Posted by Celia Couture on Thu, Mar 11, 2010 @ 10:22 AM
This is a wonderful article about Customer Service. In today's economy we need to ensure that our companies and our employees understand what it means to deliver outstanding customer service. We can no longer be satisfied with meeting the minimums. We have to go the distance. Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz have been held up as experts in this area. I would encourage readers to share this article with your employees.
Excerpt from: The Simple Truths of Service
by Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz
Great Service is a Choice
No one can make you serve customers well. That's because great service is a choice. Years ago, my friend, Harvey Mackay, told me a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point. He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey. He handed my friend a laminated card and said:
"I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk, I'd like you to read my mission statement."
Taken aback, Harvey read the card. It said:
Wally's Mission Statement:
To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment
This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!
As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, "Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf."
My friend said jokingly, "No, I'd prefer a soft drink."
Wally smiled and said, "No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice."
Almost stuttering, Harvey said, "I'll take a Diet Coke."
Handing him his drink, Wally said, "If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustratedand USA Today."
As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card. "These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio."
As if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of the day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights, or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.
"Tell me, Wally," my amazed friend asked the driver, "have you always served customers like this?"
Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. "No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day. He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.'
"That hit me right between the eyes," said Wally. "Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more."
"I take it this has paid off for you," Harvey said.
"It sure has," Wally replied. "My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action."
Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I've probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn't do any of what I was suggesting.
Johnny the Bagger and Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. They decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles. How about you?
Posted by Celia Couture on Thu, Mar 04, 2010 @ 10:15 AM
I came across this article today and wanted to share its content. Every company should have a set of core values or operating principles they live by. This is a way for us to measure behavior and way for us to integrate the "mission" of the company through its employees. Oftentimes, companies make the mistake of assuming that their employees are in support of company core values. If employees are not involved in the creation of the values then it is unlikely they will buy in to them or more importantly practice them in the day-to-day performance on the job Sometimes, companies view the creation of values as "fluff." I prefer to think of values as the glue that holds a company together. If we navigate away from our values progress is thwarted as is morale. Hope you enjoy reading this excerpt.
Good to the Core, by John Blumberg
"I was in Honolulu to speak at a large national conference. I scheduled an extra day onto the trip since I had never been to Honolulu and because a few great friends were also at the conference. The day after the conference, we awoke at the crack of dawn to visit Pearl Harbor. As we stood above and looked down upon the sunken USS Arizona, the depth of our experience came to life. It was moving and humbling.
Upon our return to the hotel, I had some time to spare before departing to the airport. A couple of my friends and I decided to rent a raft large enough to hold three adults. We targeted the white-capped waves, out in the distance, as our destination. With the incoming waves, we had a hard time getting away from the shore. At first, there seemed to be enormous momentum keeping us "grounded." Slowly, but surely, we began to make progress. It seemed to get easier. We eventually got within a few feet of the whitecaps and decided to board our raft and relax as a celebration of our efforts. It was in our moment of pause that we felt the reality of our situation. Drifting two feet out and one foot in. Again, two feet out and one foot in. We all felt the unsettling formula of our ever-so-gentle drift out to sea. We immediately abandoned the raft and grasped for safety, with one arm holding the raft and the other arm aggressively swimming. I have never scissor-kicked so hard in my life.
Twenty minutes later we had made minimal progress. Out of nowhere, a lifeguard on a kayak appeared on the scene asking why we were so far out. Feeling the comfort of his presence, we laughed for a moment, lightly commenting about our distance from the shore. He wasn't laughing.
The orange balls had warned us, and we unknowingly ignored them. Infrequently placed across the ocean's surface, they created an invisible line on the ocean's floor. They silently warned us not to drift beyond them regardless of our vision or mission. "You see those big orange balls on top of the water?" the lifeguard inquired. We could see them, but they didn't look very big from where we were still struggling in the water. They did, however, give us the insight that we were basically five times farther out than we should be. I think the lifeguard was trying to teach us a lesson. He didn't leave us, but he didn't assist us either. Forty-five minutes later we walked up on the shore. I was shaking from exhaustion. I began, for the first time, to feel the numerous cuts on my legs and feet from the sharp coral rocks lining the ocean floor.
We had briefly noticed the orange balls on our way out. We had paid little attention to them and certainly had not given any thought to their significance. We had been too focused on our mission to get to the white-capped waves in the distance!
We don't go running away from our values. We go drifting away, and one day wake-up in a place we never meant to be, drifting in a direction we would have never chosen."