buy, not what you want to buy. You only get to choose from a series of inferior products.

Try Googling “reviews on breadmakers” and you’ll find Zojirushi makes the best one. You can’t buy them in stores. You have to order them from one of only two on-line stores in Canada. But almost every department store carries Black & Decker or Sunbeam bread makers – terrible quality items that reviewers warn people to stay away from. There’s a reason why they are one quarter of the price of a Zojirushi.

Air-O-Swiss are the world’s best humidifiers. Again, you can’t buy them in stores. They’re expensive and the highest quality and people apparently don’t want quality. Go online and get Air-O-Swiss shipped from California.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Are you in business or are you just giving us the illusion of being in business? We, as consumers have more access to more information, and we are educating on-line before we go shopping in-store. By the time we get to your location, we need a cashier – not a salesperson.

Are you offering your customers the exact same product or service as your competitors? Are you willing to stand out, be different, offer service over and above and offer a superior product? Do you make a customer for life or for just a few minutes? Is your product or service just good enough or is it head-and-shoulders above everyone else?

Service is an Attitude. Customer Service is a department. You should be tired of accepting sub-par service and products. Give your business to those who offer quality and who demonstrably show the “Service Attitude.” You can spot these marketers a mile away. They are the one’s who carry what you WANT to buy – not what they TELL you you’re going to buy.

Service By Inquiry or Insanity?

Did you know that there are only TWO types of service? I was finally able to nail down these two types of service this past weekend. As with most things in life, you usually only ever have an opinion on one type of service without something to compare it to. This weekend, I found the comparison.

Service Model #1 – Service By Inquiry: As the name suggests, inquiry is the key here. How can I help you? What is it you’re looking for? What specific model/brand are you looking for? These are all questions usually asked by a clerk/service personnel as you wander around their store with a lost look on your face or when you have finally decided to approach the Customer Service counter as a last resort. Then there are the questions posed by the customer: Where do you keep your …? Where would I find …? Do you carry any …? These are simply inquiries which should normally be met with simple answers.

Service Model #2 – Service By Insanity: As this name suggests, the customer has to lose his mind, his patience, his good mood and his common courtesy before he gets the service he should be entitled to. Sending a customer across the store to the Customer Service counter to be helped when there is a perfectly good in-store phone at your fingertips drives a customer nuts. Getting a clerk to help a customer only after they have hit “desperation” is not good service.

However, the worst question in any retail setting is usually asked just before you leave the store if you’re making your way through the checkout line: Did you find everything you were looking for? That’s really a dumb question that makes unhappy customers crazy. Yet more and more retail operations are hell-bent on asking it. Most people simply answer “yes” and silently vow to never come to the store again.

But what if the answer is “no?” Are you going to hold up all of the other disgruntled customers who are also standing in a long checkout line? Answer “no” and the clerk gets a look of terror on their face. Who fixes the problem with you only ten feet from the door? I’ll tell you right now, if you answer “no,” you get the pat-answer, “Oh sorry.”

Look, if you want me to find everything I’m looking for; don’t place your cashier in an embarrassing situation. Put more people on the floor to help the customers. Jeez, it’s really a simple idea. Don’t try to fix my problem when I’ve already gone through your whole store and no one helped me there. Now you think you’re going to help me once I've already decided to leave? It doesn’t work that way. Besides, if I didn’t buy anything, no one asks the question. I’m not in the right line (checkout line) to see if I’m satisfied.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: When a manager has to help a complaining customer with two or three qualified staff standing around doing nothing means your people don’t own a Service Attitude. If you’re a manager who feels compelled to respond to customer concerns, it usually means that your staff is unmotivated. If so, your management style needs a lot of work. Obviously, if as a manager, you have to help, it’s because your people aren’t helping enough. Either get rid of these people or move them to where they don’t deal directly with customers. A manager should be doing PR on the floor. Clerks and customer service reps should be ensuring that a manager never has to actually help customers find things. By the time a manager speaks with a customer, it should be all smiles and chuckles – not complaints.

If you’re a manager who deals with complaints, then your people aren’t doing it right. If you’re a service representative and you’re not looking for ways to help a customer in every moment of your day, then you are not doing enough to ensure you become the most valuable person in your organization.

Help me, the customer, on the floor so that when I get to the checkout line and get asked, “Did you find everything OK?” I can answer “yes” and take the pressure off of the cashier. Your cashier should not have to be the last line of defense of ensuring customer satisfaction. Besides, if I’m on my way out, how are you going to fix it now anyway?

The Four-Letter F-Word

Oh you’ve used this word too so stop being so offended. In fact, you’ve witnessed other people use the word and you don’t get offended. So what’s the problem here?

You see, you’ve used the word when you get lousy service in restaurant, get a lousy night’s sleep in a hotel and even when someone asks how their salesperson handled your complaint. You use this word freely and it seems not enough people take offence when you use it – well, the right people anyway.

The word I am speaking of is the word “Fine.” And if you use that word to describe someone’s service, they should be offended. If anyone has ever used this word to describe your service, you should be doubly offended. “Fine” is the word of indifference to describe your opinion. People use this word when they don’t want to hurt your feelings or they don’t want to seem a bother. But you sure didn’t give them any sort of “wow” factor.

• How was your meal?
• How was your stay?
• How did that rental car work out?
• How was our salesperson?
• How did we do in responding to your concern?
• How was your experience with us?
• How did we do in solving your problem?

If you use the “F-Word” as an answer to any of those questions, then the owners/managers of those businesses had better be shaking in their boots. “Fine” means nothing. It doesn’t say “great” or “lousy.” It just means you didn’t provide me with an experience that is memorable and I don’t want to be bothered to answer a question whose answer you really don’t care about anyway. I don’t want a clerk or server gushing “sorry” all over me when they aren’t the responsible party. (When was the last time your hotel checkout clerk was responsible for the lousy night’s sleep you got? Why would you dump on them? Be respectful in your answer but be clear.)

I refuse to use the word “fine” to describe any service encounter. If I know that at the end of my experience I am going to get asked that question, I begin preparing my answer at the beginning. Hey, if they’re going to ask, I’m going to answer. If the only reason they’re asking is so that I can blow a little smoke up their skirts, then they’ve asked the wrong guy.

In fact, in recent weeks, I have stayed at a number of hotels who have asked me the question at checkout. In both instances, I have asked the clerk what they do with my answer to their question. I was, on both occasions, met with an uncomfortable, stammering clerk (as though they were expecting “fine” to be my answer).

“No, answer the question,” I asked. "What do you do with the information I give you?"

“Umm,” the clerk started. “We tell maintenance if something is wrong.”

“Well what if it’s not a maintenance issue?” I asked.

“Uh, we tell a manager?” She asked in question-form as though only I knew the right answer and she was answering her high-school History teacher’s question.

“Good answer.” I offered. “Now get a piece of paper to write these things I am about to say down.” And she did.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Look, if you don’t want an honest answer, don’t ask the question. Otherwise, if you’re going to ask customers to describe their experience, be prepared to take notes. Don’t make your “Satisfaction Survey” empty and vacuous. It's patronizing and you’re wasting your customers' time.

Also, if you’re going to force your front-line people to ask the question, then you had better prepare them to handle the answers. It amazes me that so many organizations will force their people to ask but then it becomes clearly evident that they have not been trained to handle an answer other than “fine.” What's the protocol when the answer is other than "fine?"

Not preparing your people to handle an answer other than “fine” means that you really don’t care how your customer experience was or you would have armed them with the tools to fix it or at least tell the customer right away that they're taking this information upstairs. A "Service Attitude" means understanding that the whole reason for being in business is to serve. If you don't care about customer answers and instead just want to be placated, then you don't get the whole "Service Attitude" thing at all.

If your people don't know how to handle your customers' truthful answers, stop asking the question. It’s embarrassing to you.