If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Every once in a while a rare customer will take the time to tell you you’re doing something really well, or you just plain stink and your momma’s ugly too.  Both of these extremes seldom represent the average customer.  However, how you can almost always turn a complaining customer into a fan as demonstrated with my Cheesecake Factory experience.  The average customer won’t tell you anything, but they will talk to people in their circle of influence.  Many customers just vanish, and you never really know why. 

There is untapped potential in people who are your former customers.  Perhaps they stopped patronizing your business because you have new competition.  Maybe someone in your business made them mad.  Perhaps they’ve found better prices or better service elsewhere.  You’ll never know until you ask.

I serve on the marketing committee of a private high school.   In recent years, this school has been plagued with dropping enrollment.  Students were leaving, and many people had a theory, but no one had definitive answers.  The marketing came up with the idea of inviting parents of former students to come to the committee meeting and share their stories. Continue reading →

Talk to most people about Wal-Mart, and they typically have a strong opinion.  Almost no one is ambivalent.  While other stocks are tumbling, Wal-Mart’s is seemingly doing quiet well even in this tough economy.   Still, long-term growth requires being more than the low-price leader.

Surprisingly enough, Wal-Mart actually has a long history of customer service.  Company founder Sam Walton put a lot of time into training employees to treat customers with the golden rule.  Today there’s even a specific customer service program for greeters.  The Wal-Mart service philosophy is that anytime a customer passes within 10 feet of any employee that employee’s first job is to make sure that customer is satisfied.  “That sounds good on paper, but is it being applied?” you might ask.

Just a couple days ago I was in Wal-Mart looking for a rather obscure movie in their entertainment department.  I knew I had seen it before, but it had been several months.   An employee from the department saw me staring at a movie rack for about 10 seconds, and he intercepted me. Continue reading →

Americans as a whole are a very forgiving society.  We’ll forgive just about anything as long as someone is willing to make an honest admission of guilt, and seek to make things right.  When someone covers up or denies obvious wrong-doing, it tends to make us mad.  Those are the people we want to put in jail or punch in the nose.

 In my media job, I spend a lot of time partnering with area businesses.  One of the businesses we work with is a Chicago Cubs’ minor league baseball team called the Boise Hawks.  We sponsor a couple baseball games each summer.  The sponsorship includes one of my DJs throwing out the first pitch, radio station banners hung all over the park, a couple between inning promotions, a booth on the main concourse and special thank-yous over the PA system.

At a recent game only one of those promises was kept,  a booth on the concourse.  Now we’ve worked with this baseball club for a long time, and we’ve had a very good relationship.  That said, we were very disappointed.  After the game ended, I found the president of the club, and told him what happened.  He said, “We didn’t give you any love tonight, and that’s not right.  We’ll talk about this soon, and make sure you’re taken care of.” Continue reading →

So often customers are lost for failure to ask them what they want.  By the time the company figures out what is wrong, the customer is long-gone, and has no interest in returning.  In the words from that old movie Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”  And in the business world, that failure is costly.

Recently my company was a cell phone client of Verizon Wireless.  We had 12 cell phones with them, and they cost us about $1,200 a month.  As with any company, my radio station is looking to cut costs.  Enter the new at&t, they contacted us.  They said they’d reduce our monthly bill to $500.00, and they’d pay the early termination fees for switching from Verizon.  In addition, they promised us new cell phones of our choice. Continue reading →

In today’s world the old cliche definitely holds true, “Time is money.”   There’s a premium on speed.  We’re willing to pay a little more if a company can make something happen faster.

Companies like Fed-Ex and UPS have built their businesses on the power of speedy delivery.  UPS puts up a little challenge to themselves right in their slogan “What can Brown do for you?”

 Recently, at my radio station we had a shipment coming of books and CDs to give away during an on-air promotion.  The promotion only ran for two days, and was supposed to start on a Tuesday.  On Monday, the business day came and went and the shipment hadn’t arrived.

 The UPS man was working late that day, and he got to the radio station around 6:00 p.m. with our package.  There was no one at the station.   Now most delivery people would have called it a day and tried again tomorrow, but not this guy.  He looked closely at the package and saw that it was addressed to Mike Agee, General Manager. Continue reading →

In these days of airlines charging you extra just to take your luggage with you, it’s nice to get a breath of fresh air from a struggling industry. 

I fly a lot.  I can tell you which seats are most comfortable in a CRJ, and which airlines still serve you food for free.   (There aren’t many.)  While every airline seems to be cutting back on something, it’s still the employees that separate the best from the rest.

I spent last week in the Fresno, California.  I flew home on Friday on Horizon Air.  The flight involved a four-hour layover in Portland, Oregon before I could reach my home in Boise.  When I got to Portland, the depature monitors said there was a Boise-bound flight in just 45 minutes.  I thought I may get to see my wife and baby several hours sooner. 

There’s a little known rule that a passenger isn’t supposed to be intentionally separated from their baggage.  (Insert snide comment about lost luggage here.)  I knew the rule because it’s been repeated to me by several gate agents, still I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.  Continue reading →

Most weeks this blog is targeted my primary customer, business owners and managers.  Today I want to turn things around for a moment, and talk to the customer.

Sadly, as evidenced on this blog, and many other places, good customer service can often be very hard to find.  Sooner or later the day will come when you will be very disappointed in a company.   You have several options, but most people choose to do nothing besides belly-ache to a friend or spouse.

I want to encourage you to write a complaint letter.  There is power in the pen!  Written properly, a complaint letter can stir up action, get you a refund or under the best circumstances, change the business. Continue reading →

When I’m not in the studios of one of my radio stations, or traveling, I call the little tiny town of Star, Idaho my home.   It’s a small town poised on the beautiful banks of the Boise River.  It’s the kind of town where neighbors still know your name, and look out for each others’ children.

There’s only one grocery/hardware/general store in town.  It’s called the Star Merc, and it has stood its place as the center of Star commerce for 100 years. 

Long ago it probably was the only store for miles in any direction.   Today, you can drive about five miles in any direction and find a Wal-Mart, Albertsons, Home Depot or other national chain that carries everything the Star Merc carries, and at a better price.  There’s one thing those other stores can’t beat, and that’s the Star Merc’s staff. Continue reading →

Recently I took my wife to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate her birthday.  It’s one of her favorite restaurants, and we’d been pleased with the food and service on many occasions.  This occasion was an exception.

She ordered soup, salad and a sandwich.  We also ordered an avocado eggroll appetizer.  It took longer than usual to get our order.  Then when it arrived the soup had spilled onto the sandwich and made it soggy.  My wife isn’t fond of soggy bread, so she moved on to the salad, where she promptly found a hair.  It was a different color than her hair.   To top it off the server totally forgot our appetizer order.   I knew this was uncharacteristic for the chain which spends almost $2,000 training each employee down to the dishwashers, but I decided to write the manager of this store, because it’s what I do.

 A couple weeks later the manager called me and personally apologized.  Then he followed it up with the letter below: Continue reading →

In the media business there’s something called “proof of performance.”  When television or radio spots are run, an affidavit is given to the advertiser swearing that the spots ran at the stated times.  It’s simply a record that what was promised actually took place.

Whether they’re stated or not, every business makes promises to the customer.  How well you keep those promises may be the difference between success and failure.

A local amusement park, that I’ve been to a handful of times, promises an experience that is safe and fun for the whole family.   The park has all the usual family fun center attractions like miniature golf, batting cages, laser tag, race track and lots of arcade games.   Scattered throughout the park are TVs playing the latest music videos.  It’s those videos that caused the park to break it’s brand promise. Continue reading →