Archive for April, 2010
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
After running several errands, my husband and I stopped at a local chain restaurant for dinner Monday evening. We typically eat at the bar as there are several TVs lining the header of the bar, and its provides a great way to catch up on the day. We noticed very quickly that the service was slow, but we waited patiently for the server to move in our direction. As we waited, I started observing the bar area and there was one server handling the area. The bar area seats 30 people and there were 15 people seated in the bar totaling 9 parties. It was clear from the body language of the server that she was growing frustrated. The server made her way to us and took our drink order, gave us menus, and proceeded to tell us that she was swamped based on the number of people she had to take care of leaving us with the underlying impression that the service was not going to get any faster or better. I watched her communicate the same message to the rest of the parties sitting at the bar as she served drinks and took orders. (By the way, she never delivered food. Another server from the kitchen delivered the food when it was ready. And, her customer population did not grow the entire time we were there.)
Talk about setting up expectation! I looked at my husband and asked him, ‘Wonder what she would do or say if she had a full bar of customers to serve?’
Often times in the restaurant industry customers make an immediate contribution to a server’s compensation. I wonder if in any of this particular server’s training anyone shared that concept with her. Her attitude and behavior clearly communicated that the 15 of us were too much for her to handle and quite frankly an inconvenience to her evening.
This story is an example of situations that happen every day and it is unfortunate on two levels. The customer expectations were not met let alone exceeded impacting our decision to return and the server dramatically impacted her financial success based on her own inappropriate attitudes and behaviors. Not a good experience for the customer, a possible loss of the customer for the restaurant, and a personal financial loss for the server.
There are two great articles in the March issue of T&D magazine highlighting Chick-fil-A’s views on developing employees, developing future leadership, creating customer loyalty, and being innovative. Dan Cathy, the company’s COO states, “Our sole source of capital is customers. That’s it.” Chick-fil-A has reported their 42nd consecutive year of sales growth and the restaurants aren’t open Sundays.
I don’t think it really matters if we are talking about restaurants or any other industry. Dan Cathy is correct. Customers are every business’s sole source of capital. Every team member and every contributor inside your organization directly impacts your organization’s relationship with your customer. The culture of true customer service and creating customer loyalty is in Chick-fil-A’s heritage.
What does your organization need to do or do differently in order to create an organizational value of exceeding your customer expectations and creating a loyal relationship? Have you ever quantified the financial benefit to your organization? I encourage you to evaluate the answers to these two questions, as it may be an enlightening exercise!
Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses achieve high levels of excellence and success by adopting customer loyalty strategies as a critical success factor of organizational success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.
Tags: ASTD, capital, Chick-fil-A, communication, Customer Loyalty, Customer Service, customers, Dan Cathy, RAC, Resource Associates Corporation, server, T&D Magazine
Posted in Customer Loyalty | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
Collaboration is a way of energizing people to work and think together. It is the exploration of multiple options from various perspectives. Collaboration is the process of people thinking and working together to discover ways to solve problems; address complex or cross-functional issues; improve processes, products, or systems, or invent new ones. Creative, collective thinking applied to the work we do leads to examination of how we do it, and how we can do it better. This means discovering new ways that are better, simpler, more efficient, or faster.
You will discover many advantages to getting the individual contributor’s thoughts for greater collective thoughts. The benefits are enormous. In the words of Dee Hock, founder and former CEO of Visa USA and Visa International “Given the right circumstances from no more than dreams, determination, and the liberty to try, quite ordinary people consistently do extraordinary things. With collaboration, the whole is not the sum of the parts. The whole is exponentially greater than all of the parts. Individuals join the cooperative effort by pooling their personal resources for superior results. Shared knowledge earns knowledge in return, and pooled knowledge consistently leads to better outcomes. In the information era, sharing information is important because it leads to understanding and keeps you in the loop of what is happening. Sometimes just being in the know opens a wider range of opportunities for action.”
When problems are complex, seemingly insurmountable, or just frustratingly difficult to solve, answers and breakthroughs are more likely to be discovered through a collaboration of diverse capabilities or divergent viewpoints. The process of collaboration can transform conflicting points to common goals. Collaborations provide an abundance of ideas and options in a short period of time.
Searching for new and better ways in today’s morass of possibilities is more than one mind can handle, or at least more than one mind can handle as well in the same time frame. There are countless tasks and complexities that are beyond the capability of one person alone which can be handled by the concentrated efforts of many. There are additional reasons for collaboration. It will help improve production and product quality in shorter time frames while contributing to profitability.
Even contributors who do the same job, but do not ordinarily work together can benefit from sharing tacit information. This is the kind of information that is often not written anywhere, but learned through experience and passed on by word of mouth. The knowledge of how to perform tasks they all do separately can be profitably shared. The result is that each party in this collaboration gains personally from the collective knowledge of the group.
Most often the main obstacles to successful collaboration lie with the collaborators. One of the most common obstacles is a negative or self-serving attitude. Careful consideration must be given to the attitudes of the collaborators. Collaborators need to respect each other for their talents and skills, and they need to focus on outcomes, not personalities. Positive, solution-oriented attitudes should either be part of the selection process or the collaborators’ development process. Training collaborators in conflict resolution and goal setting strategies will also pay rich dividends.
Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses and individuals achieve high levels of excellence and success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.
Tags: collaboration, creative, Dee Hock, improvement, Leadership, Margaret Mead, profit, RAC, Resource Associates Corporation, Team, Team Leadership, visa
Posted in Team Leadership | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Perceived value as defined by customers creates loyal customer relationships, and customer loyalty is the best predictor of your future strength and growth potential.
The value you provide to your customers is always compared to the value your competitors provide: therefore, value is your customers’ perception relative to similar products or services in the marketplace—your competitors.
Perceived value occurs at the intersection of what customers want and what they get from you versus what they could get from your competition. You can only sustain customer loyalty by continually meeting your customers’ product/service qualifications, specifications, or expectations. You also need to meet their needs in the order that customers deem important while maintaining a favorable comparison between you and your competition. In your marketplace, your competitors are the alternative suppliers your customers use to form their comparative value perceptions. How would your customer define perceived value?
For example if your customers expect your product to perform error free, to be delivered on time, to be supported by timely and personal technical support, and to be properly billed at a fair price, you must be good in all categories to get an “A,” and you must be at least as good as your competitors. If you deliver a product that meets all of their design specifications but are unable to provide personal technical support, you failed in meeting an important criteria; therefore, the perceived value will decrease. For every mark you miss, the value as defined by your customers decreases and you slowly lose the ability to develop a loyal customer relationship. To create and sustain loyal customers it is necessary to consider every contact with each customer as an opportunity for you to provide value—every time. Every service point is critical and every service point has a level of expectation from the customer that must be understood and managed. We call these contact points—points of connection.
Every point of connection gives your organization the opportunity to emotionally connect with your customers. Your customers will judge your value and their emotional tie at every point. Developing and implementing a strategy of creating a consistent emotional connection with your customer creates value, which creates loyal customer relationships.
We know that loyal customers will always return to purchase your product or service, which create a long-term stream of revenue. Another advantage of loyal customers is that they will consistently boast about your product or service creating the most effective and least expensive form of advertising for your organization. Additional advantages of developing a loyal customer base is their willingness to pay more for your product or service, and they are also more forgiving when your organization makes a mistake. Why? As loyal customers, they trust your organization and have faith that you are fair.
Making the strategic decision to create a loyal customer base is one of the most important commitments you can make to the success of your organization. Your individual contribution is also a large part of that success.
Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in business and management consulting, strategic planning, leadership development, executive coaching, and youth leadership. For more information visit www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.
Tags: competition, Customer Loyalty, Customer Satisfaction, customer value, perceptions, points of connection, RAC, Resource Associates Corporation, Success, supplies
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