Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization (21 page)

Good-Byes

Be cautious about subcontracting your greetings and your farewells. Of course, subcontracting is often a necessary part of business; properly handled, it can be appropriate and desirable. But such arrangements can also be Trojan Horses, filled with enemies of your cause who ransack the precious goodwill of your customers—sometimes even before the customers quite make it in the door.

We’re being melodramatic in our language about this to make sure you mark our words with special care: The quality of the subcontractor’s entire staff, their selection process, their training standards, their appearance and grooming, their code of conduct—
everything
—has to be absolutely integrated with your own. From the point of view of customers, if an employee wears the company logo or answers their calls or opens the door for them, that employee is
your
employee.

To make matters much worse, so many of these subcontractings-gone-wrong happen at hellos and good-byes. The rationales do not help:
‘‘Oh, he works for the security company’’; ‘‘Oh, they’re the parking
subcontractor
’’; or
‘‘I’m sorry she barked at you on the phone—she’s a temp.’’

Hello/Good-Bye

143

In essence, such statements are a way of coaxing customers (or yourself ) to accept the idea that ‘‘
that
is not
us
.’’ To your customers, such statements are just infuriating baloney. ‘‘If I buy a product from you,’’ explained one such customer, ‘‘and it’s serviced by somebody else you hired, well, I’m sorry; to me that’s
your
service.’’ And if that rough service happens at an entry or exit point, it is harming a critical, emotion-filled moment that has a strong hand in shaping your customer’s perception of your brand.

When a Botched Welcome Isn’t Your Fault,

You Still Need to Fix It

A botched hello or good-bye can occur in spite of your best intentions. Your staff still needs to recognize and address it—before it colors the customer’s entire experience. Hospitality veteran Jay Coldren tells of an incident that made an impression on him early in his career. Jay had recently started as a manager at a well-known country inn and restaurant when a couple from Pittsburgh drove up for a three-night stay to celebrate their twenty-fifth an-niversary. The trip had been arranged a year in advance; the couple had read the chef’s cookbook together before they set out; waxed up their car so they would arrive in style; even packed up a special picnic to enjoy on the four hour drive. Together they had enjoyed scheduling nearly every last minute of how they expected to spend their visit. But unfortunately . . .

As the staff unloaded the luggage, our female guest said to her
husband, ‘‘Don’t forget my hanging bag.’’ Her husband looked
into the trunk and came up with a horrified expression on his
face. Apparently, she had left her bag beside the car in their
garage assuming he would pack it, but he never saw it. At this
point, she pretty much fell apart:

This poor woman was checking into one of the most expensive places on the planet with nothing but the clothes on her
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Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit

back! As the doormen and I tried to figure out what to do to
make this couple happy, one of the staff who had been there a
lot longer than me drove up to the front of the inn in the company car. I looked at him oddly and he just smiled and said,

‘‘Get me their keys and the address; I’ll be back before dinner.’’ I
was floored. No one asked him to do this, and there wasn’t a
moment’s hesitation on his part. He was so much a part of the
service culture that he just knew the exact right thing to do. He
was halfway to Pittsburgh before the lady actually believed that
we were really going to get her luggage at her house. He drove
eight hours straight and made it back before their dinner reservations at
nine.
4

Good-Bye for Now from the Authors—with Resources

and Assistance for Your Journey

Good-bye is your last—and perhaps your most memorable—chance to add a final brush stroke to the fresco of customer experience. It’s important to make it count. And as we add our last stroke to your experience with this book, we want to let you know how grateful we are that you have spent this time with us.

We encourage you to contact us on any subject we have covered or that you feel you’d like to have covered more thoroughly; we are always pleased to hear from you.

Leonardo can be reached at [email protected].

His consulting firm’s tag line is ‘‘Architects of Legendary Customer Service,’’ and he awaits the next challenge to fulfill his firm’s brand promise.

Micah is most quickly reached at [email protected]. Also on this website
(www.micahsolomon.com)
are the photographs and additional narrative examples related to this book and these subjects that we think you’ll find helpful.

Thank you again for spending this time with us, and best wishes for providing exceptional, loyalty-building service.

Appendixes

We would like to offer you some specific examples of real-world communication to employees about service standards and company philosophy. Here are three concrete examples of the way a company’s staff can be encouraged to anticipate the needs of their customers. Each was crafted for the company’s individual situation and the special relationship it has with its customers. We hope that these examples will spark your own explorations into the art of anticipation.

The
Oasis Disc Manufacturing Customer and Phone Interaction Guidelines and Lexicon Excerpts
demonstrate telephone and in-person customer interaction guidelines, language choice pointers, and general principles in abbreviated form. It is for use by employees with direct contact with the public. This example shows how our principles apply to Micah’s business, Oasis, a relatively informal company. It is of an appropriate length to form a tri-fold brochure for easy workplace reference and to be excerpted for even readier reference in pocket form.

The
Capella Hotels and Resorts ‘‘Canon Card’’/Service Standards and
Operating Philosophy
illustrates how a luxury organization with a relatively formal service style distills its service standards and operating philosophy into a brief, portable set of instructions and examples. The card that they’re printed on is small enough to accordion-fold and carry in one’s pocket. These principles and action points can keep employees 145

146

Appendixes

focused on their overall purpose in the organization (the Canon side of the brochure) and the key steps/building blocks for different situations that involve working with customers and with other employees (the Service Standards side).

The
CARQUEST Standards of Service Excellence
is the most concise and least formal example we have provided. It shows how a brief, portable set of principles and action points can be transformative for a company within an informal customer relations context. It is short enough to post at various locations in a workplace.

The copyrights for the appendixes are as follows:

Appendix A: ᭧ Four Aces Inc., courtesy of Micah Solomon, All Rights Reserved

Appendix B: ᭧ General Parts, Inc., All Rights Reserved

Appendix C: ᭧ West Paces Hotel Group, All Rights Reserved

APPENDIX A

Oasis Disc Manufacturing:

Customer and Phone

Interaction Guidelines and

Lexicon Excerpts

᭧
Four Aces Inc. All Rights Reserved, Courtesy Micah Solomon
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Appendix A

Appendix A

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Appendix A

Appendix A

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