French Fries with Ketchup, Hammers and Dremels
Sometimes i'm amazed by the way, or rather by the things i see happen in a business.
Picture yourself walking into your favorite fast food place, you look at the menu with the hopes of finding something different to eat while you stand and wait in line, but in the end you succumb to the same thing you always order... same ol' same ol', and you're happy with that decision (at least here you don't have to prove anything to anyone, just your stomach!) You've made up your mind, you're ready to order but it just seems that the line is taking forever to dwindle and your turn never comes. You look around, surprisingly enough both cashiers are working and still the line is getting longer and longer. By this time you surrender and admit to yourself that you're not virtuous, after all patience is a virtue and you don't have any. Give it a few more minutes, you're all fidgety, but thank goodness it's finally your turn to order! The cashier stares at you waiting for you to say something, perhaps order, and immediately after you utter the words 'hi, i would like to have a number...' they abruptly interupt you and say 'is this for here or to go' as if they didn't care about what you were saying, as if you had never said anything at all! Kind of frustrated you reply, 'to stay' you give a deep sigh, and proceed with your order: 'i would like a number 2 with large fries, and a diet coke' (at this point you just surrendered to your frustrations and decided to go with the large fries to make up for some kind of obscure inner feeling) You're ready to pay but the cashier asks you, 'regular or diet?' and well while repeating yourself several times is not too much of a strecth it still bothers you that they weren't paying attention at first, making the situation even more stressful.
Or even worse, picture this! You walk into that same fast food place (you really like it, plus it's convenient and it would cost you more to cook at home by the time you calculate the time you put into it plus the food - You can tell that i'm convinced!) Anyway, you're ordering and this time things aren't as bad... it's flowing, the music is pleasant, you didn't have to wait, they appeared to be listening to you, things are going very smoothly. Until you hear a cellphone ring. Not your phone, mind you, at this time of the day you don't get that many calls because it's time to withdrawn yourself from the world and simply enjoy it, alone. No questions, no comments, no frustrations, no snide remarks, just peace. Or so you would hope... the cashier, yes that same person who is taking your oder, lets go of her pen, digs deep into her pocket and well... answers the phone!!!! No kidding.
No, wait a minute, something is wrong. Now while i asked you to picture all this i can assure you that it did happen to me. I often think that i am way too picky, but really it's just a way that i have to feel guilty for something that i see happens too often. Because we are surrounded and overflooded with bad customer service we become blind to it... oblivious. And when it is so much so that our gut feeling reacts to it in such a way to leave us infuriated or simply frustrated we tend to blame ourselves for it, when really deep inside we're just expecting something that should to most businesses, be obvious: Good customer service.
I'm convinced, i'll stop thinking of good customer service as something that's a must, because apparently it isn't. *Sigh* I think most businesses don't realize that the purpose of good customer service is to increase the value that buyers receive from their purchases and from the processes leading up to the purchase. It's a tool. A tool that if used well, impacts individuals, households, businesses and so on. Not only that, when threatened by competition a business will survive when it establishes a difference between them and the competition, that's how they outperform rivals. Customer service can be such a difference.
For example, suppose you have to hang a picture on the wall, you grab a couple of nails and a hammer, the hammer being the tool through which you'll accomplish your task. You pound on the wall, exert some force, make sure you don't hit your finger in the process, get stressed, drop the nail (that's why you grabbed two) and then after a while you finally get it done. You feel pleased, content with having achieved that. Just like when in the fast food place after you ordered, while eating your large fries you dipped it into some tasty yummy ketchup and felt content and satisfied. But truth is, hadn't it been for that yummy ketchup you would still be in a state of tension that occurred during, and because of the process of ordering... during the hammering.
Most businesses act like a hammer. They get the job done, but they overwhelm you during the process... then they give you ketchup and call that customer service! When really a business should act more like a Dremel Stylus: an ergonomic tool that will finish, sand, polish, engrave and clean!! All without making a lot of noise, in a smooth and consistent way... the way businesses should really be. Like in any precision job, details count a lot, a dremel would handle and deliver those details, and a business should do so too. In your business do you act like a reliable, but noisy and sometimes dangerous hammer, or like a dremel, silent and
precise, taking good care of the details? Think about it while eating your french fries.
Picture yourself walking into your favorite fast food place, you look at the menu with the hopes of finding something different to eat while you stand and wait in line, but in the end you succumb to the same thing you always order... same ol' same ol', and you're happy with that decision (at least here you don't have to prove anything to anyone, just your stomach!) You've made up your mind, you're ready to order but it just seems that the line is taking forever to dwindle and your turn never comes. You look around, surprisingly enough both cashiers are working and still the line is getting longer and longer. By this time you surrender and admit to yourself that you're not virtuous, after all patience is a virtue and you don't have any. Give it a few more minutes, you're all fidgety, but thank goodness it's finally your turn to order! The cashier stares at you waiting for you to say something, perhaps order, and immediately after you utter the words 'hi, i would like to have a number...' they abruptly interupt you and say 'is this for here or to go' as if they didn't care about what you were saying, as if you had never said anything at all! Kind of frustrated you reply, 'to stay' you give a deep sigh, and proceed with your order: 'i would like a number 2 with large fries, and a diet coke' (at this point you just surrendered to your frustrations and decided to go with the large fries to make up for some kind of obscure inner feeling) You're ready to pay but the cashier asks you, 'regular or diet?' and well while repeating yourself several times is not too much of a strecth it still bothers you that they weren't paying attention at first, making the situation even more stressful.
Or even worse, picture this! You walk into that same fast food place (you really like it, plus it's convenient and it would cost you more to cook at home by the time you calculate the time you put into it plus the food - You can tell that i'm convinced!) Anyway, you're ordering and this time things aren't as bad... it's flowing, the music is pleasant, you didn't have to wait, they appeared to be listening to you, things are going very smoothly. Until you hear a cellphone ring. Not your phone, mind you, at this time of the day you don't get that many calls because it's time to withdrawn yourself from the world and simply enjoy it, alone. No questions, no comments, no frustrations, no snide remarks, just peace. Or so you would hope... the cashier, yes that same person who is taking your oder, lets go of her pen, digs deep into her pocket and well... answers the phone!!!! No kidding.
No, wait a minute, something is wrong. Now while i asked you to picture all this i can assure you that it did happen to me. I often think that i am way too picky, but really it's just a way that i have to feel guilty for something that i see happens too often. Because we are surrounded and overflooded with bad customer service we become blind to it... oblivious. And when it is so much so that our gut feeling reacts to it in such a way to leave us infuriated or simply frustrated we tend to blame ourselves for it, when really deep inside we're just expecting something that should to most businesses, be obvious: Good customer service.
I'm convinced, i'll stop thinking of good customer service as something that's a must, because apparently it isn't. *Sigh* I think most businesses don't realize that the purpose of good customer service is to increase the value that buyers receive from their purchases and from the processes leading up to the purchase. It's a tool. A tool that if used well, impacts individuals, households, businesses and so on. Not only that, when threatened by competition a business will survive when it establishes a difference between them and the competition, that's how they outperform rivals. Customer service can be such a difference.
For example, suppose you have to hang a picture on the wall, you grab a couple of nails and a hammer, the hammer being the tool through which you'll accomplish your task. You pound on the wall, exert some force, make sure you don't hit your finger in the process, get stressed, drop the nail (that's why you grabbed two) and then after a while you finally get it done. You feel pleased, content with having achieved that. Just like when in the fast food place after you ordered, while eating your large fries you dipped it into some tasty yummy ketchup and felt content and satisfied. But truth is, hadn't it been for that yummy ketchup you would still be in a state of tension that occurred during, and because of the process of ordering... during the hammering.
Most businesses act like a hammer. They get the job done, but they overwhelm you during the process... then they give you ketchup and call that customer service! When really a business should act more like a Dremel Stylus: an ergonomic tool that will finish, sand, polish, engrave and clean!! All without making a lot of noise, in a smooth and consistent way... the way businesses should really be. Like in any precision job, details count a lot, a dremel would handle and deliver those details, and a business should do so too. In your business do you act like a reliable, but noisy and sometimes dangerous hammer, or like a dremel, silent and
precise, taking good care of the details? Think about it while eating your french fries.
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Yahoo MyWebposted by -Nash @ 3:42 PM
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