How it's done

Good luck getting long-term profits with lackluster customer service.

You don't get that service on a consistent basis without a culture of service and success.

And in order for that culture to happen, leadership had better be committed to it as job #1.

I think you'll enjoy this article on Campbell Soup's culture - and profit - turnaround as much as I did. This is how it is done, my friends: http://tinyurl.com/n2daca

A teaser: "To win in the marketplace," CEO Douglas Conant has said, "we believe you must first win in the workplace. I'm obsessed with keeping employee engagement front and center and keeping up energy around it."

CD Baby rocks the customer experience!

You have to read the blog posting on this link, which I discovered through Twitter. It shows you how a modest, honest, excellent little idea can turn into a quirky, brilliant company!

http://login2lane.blogspot.com/2009/06/stellar-customer-service.html

Having poked around the CD Baby site myself now, I believe I've found another Five-Star Customer Service gem. I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, thank you, @clane, for the tip!

Some interesting facts about this company, CD Baby:

* 289,792 artists sell their music at CD Baby

* 5,535,064 CDs sold online to customers

* $114,312,123 paid directly to the artists

Not bad! Here's their site, starting with the About page (usually where I like to start): http://cdbaby.com/about

A creative change in employment trends

The title of this blog may be all about customer service, but as a savvy capitalist, my interests - and those of many of my readers, I've found - stretches beyond one narrow field to business, economics, and social trends in more general terms as well.

If that's you, please read on.

Today's New York Times ran a great article on teenagers coming into the job market in troubled times: what are they to do? How does a 14-year-old compete for a job with a 40-year-old? Hopefully (says me, the 42-year-old), the elder of the two has picked up some job skills the employer will find useful, and that will help her win the position.

So what are a lot of kids doing? They're adapting. Welcome to America, welcome to capitalism; welcome to life. I love it!

An excerpt (bold added):

In addition to the money they are earning, teenagers say entrepreneurship has made them more mature. Max O’Dell said he could now relate when his father talked about his own work, and Ms. Borden said she has learned how to speak to adults as an adult. “I feel like this experience is getting me ready for the real world,” she said.

Today, 80% of us work for small businesses. The notion of lifetime employment is a 1950's construct most of us think of as quaint, but not realistic. Indeed, the average American will engage in three to six different careers, not just jobs!

My guess is, this just may describe you. Am I close?

I see a future where it is much more commonplace for people to do as I have done, experiencing a wide variety of employment experiences, from contractor to independent operator to employee to business owner and back to employee almost seamlessly. Why not? Entrepreneurialism isn't nearly as unique or "different" as many of us were led to believe by educators, family, and the media.

After all, what is a small farmer other than a small business owner? And 120 years ago, wasn't the family farm still the number one source of income for most Americans? For all the change our society has undergone in the past century or two, maybe the model we've come to see as "normal" - getting a good job with a big company; lifetime employment with same - maybe that was a brief historical aberration, and nothing more.

Time will tell, won't it?

For the entire article, which I highly recommend: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/jobs/28teens.html?_r=1&8dpc

Sales Made Easy, take 2

My previous post on the topic of Sales Made Easy discussed turning outside sales into inside sales with little pain or drama.

Now let's turn to creating or expanding your warm market. First, some context.

In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond relates what happens when two New Guinean highlanders meet in the jungle.

New Guinea has the highest murder rate in the entire world, and for a very good reason: highland men are brought up to kill strangers. The good news is, they are very careful not to kill their relatives. And so the ritual greetings begin.

When two highlanders run into each other, they'll stop and chat - for hours if necessary, asking about each others' lineage in hopes of finding someone in common. "Oh, you're my thirteenth great-cousin fourth removed!" you can almost hear them say with a sigh of relief. "Glad to meet you. Have a nice life!"

We humans seem to have a natural aversion to strangers - though fortunately, most of us aren't as violent about it as New Guinean mountain-folk.

Still, when it comes to sales, we're at a disadvantage when trying to sell to strangers, because those strangers are typically on their guard against us from the word go. That is why it is so important to mine your connections when looking to make inroads into a new territory, community, or company.

Your "warm market" is your friends, family, acquaintances, and their connections as well. I can't tell you how many friends of friends have taken my call because we have some kind of relationship, no matter how tenuous. And likewise, I'll do anything to help a friend because it makes me feel good. I'm sure I'm not alone there.

We're really lucky, luckier than ever before in the history of our species, because of the power of social networking websites such as http://www.twitter.com/, http://www.facebook.com/, and - especially for business - www.LinkedIncom. Want to recommend your job-hunting friend in Buffalo to the CEO of a company in Los Vegas, as I did recently? Let your fingers do the walking - in this case, I was just three people removed from this CEO, and - fantastically - because of the leverage of shared relationships, my friend actually got his interview!

New to social media, but motivated to learn more? Let me introduce you to Tom Williams. Tom is President and Founder of InnoGage (http://blog.innogage.com/). I "met" him only recently via Twitter, and let me tell you - I like his style: insightful, helpful, and connected. Read his company's blog. If you like what you see, maybe you'll give him your business.

...This connection brought to you by the magic of the Web, 2.0-style.

Two more social networking gurus I highly recommend, both good friends:

* Birgit Pauli-Haack, founder of http://www.paulisystems.net/. Her work should speak for itself, though this expert is also a pleasure to speak to directly.

* Pat O'Malley http://www.patrickomalley.com/, who I've blogged about before. I've seen him in action with an audience - he's even better than he'll tell you he is (which in Pat's case is saying a lot!)


*****

By the way: when it comes to networking and referrals, I strongly urge you to steer well clear of gratuitous referrals, as you are encouraged to do in some networking clubs. Keep these rules of thumb clearly in mind as you recommend anyone:

1. Would I hire this person/company for services myself?
2. Will this person/company enhance my reputation or diminish it?

Remember: Your reputation is your most precious possession. Guard it jealously.

Do you scare your customers?

Over half of my consulting work since Five-Star Customer Service hit the shelves in 2005 has been to business owners and C-level executives in the IT/Technology sector. A number of these firms are small-to-midsized businesses serving companies in fields outside of the tech sector.

My clients serve as trusted outside experts, just as I do.

Quite unintentionally, I've become something of a technology customer-service guru.

...Which is kind of funny for anyone who knows me well, since no one has ever accused me of being very tech-savvy. Am I a big fan of technology? Oh, you betcha! But I've been slow to master it on a personal level. For instance, my very first Tweet (@tedcoine) was only three weeks ago.

Why would these company leaders come to me for business advice, then? For starters, I tell them right off the bat: "I am your customer."

Which I am - or at least was, in my Coiné Language School days. Back then, there were times when half the people in our office were techies: web-designers and code-writers for our online English-language school. At times we employed these folks ourselves, but much more often we contracted with outside firms.

And you know what? They scared me. No, scratch that: they terrified me!

Technology is a blind item - especially software, networking, and other intangible stuff we Luddites can't quite wrap our minds around, can't quite "see."

It's like a mattress: what's in there, anyway? Is there really a difference among the $100 mattress, the $250 version next to it; the $300? The $500? What am I getting for that extra $400? Is the expensive one truly five-times better than the el cheapo one?

So, we customers have to trust the folks selling to us. And that's hard. It's extra hard when they have no social skills - or more likely, when the sales pros have plenty of personality, but the people they bring in to do the actual follow-up work are... icky. Unpleasant. Rude. Or even just a little, I don't know, too quiet.

Chances are you aren't in technology, and you don't sell mattresses, either. So what has this got to do with you?

As ever, what more general lesson can you learn from this posting? What I want my readers to walk away with is the undeniable certainty that if you're in sales, you scare most of your customers.

Scared people are much less likely to buy.

If they do buy, they'll try to save money, even if for them that isn't the best choice.

You have to win them over. And that ain't easy. If it were, your competitors would be able to do it, too - and you wouldn't enjoy an advantage.

Today's lesson? Win trust - which is a gradual process. Do it with integrity - which is not a sometimes-thing, but a 100% of the time effort. You can never, ever cut corners on ethics if you're trying to build something great - something such as a reputation.

And realize that you're starting at a disadvantage. Your customer fears you. It's that simple.

I recommend you look at every policy and practice with this question in mind: "Who does it serve?" If the answer isn't "My customer" then don't do it! No exceptions.

Take care of your customers. They'll more than return the favor.

Loyal, yes. Profitable...?

The writers of the following Wall Street Journal article have an important point.

Why a Loyal Customer Isn’t Always a Profitable One: http://tinyurl.com/kwl4nm

Still, I find this kind of thinking unsettling.

My suggestion is companies finding themselves with "unprofitable customers" should look into how to make it impossible for would-be customers to buy from them without that transaction profiting the company.

...Call me crazy.

Thank God it's Monday!!!

Say this all day - and mean it - and you're bound to start living it. Your boss, coworkers, and customers will all thank you.

Sales Made Easy

Ask any sales professional, and you'll hear the same thing: selling more of your product or service to existing customers ("inside sales") is a breeze. Selling to new customers ("outside sales") is much, much more difficult, and so requires correspondingly greater experience, talent, resources, time, and effort.

It just makes sense. Think of the sales process from the customer's standpoint - and we're all customers all the time, so this should be an easy thought experiment.

We have to feel comfortable before we'll buy. For good reason, salespeople scare most of us - we're afraid of getting ripped off, lied too; taken advantage of. Not just salesmen, but new companies make us uncomfortable, too. After all, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. And we get the shaft so often (just think of your cell phone provider, your bank, your credit card company...), most of us pretty much expect an ongoing hassle with many of the purchases we make.

But once that relationship is established? Then the sales pro has those same factors working for her: the customer knows you and your company. That relationship has repeat sales built right into it. Be it a retail store, car dealership, training firm, insurance agency... making additional sales should be a pleasure, a slam dunk, a walk in the park.

Of course, this is where Savvy Capitalism (aka shrewd business sense) really comes in handy. Because the customer's current and past experiences have a direct relationship on their next purchasing decision. Provide them an excellent product, give them shockingly good customer service, help them understand how your product can improve some aspect of their work or lives, and: boom! Easy as pie, you'll lock your customers in for life.

Drop the ball initially, and repeat sales are painful. If switching is arduous or even impossible for the customer (again, look at cell phones, banks, etc.), you'll keep most of them in the family - until your market changes and a more attractive alternative comes along. Then you're screwed. And rightfully so.

I enjoy outside sales a lot. I like people, I enjoy bragging about my company when I truly believe in it, and I get off on solving problems for people, which after all is what all ethical sales efforts entail.

But as I said, outside sales require much more effort than inside sales. So for me, the most logical solution to the question of building a business has always involved two components:

(1) "Let's sell more to our existing fan base!"

(2) "Let's inspire our current customers to evangelize for us - to brag to all their friends about how great we are and how well we treat them. Let's turn customers into eager salesmen!"*

If you look at how we built Coine Language School, you'll see exactly how effective this approach can be. With each client we brought on, we'd start with a small order - getting our foot in the door to prove ourselves, usually with just one three-month class.

Take Reebok as an example. We started with one English-Language (ESL) class for eight immigrant students at their distribution center in Stoughton, Massachusetts. The class went well. The hiring manager came to our school to learn Spanish, and that went well, too. She and her two successors each ordered more ESL classes for their workers. They also ordered Portuguese lessons for the supervisors in Stoughton, so these folks could meet their workers half-way, linguistically-speaking.

Better yet, water cooler conversation between the Stoughton managers and their peers at the corporate headquarters in nearby Canton led to requests from corporate for classes in Mandarin for a group of engineers traveling to China. We also taught Portuguese to the Latin American sales force, who spoke Spanish but were at a disadvantage in Brazil.

As I said, Reebok is just one such case. We started with one three-month ESL class at the quality control center of Legal Sea Foods in Boston, and continued with classes there for years.

Same with TACC, a small manufacturing outpost of Fortune 500 ITW.

Philips Lifeline brought us in to teach advanced English and accent-reduction to some of their monitoring center staff. We got more group ESL classes from that, as well as private lessons for their Chief of Information Technology.

Roche Bros. supermarkets was happy with their current ESL provider, but not delighted. So they threw us a bone, giving us one class while awarding six more to the firm they had been using.

The class went so well for us that we took over the entire account. Roche Bros. also expanded the program. We ended up teaching hundreds of associates in about a dozen stores over the course of a few years. Scores of those students are now full-time associates; dozens in management, all because they now speak English well. Roche Bros. benefited as a company far more than we did, and that's exactly as it should be. That's what customer service is all about.

When I published Five-Star Customer Service, Roche Bros. had me in to speak to seven different groups of rising managers. They knew by then that I had a lesson or two of customer service to share. As Roche Bros. is itself a five-star customer service icon, I took that as a big compliment.

Coine Language School went from two students in our living room to a $10 million valuation in only four years. We never lost a client to a competitor - not one. And we sure did win some clients over from our competition!

We did it all through a focus on inside sales, which is to say, through customer service excellence.

Outside sales are great and all, but if you run your company well - if you're as good as your outside salesmen say - then perhaps the Coine strategy will pay off for you as well.

Step 1. Get your foot in the door with a small initial order.

Step 2. Prove yourself as a company.

Step 3. Now that you're part of the family, an insider, reap the benefits through a long-term relationship with repeat (and escalating!) sales.

Everybody wins. That's why we're in business, isn't it?



*Paying customers referral fees, etc. is not at all what this means. This is free help happily given - and almost uniformly more effective than cheesy referral rewards.

Hall of Shame

Here's a great article from MSN Money:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/Advice/TheCustomerServiceHallOfShame.aspx?page=1

Especially of note for Savvy Capitalists everywhere are the last two paragraphs. They pretty much sum up what shrewd business - and my career - is all about.

Investors take notice The issue of customer service isn't just a problem for customers. Shareholders need to pay attention, too. Look at Home Depot. For years it was famous for having knowledgeable floor staff who could tell you what you needed to fix a leak or build a garage. Its stock, no coincidence, was a rocket, climbing from a split-adjusted $10 to $70 at the end of the decade. Now, with customer service faltering, the stock has fallen to $39.

"If you want to know how a company is doing, look at their sales," Calloway says.* "If you want know how they're going to do in the future, look at their customer service. You can only tick people off for so long."

*Joe Calloway, author of Work Like You're Showing Off.


To be fair, it's important for us to note that big companies are going to "win" unpopularity contests such as this because more people know them, bottom line. The same goes for companies that provide excellent service: the big ones, national or large-regional players, will win polls as well. And all will be consumer-oriented companies, not B2B.

It doesn't mean that Sprint and Bank of America aren't truly horrendous customer-abusers: they are. But it does skew and limit our views of best and worst practices. It's why I'll spend at least as much effort digging up small, excellent companies to tell my readers about as I will the big-name icons such as Lexus, Wegmans, and Nordstrom.

The thing is, Oklahoma's Loving Care Home Health & Hospice (http://www.lovingcarehealth.com/), for example, is a five-star customer service hero you just aren't going to read about in an MSN Money or Fortune article based on national polls. And that's where this blog... and my books... and my keynote presentations come in.

Linkedin Guru

Imagine comedian Denis Leary teaching you everything you ever needed to know about using Linkedin to grow your business.

...As far as I know, Mr. Leary isn't straying from his material to include the drier aspects of web 2.0 education. But Boston's Pat O'Malley is the next best thing. I highly recommend his work:

http://www.patrickomalley.com/

Albert Einstein rolls over in his grave

I grew up in Westport, Connecticut, where half the population is Jewish, mostly by way of Brooklyn. I may only be a dumb goy, but I know a good bagel - and finding a good bagel in Southwest Florida is no easy task.

So here's the good news for Einstein's Bagels: they make the best bagel I've had since moving to Naples. Friendly, quick and efficient service, too. Good job, guys.

Here's the bad news: they charge 60 cents for butter.

Charging for BUTTER! Now I've seen it all.

Imagine going to McDonald's and ordering french fries, only to be told that salt and ketchup are extra. Seriously, can you even imagine?*

I'm not joking or being bombastic at all when I say that I've never in my life even given thought to the idea that I might live to be charged money for butter. What on earth?

As always, let's look at this from the perspective of your business. If your business model is predicated on ripping your customer off in any way, you need a lot more than just politeness training for your call center. Really, you need a new CEO. And if you need a new CEO, it's probably because you need a new board.

Tough medicine to swallow? I'm sorry, but Einstein's leadership needs to pause and take a close look in the mirror.


* I've got a good one for McDonald's, too, but (sorry) I have to save my best stories for my books.

Best-kept secret in Naples!

In Florida this weekend? Drop whatever you had planned today and go to Johnny's Diner - even if you're in Miami, even if you're in Orlando, it's work the drive to Naples.

...Okay, so maybe I exaggerate, but Jane and I were delighted with the food, prices, cleanliness, and especially the service at this off-the-beaten-trail spot. How bout this for a bargain: $1.19 each for two plate-sized pancakes in the shape of Minnie Mouse's head, with whipped cream smiles and eyes and a strawberry nose? Our girls were blown away.

Johnny's is at 3584 Mercantile Ave, about a block east of Airport, just south of Golden Gate Parkway.

*****

This brings up a point I can't make often enough about Five-Star Customer Service: that it's best when it's least expected, and that any business can provide it.

We all expect to be pampered at the Four Seasons - hell, if you're paying $700 a night for a hotel room, it had better be "all that." And sure enough, they're reliably great. As long as someone else is paying, I love that chain.

But when you get Four Seasons service at a diner, car wash, discount print shop... Wow! It's shocking, unexpected - and it's the kind of thing that gets folks buzzing.

Jane and I are going to go out of our way to make sure our neighbors know all about Johnny's from now on, just as we have been doing with Chick Fil-A, Sunshine Ace Hardware, and VSM.net for almost three years now; just as we did up in Boston with Zoots dry cleaners and Roche Bros. supermarkets before we moved.

And I know I'm not alone in this. The couple two booths down from Indiana, just moved to Naples, were similarly impressed with their entire Johnny's experience, so there's two more people advocating this great little spot.

How many advocates does your business breed on a daily basis? Don't drop this ball. If your company doesn't inspire this kind of loyalty today, drop everything to fix that! It is your number one business priority.

Zappos in action

Look what I found on the web regarding Zappos. Thanks to BostonPRPro via Twitter!

http://www.sitelead.com/blog/zappos-live-chat/2009/06/01

*****

Genuine Customer Loyalty. Read the comments to get a taste of what I mean. Capitalists, business leaders, how much would you pay for that?

Are you Savvy?

VSM.net: Tech guys who speak "Human"

From the founding of my first company in 2001 until we moved to Naples in 2006, I ran through 7 - count 'em, SEVEN - web designers and/or project managers. Seven.

I can't begin to catalog the problems we had with these folks, some of whom were employees, others contractors or outside firms. Indeed, some of these experiences were so bad, I'd rather not stop to dredge up the memories, although I will share this one: after letting one such project manager go, the rest of my staff treated me to lunch in thanks. She was a piece of work, let's leave it at that.

Anyway, this isn't to bitch about the losers. Things changed within a month or so of our move to Naples. I bumped into Michael and Patrick at www.VSM.net, and... let's just say that if they ever leave technology, I'm going with them!

VSM has given us nothing but outstanding service over the years. And their business is thriving, despite the economy.

Coincidence? I think not.

To become fans of VSM on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marco-Island-FL/vsmnet/300003485000

Important note: VSM may be based in South Florida, but because of the nature of the web hosting and design business, they can help your company no matter where it is in the world. Food for thought.

Notes from Twitter

Don't ask me what took so long, but I just signed up for Twitter yesterday.

I'm fascinated - and addicted!

I searched "Customer Service," and have been updating that search continually since.

Some things I've learned:

1. Comcast is the most reviled company in America. It's staggering, how much ill-will is out there regarding this one company.

2. Popular among the folks I've read: Zappos.com, Wegmans, and Salesforce.com.

3. Several workers tweeted to say "I hate customer service." Note to employers: if your workers with the title "Customer Service Representative" do not like customer service... you're in big trouble.

4. Quite a few companies have lame customer service representatives. My advice? Find a new job title, perhaps Customer Appreciation Officer. It is rare indeed that companies give great customer service in the customer service department.

5. Even better advice: don't have a C.S. department at all. Relegating such important work to one little, often under-appreciated department with underpaid, low-skill workers is a recipe for failure. Everyone in your company is in customer service, or no one is.

6. One Tweet was from a delighted customer whose car salesman emailed her a happy birthday message. Guess who's going to sell her her next car, guaranteed?

7. Another good one: "Hint to service advisers / customer service folks: please don't tell me "I don't run things here" when something screws up. Help to fix it."

8. ...And another: "I do see the value of Twitter for customer service. Ability to find dissatisfied customers instantly and respond is amazing." (Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, are you listening?)

Finally, here's something to think about. In the ten minutes or so it took me to write this post, 116 more people tweeted about customer service, good or bad. I think we've hit a nerve, wouldn't you say...?

Make your business Bulletproof!

If you're anywhere near Southwest Florida next week, I have a tip for you: you don't want to miss the News-Press's Bulletproof Business seminar.

Two of my friends are presenting at this half-day program. Dr. Gene Landrum is the creator of Chuck E. Cheese's. He took that and two other companies from the drawing board to over $100 million in sales as president (Chuck E. Cheese's is now a $1 billion company). He worked with Nolan Bushnell of Atari fame, David Packard of HP, Steve Jobs of Apple.... A few years ago he earned his Ph.D. studying other folks such as himself, the Innovator Personality. Probably no one on earth knows more about innovation and this type of hypomanic entrepreneur than Gene. He has written about 15 books on the subject (I recommend you start with Entrepreneurial Genius, a compendium of 12 mini-biographies of incredibly successful business leaders).

Oh, and at 72 or so, he'll kick your ass at tennis, racquet ball, squash.... He's a much-feared legend of the courts here in Naples and at his summer home in Tahoe.

I met his co-presenter, Scott Robertson, through Gene. Scott used to be a fireman and, like me, a bartender. Then he bought his aunt's insurance agency, and built an empire. At 38, he sold his brokerage business, which spanned the state of Florida, for $50 million. Five years later, he still loves sales, but he takes weekends off from his consulting work to race motorcycles at 200 mph. Yikes.

On June 11th, Scott is going to explain to attendees how to transform their sales organizations so they will thrive in this down economy. Gene will follow with the psychology behind the effort, drawing on his decades of experience with the best of the best.

All this for $99. I told them they should charge a lot more. Maybe next time.

To sign up: http://www.bulletproofbusiness2009.com/