Another Set of Eyes

The Bad. The Ugly. And the Good.

2005-09-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

I had a recent experience that's so illustrative of the state of the customer relationship -- both good and bad (though not necessarily in that order) -- that it had to be shared.

The time had come to get an oil change for my rather superannuated little truck (it wasn't the miles, but the time -- I don't drive it very much these days) as well as geting a headlight replaced. As it seemed like a pretty simple procedure, instead of going to my regular mechanic (who is always booked solid) I went to another local outfit who maintain both a full service shop and a satellite operation that deals with oil changes and inspections.

Upon pulling up, it was clear that things were backed up a little; fair enough, it was just after a long weekend. Upon asking how long the oil change would take, "about an hour" was the response. I also asked about the headlight. "If we have it, we'll do it. No problem." Again, fair enough. Leaving the key in the ignition, as requested, I settled down in the waiting room for a bit. Finally, after a few minutes, noticing that not a lot of progress seemed to be getting made -- and it being nearly noon -- I went down the street for a bite to eat.

Returning better than a half hour later, my truck was in the exact same postition if had been in the whole time. "The guy said `about an hour', that was forty minutes ago, and it looks like you've made no progress at all," I said.

"There's a computer problem on the inpections." [Note: a new emissions test became mandatory where I live at the beginning of this month.]

"Well, if you can't do the inspection at the moment, why don't you move it out until you can? That would save everyone else time and keep more customers happy -- like me, for example."

"We can't do that. They're ahead of you."

"I understand. But you can't work on them now, can you."

"We can't do that."

This was obviously not going to be a good experience. When another ten minutes had passed -- characterized by much standing around -- I inquired again. The response was a surly, "You want your truck? I'll move it around for you." Having invested this much time already, I declined the offer.

More time passed. Several conversations sprung up in the waiting room. Nobody was anything resembling happy. Any inquiries directed toward anyone who worked there were met with annoyed distraction. It was made perfectly clear. Customers were an annoyance. We were in the way.

Ultimately, after somewhat more time had passed, the truck finally made its way into the bay. After very little time, I noticed it was no longer visible. Scanning the property, I saw that it had been driven around to the back of the lot. It was over. Finally.

Well, not really. There was still the paperwork, which meant that someone would have to realize that the truck was done. No one did. More time passed. Finally, I asked the first person I had talked to inside who the manager was. That was the manager, I learned. Further inquiring about why it had taken so long, making the same points, the reply was the same as before, only surlier. "Well, my truck's been done for a while and I'd really like to get out of here," I said.

He quoted the price. His general attitude had not changed. Mine had worsened -- but was held in check. I was, at most, brusque. For one thing, no mention was made concering the availability of the headlight I'd needed replaced -- but it was time to get out of there, so I didn't mention it either. Once the transaction itself had been completed, and asking how long the manager thought the place would stay open if it provided service like this. Have I mentioned that the responses I had received were surly? Storming out, after achieving no comprehension by the manager as to just how badly the entire process had been handled, I did something I shouldn't have. I slammed the door behind me.

Mind you, I knew what kind of door I was dealing with, a tempered glass door with an aluminum frame with a pneumatic door closer on top. This is not the kind of door that will slam very hard or very noisily. Slamming the door was still a bad idea.

Happy to finally be on my way home I was walking toward my truck when suddenly I heard a voice behind me. The manager, looking like slugging me was not far from his mind, stopped about eight feet away, screaming at me.

"Don't you disrespect me! Don't you disrespect my customers!"

I replied calmly, "Y'know, you're right. I should not have slammed the door. But as for disrepecting your customers, you've been handling that rather well yourself."

"Get off my premises! Get out of here!!"

I did.

Now, I like local busineses. I'd had good experiences with this particular one before. I wanted to see them continue to succeed. So, naturally, I headed over to the main office, the full service shop. I could both inform them of the chaos that was occuring under their banner and perhaps get the pesky headlight replaced at the same time.

Arriving after a few minutes, the first person I saw was a rather serene, bearded mechanic. I explained that I wanted to talk to someone because of a really bad experience I'd just had at the satellite operation. His face immediately looked as if I had just told him my dog had died. "That's terrible. The guys to talk to are inside. I'm sure they'd like to know."

When I got to the desk, I explained the situation. He immediately asked to hear the whole story, explaining that the general manager would be back in a couple of minutes. I told him. Soon the general manager himself was back so I told him the story. He seemed surprised that I hadn't even been offered a coupon. Finally returning to the first guy, I asked him about the headlight. After walking out ot the truck and seeing what kind of lamp it needed, he almost apologetically told me it would take fifteen minutes or so because they didn't have it in stock.

Fifteen minutes later, I was on my way home, willing to give this operation another chance. I'm not about to recommend the satellite shop, though.

So there you have it. The Bad. The Ugly. And, ultimately, The Good.

Which would you like to be?

More on Little Things

2005-08-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

Recently, as I try to get this thing going, I've been scouring friends' company websites to see if there's anything I can improve. Now mind you, I'm no design maven. Many of these sites are beautifully crafted, simply breathtaking. The prose, however, sometimes (at least to my eyes) leaves something to be desired.

I've found typos, sentences that don't scan -- all kinds of things. Look, this stuff is important. A home page is often the first glimpse people have of what your company does; details are important. After all, customers expect the details to be right in work you do for them; if there are basic errors on your home page, they just might go elsewhere. And that may be the last thing you want to see happen.

My personal pet peeve (and fortunately I haven't seen any examples of this in my recent perusals) has to do with a little word in the English language. What is it? It's "its". "Its" is a possessive. "It's" is not. Actually I've been quite amazed at the number of times I've seen people get it wrong -- smart people, educated people, people who write technical papers describing research that I can only hope to understand. [And I think native speakers get it wrong more often than non-native speakers.]

So get it right. You'll be glad you did.

[There is little doubt that I've made some glaring error in the above posting. Then again, I didn't have the benefit of -- wait for it -- Another Set of Eyes!]

The Little Things

2005-08-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

Did you ever deal with a business where everyone seemed to be angry? It's usually not a pleasant experience; it really makes you want to go elsewhere. Sometimes, it's indicative of deep structural problems within an organization -- problems that require a significant overhaul, usually at great expense, and often carrying significant risk. Sometimes, though, it's something a lot simpler.

I'm talking about litle things: Little things that need to be done over and over. Little things that require more effort than what they yield in results. Little things that, over time, just make you plain, well, angry.

Face it, anger saps energy. Anger dampens enthusiasm. Anger makes people significantly less productive. And, in a customer facing situation, it can really be damaging.

Often these little things have just found their way into practice over time by nothing more than simple entropy. "We've always done things this way." Worse still, they are often virtually transparent to the people who can change them. And we're often talking really little things, like, for example, where the water cooler or coffee pot is -- things so little that nobody (even were they inclined to do so, which will be the subject of a later post) would mention or even realize.

Sometimes you do just need another set of eyes.

The Myth of the Secret Shopper

2005-08-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

[In trying to get this business of the ground, I've been thinking about how the image in my brain about how it works relates to existing approaches.]

I've always liked the idea of the `Secret Shopper'. You know, the sleath evaluator sent to patronize various businesses and report on the experience -- assumedly so management can know about and fix any problems encountered. But, as I think about it further, I may have been wrong.

What could be wrong with having someone go into a store and comment upon what they see? Well, to a certain extent, not much. If they report that the staff is surly, there's a problem that needs to be fixed. If they say the place is dirty or otherwise uncomfortable, ditto. The problem comes in with other, more subjective measurements.

Here's the deal: The nature of the people who would become Secret Shoppers skews the result. Think about it, who relishes that kind of work? People who like to shop. People who like to look at everything in a product category in two, three, many stores. People who relish doing extensive comparison shopping. People who look upon shopping as entertainment.

Mind you, though I don't put myself in that class, I have nothing at all against them. The only problem is that they look at your business through the eyes of the kind of customer you're really least interested in.

People who like to shop are the ones who are most likely to shop on price. They fear paying too much. And, as such, they are least likely to be `faithful', most likely to go somewhere else for a better price on an item -- and tend to soak up the most resources per sale. For them, it's not about trust or reputation; they already know about the product. And, since they actually like spending time in stores, making an extra trip for some other item is of no consequence -- well, after they've done their research and looked at the same item all over town.

No, the customers you really want are the ones with whom you can build a level of trust, the ones who care more about getting the right thing than saving a few bucks here and there. In essence, the ones who hate to shop -- but are willing to buy once they're there.

The myth of the Secret Shopper is that such people don't model your ideal customer at all.

Beware Unanimity!

2005-08-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

"When everyone pulls in the same direction, great things can be accomplished. Of course, you can also tip the bus over."

There's no attribution because I said it myself. Really.

Turning Around a Proverb

2005-08-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

It has long been said: "Find something you love to do and you'll never have to work another day in your life." It's a great idea, but not always feasible. I suggest an alternative: "Find something to do where you spend as little time as possible doing what you hate!"

Doing things you hate is one of the most tiring activities possible. Naturally, most jobs will require some of it -- and sometimes it's absolutely necessary to the task. Often, though, the hateful things that one must do have merely accumulated through entropy -- a little bit at a time -- and become sufficiently ingrained in the culture that they're hard to eliminate, at least when you're looking from the inside.

Being prepared to ferret out such things -- and breaking bad cycles within a local culture -- can lead to cheaply implementable fixes. And big gains.

A Simple Rule

2005-08-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

I grew up in retail. As neither retail nor what we sold (it was a neighborhood dress store) was of particular interest to me, I never paid that much attention to it. But, despite myself, I did learn a few things.

When, many years later (through an unfortunate series of circumstances) I found myself running the place, I had few rules for the staff -- most of whom had been working for my family for many years by then. The most important -- and the only one that would actually anger me when broken was simple:

When. They're. Ready. To. Give. You. Their. Money. -- Take. It!!!

There are few things more annoying in a retail setting -- and few things that can ruin a shopping experience in general -- than choosing items, even with superior service, and then having to wait endlessly to complete the purchase.

I think this concept applies to more than the simple storekeeper; patent issues aside, it's hard to calculate just how valuable `one click shopping' has been to Amazon. Different situation? Yes. Same concept? You bet!

Good Numbers. Bad Numbers.

2005-08-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

In business, we love metrics. We love to reduce complex situations to simple numbers.

Much of the time, metrics are very valuable. They separate the signal from the noise. Sometimes, though, if you're measuring the wrong thing, numbers are useless. And sometimes, they're even worse than useless -- they tell us things that just aren't true.

Knowing the difference can mean the difference between failure and success.