Lisbeth Calandrino::

Anthony "Tony" Giles, a tuba and base trombone player from Manhattan, has led an interesting life. And today his life is going to get even more interesting. 

I've known Tony for a long time. He grew up in Detroit and at the age of 14 found himself studying bass trombone and loving it. “My band director in school was an aspiring conductor as well as a base trombone player. He taught me an appreciation of the trombone, but more important an appreciation of orchestral music and literature. It was both alluring and challenging.” 



Forget customer service, in most of my encounters it doesn’t exist. A survey of the airlines over 2007 – 2009 by BusinessWeek rated Southwest Airlines the Best Customer Service Champs. Was it 100%? No, not even close, but they still came out on top. And that leads me to wondering, is there such a thing as 100% customer service? What about 110%? Should a business strive for 100%? I thought we were supposed to strive better than 100% — to over promise and over deliver.

It was also announced recently that the Chicago transit is doing customer service training with the drivers: they’re going to teach them how to smile! I guess you have to start somewhere. If I was in charge of the Chicago transit I don’t know if I would bother to do any training. I mean, what’s the customer’s choice, to stay home? That’s probably what they’re wondering as well.

Paying customers are in short supply. It’s partly the economy, partly the abundance of merchandise, and partly the fact that we are tired of being tied to our credit cards. It would seem like a good idea to keep the customers that you have—happy!

Customer service is pretty limited, which is why I wrote the book, Red Hot Customer Service, 38 Sizzling Ways to Heat Up Your Business and Ignite Your Sales. Sales, as we once knew it, doesn’t exist anymore. We don’t sell anyone anything. In fact, the word “sell” implies convincing, making someone do something they don’t want to do. Sales is an outdated word from the dark ages, but it certainly is not an outdated profession, it’s simply been morphed into what we now call “customer service.”

Customers are too smart to really be sold anything. Do you go into a store to be sold anything? I doubt it, by the time you’ve gotten to the store you probably have already decided what you want — having tracked it down online. Or you wander into a store, see something you like and buy it. Maybe you have a conversation with a clerk or sales associate, or the concierge. (All clever disguises for the name “salesman”.) Maybe you want to ask a question or just seek some knowledge, “Where do you keep the tuna fish sandwiches?”

What we think of as sales is what I call customer service. The process is simple: define the problem or predicament or desire with the customer and then help them make a decision. That’s just good   business practice. The customer comes in for something, you have the something, or you have the solution. Hoping that your something is better, prettier, or smarter than the next guy’s.

That’s customer service.

So, the ice story. A perfect case of someone not delivering customer service but trying to sell the customer. Albany International Airport has about 4 or 5 places to buy coffee. One is Starbucks; the other is Mickey D’s, and then there are the no names. I love iced coffee. It’s what I drink instead of soda or pop. And what’s strange about that?

For the last three months I have been looking for iced coffee in the Albany Airport. No one except Mickey D’s has ice. But they’re at the other end of the airport and I usually go the other way.

So I keep asking for ice coffee at the normal no-name place I go to and they keep making excuses or rolling their eyes. Today Ms. Salesperson points me to the cooler and says everything in there is cold. Now that’s selling—and it doesn’t work. She dismissed my cries for help and tried to sell me a cold drink instead of what I wanted. There was no listening and no paying attention. So I explain it’s been 4 months and there’s still no ice at the coffee stands in terminal C. I ask her if she has ever heard of an airport without ice; to which she replies, “I’ve never been in any other airport!”

She tells me that McDonald’s has ice. Which is great, but she’s now sending a customer off to a competitor. If it were my coffee stand, I would have said “Watch my money and I will run down and get some ice.” Maybe I’m kidding and maybe not but the customer would if nothing else have been impressed with my commitment to her.

So I head on down about 4 blocks to McDonald’s and order a Big Mac — hold the meat and cheese — and an ice coffee, one pump of the flavored vanilla, 1% milk and the rest iced coffee, no sugar. I ask the cashier if she knows that no one other than Mickey D’s has ice.  To which she replies, how can you make your cold drinks really cold without ice?

My sentiments exactly.

Resources:

• McDonald’s
• Customer Service Blogs
• Albany Airport

Warren Buffet once said, "Price is what you pay and value is what you get."

Actually that's a pretty open-ended statement, and my hunch is the definition of value is different for all people. What Warren considers value is certainly different than what others consider value. From all that I've read, Warren eats meatloaf in his local diner and buys companies which he defines as having "built-in moats."  In the book "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life" we find out that Warren has both a wife and a live-in girlfriend, more than I wanted to know about Warren, but it says something about Warren and of course what he values.

Value has changed over the years. In the old days, whenever people exchanged money for something you never even heard the word "value." When did the word value become important? It was more like an even exchange.  Value was getting the product, and "you get what you pay for" was a common retail theme.

Value is getting more than what you paid for. Customers are no longer interested in an even exchange.

When we buy products we will spend a lot of money if we feel we really need something. The retail price is a value that a seller thinks they can get for a product. The value of anything is determined by the supply and demand of that product. Sometimes it's hard to find what something is worth without trying to sell it for a lot of different prices. How do you know what to charge?

Many retailers undervalue what they offer; they also do standard mark ups on their products. They buy it for X and sell it for 2X. All of their prices are determined the same way. This doesn't help the consumer make decisions. Why? Because many of the prices are so similar that the customer can't tell the difference between the products. We don't expect the Mercedes to be the same price as a Ford; if the prices are similar Mercedes begins to look like they don't know what they're doing.

You either have the right customers to keep you in business or you don't.

Do you have too many similarly-priced products?

Do you undervalue your products?

Do you know what price your competitors are selling similar product for; do you think you have to undercut their prices to get sales?

The question is: what does retail value mean to you and your customer? If you undervalue yourself you can be sure your customers won't pay your prices.

Budget for a new reality

If you have an uncertain future, or think you might, then “scrub”your budget.

Build emergency savings for yourself and look at your major obligations. If you don’t want to give up your outside expenditures — trips to Starbucks, picking up a new cosmetic, that trip to the dollar store that never turns out to be a dollar — then plan to take less money with you and leave your credit cards at home. Take only enough cash to spend or make one less trip.

See how long you can keep that $20.00 in your wallet.

Refinance your house?

Take a look at the rates, what you save in both the short and long term. Sometimes the closing costs are as much as what you will save over the long run. This isn’t such a good deal.

Where is your money going?

Too many trips to the supermarket, buying large quanties and half gets thrown out because it doesn’t get used? Maybe this is the time to lose that weight your’ve been complaining about. You don’t have to eat less, just eat smart.

Get rid of your debt

Put away the credit cards, period. Start looking at what you’re buying and why. In the meantime, just don’t add anything to your debt. In times like these, since there is so much uncertainty, plan to make it easier in the future — not harder.

Check out these classic articles from Zen Habits on managing your finances in hard times.

• 8 Ways to Make Huge Savings in Your Budget
• 73 Great Debt Elimination Tips

Budget for a new reality

If you have an uncertain future, or think you might, then “scrub”your budget.

Build emergency savings for yourself and look at your major obligations. If you don’t want to give up your outside expenditures — trips to Starbucks, picking up a new cosmetic, that trip to the dollar store that never turns out to be a dollar — then plan to take less money with you and leave your credit cards at home. Take only enough cash to spend or make one less trip.

See how long you can keep that $20.00 in your wallet.

Refinance your house?

Take a look at the rates, what you save in both the short and long term. Sometimes the closing costs are as much as what you will save over the long run. This isn’t such a good deal.

Where is your money going?

Too many trips to the supermarket, buying large quanties and half gets thrown out because it doesn’t get used? Maybe this is the time to lose that weight your’ve been complaining about. You don't have to eat less, just eat smart.

Get rid of your debt

Put away the credit cards, period. Start looking at what you’re buying and why. In the meantime, just don’t add anything to your debt. In times like these, since there is so much uncertainty, plan to make it easier in the future — not harder.

Check out these classic articles from Zen Habits on managing your finances in hard times.

• 8 Ways to Make Huge Savings in Your Budget
• 73 Great Debt Elimination Tips

Legal Sea Foods Knows!

So my friend and I decided to stop at a favorite restaurant, Legal Sea Foods. Legal Sea Foods started out as a market in Cambridge, MA and opened their first small restaurant next to the market in 1968. In 1994 they opened in Logan Airport outside of Boston. I have also discovered a LS in National Airport. The food is amazing and my friend who has eaten his way around the world says the clam chowder is second to none. I should also he add he never orders clam chowder—except at Legal Sea Foods.

At this point they operate over 30 family-owned restaurants, a mail-order business and a grocery products division. The Berkowitz family is into the third generation, which in itself flies against the statistics that 80% of third generation business go down the drain. My first culinary experience with LS was in the Logan Airport—what a surprise! Which leads me to why we should all take note.

Our server, Molly, was “texting” in our order. The device looks like a Blackberry but it’s called the Siva and is designed by Microsoft. The software it uses is called PAR. Molly has been accused of texting by the blue-haired bunch plenty of times. But she’s not — she’s doing her job the way it’s meant to be done. The Siva links the order directly to the kitchen, and if a customer has allergies she punches that in and everyone is alerted.

So, is Molly a good server, and does Legal Sea Foods have criteria for good service? Does she treat everyone well, up-sell when appropriate, mention the desserts and know how to present the right wine with the right fish? Well, with this technology, you might think it doesn’t matter so much. It’s all in her computer. The Siva can tell how long the customer stays at the table and what Molly is selling. In addition LS uses Ing@nico, which they call “pay at the table” so your credit card never leaves the guest’s hands.

While the technology is all well and good, it doesn’t replace the actual service and friendliness that Molly provides. She is a restaurant representative from their customer service department, essentially. And a large part of eating out — no matter how much we deny it — is being served and being served well.

So, if your store is based on technology, or your sales staff is able to be much more efficient with technology, don’t forget to check on whether they’re still using the same customer-service oriented approach that you trained them in. A computer does much to increase efficiency and measurement, but it can never replace a genuine smile and genuine hospitality.

Want a “Legal Clambake?” Legal Sea Foods offers full event planning, menu, staff, and the right equipment for an old-fashioned clambake. Contact 617-530-9455 or www.legalseafoods.com.

Legal Sea Foods Knows!