Lis Calandrino

The month of December has been a very interesting one for me. This year I’ve been fortunate enough to celebrate Chanukah, Christmas coming tomorrow and next week is Kwanzaa. Tradition is interesting, even if it’s not your own. Several of us celebrated the 6th night of Chanukah with our neighbor Dan and we got to learn some Israeli folk dances and eat traditional food. Tradition and the holidays give us an excuse to give gifts, give thanks and get together with people who are important in our lives.

This year I had a “family” party, Italian Night at the Calandrino’s for 30 of my friends. We sang holiday songs; ate the best food (cooked by all), drank wine, sang, ate lots of desserts and sang some more. It was wonderful; everyone was kind, concerned and it felt like family. I reminded me of the Olive Garden commercial, “when you’re here it’s like family.” I received so many nice notes thanking me for getting everyone together.

It has made me stop and think; why do we wait a year to get together with people that are important? I mean, how many years do we have on this earth? Let’s say you have 70 years left, does this mean you’ll only see your best friends 70 times? It’s also possible you won’t recognize anyone after year 65 from now. Getting together once a month makes more sense, doesn’t it? I have discussed it with my friends and they all agree and have offered help to make it happen.

Caring about others is never as striking as during “the season.” Today I was in the beauty salon and one of the technicians said, will I be able to get my paycheck today? The reply from the owner: I don’t think so; we didn’t take in any cash, only checks. Of course that put the technician in a snit. Single mom with two kids. While the owner is out shopping and telling everyone that she has her shopping done. On the other side, my downstairs neighbor, Irma, received a surprise bouquet of roses. The florist sent them because Irma was kind enough to accept a delivery for me and the delivery man was going to be late! It made Irma’s day; and I hate to throw this in, but that’s what I call Red Hot Customer Service!

Unexpected, out-of-the-ordinary and very nice.

Now it’s your turn. What will you be doing for the holidays and whose day will you make?
I want to thank all of you for the support you’ve given me this year while I have been growing my blog and testing new waters. It’s wonderful to know that you are out there; many of you drop me an email now and then or comment on my blog. How about this year you leave more comments and ideas so we have new things to talk about? Let me know what’s going on in your neck of the woods and what you’re doing through the holidays?
Whomever thought that cyberspace was impersonal didn’t know what they were talking about.

Happy Holidays, and love to you all.

I had the good fortune to meet a smart consumer while out on a carpet inspection recently. For this story she will remain “smart consumer” — or SC.

By the way, this is a consumer with a problem.

The consumer had worked in high-end retail for many years and was in charge of training her salespeople, so for her, customer service was a no brainer. “Just give the customer what they want, period, and be nice to them,” says Ms Smart Consumer.

Apparently five independently owned retail stores didn’t quite get it, so Ms. SC purchased from Home Depot.

Here is a summarization of our conversation:

The customer had a preference for Stainmaster. The product came highly recommended so she went looking for the brand.  Her research showed that everyone had the brand.

Before shopping she went went online to update her carpet knowledge. Having purchased carpet several times before, she knew what to expect of the process.

She asked her friends in the neighborhood where to buy carpet. The Home Depot got good ratings, as did one of the Shop-at-Homes. For some reason, SC eliminated the shop-at-home.

Since SC was new to the neighborhood, she wanted to look around and decided to search a 40 mile radius. According to research this is very typical female shopping behavior—the journey is as important as the final destination. It’s all part of the experience.

Ms SC’s three top priorities were

1. Customer service
2. Price
3. Quality

She wanted nice carpet, but was frugal with her money. She didn’t choose “designer shops” because fashion wasn’t really an issue. She knows she has good taste so why waste time. (After being in her house, I would vouch for this.)

A trip to the nearest Home Depot came up first. Why? Because of their size, Ms SC felt that they would be reliable and dependable. This is an interesting association with the size of the store. Her experience with the Depot and the associates in the carpet department were friendly. If they were not able to answer a question they knew where to get the answer. Basically they were friendly and she liked them. She also found the installation special very appealing.

Next stop, the independent retailers.

I told you that Ms SC had been in charge of training in her last employment. What does she consider most important? Making the customer feel important, acknowledging their presence and making them feel smart. Her experience at the independent store? Not that good. Employees didn’t get out of their chairs to acknowledge her, they asked very few questions and most pointed to the carpet department and said call me if you need anything. She also remarked one of the stores also didn’t smell that good. SC mentioned the smell to her husband but this didn’t seem like a reason not to consider this store.

Bottom line, she wanted someone to talk to her, ask about her project and make her feel important.

Her evaluation: the prices were all similar and everyone had Stainmaster carpet. Where did she buy? 
The Home Depot, because everyone was nice and she liked the installation special. All of the pricing was the same or similar.

Okay, so this is one customer’s experience but it points up some very big issues.
You don’t always have to be super smart, but you do have to be super nice.
Customers want to feel special, if you make them feel special; you have a good possibility of making the sale.

Being reliable and dependable are two important traits. I’m pretty sure that the other stores were also both reliable and dependable but maybe it wasn’t obvious — no customer testimonials or data on customers’ experiences were available.

Customers will travel; in this case, since the customer was new to the area, she was interested in learning more about her area of the country.

How about some blogs? Blogs that welcome new residents to the neighborhood, provide warrantee information, stats on complaints, biographies of the salespeople and more, so that by the time the customer gets to the store the customers feel like they know the salesperson.

This of course is one customer’s experience, a customer with a problem. It does sound like being nice pays off.

In your experience as a customer, all things being equal, how important is an “extra nice salesperson?”

I wouldn’t have believed this if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Stores will sometimes spend thousands on new racking systems or to repave their parking lots — but not a dime to train their employees.

Joanne’s Fabrics is a national chain with great products for anyone who sews or does crafts. My friend Mary does both but sewing is more than her hobby; it’s her home-based business. Her store of choice for fabric and sewing machine? You got it, Joanne’s Fabrics. How long has she been shopping at their store? Probably 15 years. How much has she spent? Probably thousands.

Mary recently purchased two pens that are used to mark fabric — the kind that within 10 minutes or so the ink dries and disappears. This is very useful when you are sewing and marking on light color fabrics. Unfortunately one of the pens was not working. Here are three important pieces of information to the story. 1. The pens are $6. 2. The week before, Mary purchased a new sewing machine for more than $1,000. 3. Mary does not have a receipt for the pens.

I probably don’t need to tell you anymore but it highlights some very important customer service issues. When Mary took the pen back, the salesperson was unwilling to refund her money. (Mary didn’t ask for a new pen since she wasn’t that thrilled with the first one.)

Funny the salesperson didn’t look for Mary’s name in the computer and Mary didn’t say, “Hey, I’m a great customer, I bought a $1000 sewing machine last week and spent $5000 last year in your store.”

I decided not to add my two cents but asked Mary a few questions instead. She said she understood why the salesperson didn’t give her back her money: Mary didn’t have a receipt. I asked her about the sewing machine she bought for $1000, to which she replied that she forgot to bring it up.

Okay, so Mary is a more passive customer, not wanting to cause problems and doesn’t realize that she has leverage with the salesperson or clout in the marketplace. You can be sure if she tells this story to a few more friends she will have worked herself to a frenzy — and then look out!

The real questions in my mind are:

• Why didn’t the salesperson ask the customer any questions before she said “no way”? A question like What’s your name? would have probably have given Mary the opportunity to talk about how much she likes Joanne’s and about her new sewing machine.
• Did she take for granted that Mary was a slacker?  I mean, Mary was wearing a picture of her dog emblazoned on her shirt, hat and socks.
• Did the salesperson assume the customer was just cheap? It was only a $6 item.

Mary doesn’t have a car so she takes two buses to get to Joanne’s to be dismissed. That may have something to do with Mary’s statement yesterday: why don’t we just go into New York City and go to the garment district to buy my supplies. What Joanne’s doesn’t know about Mary is that she’s a lot more sophisticated than she looks.

They Could Be

According to a study conducted by two professors from Vanderbilt University, up to 40% of satisfied customers do not return to those businesses who gave them the satisfactory service.

This means that almost half their customers wind up missing in action.

How would they know if they’re missing?

They probably wouldn’t, because most businesses don’t track lost customers or try to find out where these customers went.

If this is true, most businesses don’t even know if their customers are satisfied or not. In fact, a non-complaining customer may be interpreted as a satisfied customer. This may simply not be the case.

Check out these statistics.

• The average “wronged customer” will tell 8-l6 people about it. Over 20% will tell more than 20. Source: Lee Resource Inc
• It takes 12 positive service incidents to make up for one negative incident. Source: “Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner
• For every customer who bothers to complain, 26 other customers remain silent. Source: Lee Resource Inc.

Customer service used to mean following through on your commitments to your customer and doing what you said you would do.  In other words: delivering on the promise. Here’s my new definition on what customer service means to me:

I believe that delivering the promise is no longer customer service. Delivering the promise is the price of admission a company pays to be in business. The new customer service is what you deliver beyond the promise. It’s what you do to delight, excite and build relationships with your customers that make their experience memorable.

If you accept this definition it means expanding your thinking about customer service. This means knowing that every aspect of your business has an impact on customer service, not just face-to-face encounters but everything that happens in your business. To make it work, every employee needs to be committed to learning what your customers want and then developing action plans to make it happen.

How will this happen? By determining what will astound your customers and then exceeding their expectation.

The bottom line? Satisfied isn’t good enough.

I wonder if people know what comes out of their mouths or if mouths have their own strategies. Then I think maybe I listen or hear too much.

I found myself in the position of having to rent a car in the Pittsburg, PA airport. Unfortunately there were no cars to rent except at the Hertz counter. I said to the woman, “No one has cars to rent — I suppose you’re out too?” She smiled and replied, “Oh no, we have plenty of cars to rent.”

“I’m so relieved !” I said. “How much for a midsize?”

“They’re all the same price. It’s $300 a day.”

“What? That’s triple everyone else’s price, isn’t it?”

“Sure it is,” she replied. “But we’re the only one with cars!”

Yes, she really did say that!

Now I know you don’t think this really happened to me and even I wasn’t sure it was happening. So I said to the woman, “What makes you think that I’ll want to rent a car from you after the ‘car drought’ is over?”

To this she had no reply, just the blank stare which said, do you want it or not? And then: “Like I said, we’re the only one with cars today.”

It reminds me of what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina when bottled water was being sold for $10 a bottle. This will make you memorable, and not in a good way.
A few thoughts:

• Customers aren’t stupid, for the most part. We know when we’re being taken advantage of.
• Customers remember when they have a bad experience with your company.
• A happy customer will tell a few people, an unhappy customer will tell the world—just like I’m doing now.
• Short-term thinking is just that: short term. Win the battle and lose the war.

Most likely people think that Hertz is simply the most expensive rental agency, which explains why they had cars left that day. Since there were only a few cars left, they could have confused everyone by sending the cars out at prices cheaper than their competitors! Customers would be in heaven, tell everyone and vow to at least give Hertz a try the next time. Hertz’s competitors would have been confused when they learned that Hertz was suddenly cheaper than them.

At least this customer would have gone away happy, rather than vowing to take the nearest bus.

The rain held off and Baystate Rug held its first “Bounce House” event. President Joe Montemagni and General Manager Jorge Morgado purchased an inflatable “bounce house” — an Excalibur’s Castle model, which is one of the many different types of bounce houses.

This isn’t about peas and pasta. It’s about beet greens.