Seminars
Spotlighted Seminar: Greetings & Good-byes
College of the Customer is built in single-topic “seminars.” Here is the currently spotlighted seminar. Help yourself to what interests you, and please bust right in with your own opinions–you don’t even need to raise your hand.–Micah
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"Yes! You may bring in your ice cream cones --just be careful of their drips." (The welcome sign at Chris Cambridge's Scrimshaw Workshop, Bar Harbor, Maine)
Hello and good-bye are two of the most critical points in a customer transaction. So learning to properly greet and bid farewell to your customer is the greatest shortcut to customer delight that I know of, as I demonstrate here with the help of a blindfold.
I then offer the dubious-sounding but entirely true story of the warm welcome worth $100 million, a subset of the concept that service begins when a customer comes in contact with you (not necessarily waiting until you make intentional contact with the customer).
In the physical world, it’s time to realize that your receptionist is actually your all-important department of first and last impressions, while in an online environment, you need to plan for the reality that your best laid plans to greet your customers will likely get waylaid as soon as Google, Wikipedia, and other drivers of traffic get involved.
Barriers, such as those that hamper the disabled and other minority groups actually affect more potential customers than you think. Avoid barring them at the door. On a different note, as Chris Cambridge so wonderfully illustrates in his Bar Harbor, Maine gift shop, make it your goal should to encourage, rather than deter the pet-wielding, ice cream licking customers who, if you’re lucky, will make a (profitable) mess out of your store. More generally, the way you treat customers when you greet them sets the stage for all of your customers’ expectations, most specifically which of the three basic levels of service you supply at your establishment.
Finally, I mention the ultimate reason to be kind to a customer or a vendor: it may be an unexpectedly permanent good-bye.
(Jonesing for more on this specific subject? Check out Chapter 11, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon, foreword by Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Publisher AMACOM BOOKS, international distribution by McGraw-Hill, available here.)
- The ultimate reason to be nice to a customer
- What level of service do you provide? Show them from “Hello.”
- No food, no drink (and no customers) allowed!
- Barriers to entry bar more customers than you think.
- Google & Wikipedia (not you) decide where prospects enter your site. Roll out the red carpet anyway!
Devilish Details
The ultimate reason to be nice to a customer
1 Comment
Not that it comes down to this often, in most lines of work. But an ultimate reason to be kind to a customer (or, for that matter, a vendor) is the off chance it’ll be the last time you interact.
More In Devilish Details
- What level of service do you provide? Show them from “Hello.”
- No food, no drink (and no customers) allowed!
- Barriers to entry bar more customers than you think.
- Google & Wikipedia (not you) decide where prospects enter your site. Roll out the red carpet anyway!
- Department of First and Last Impressions
Entrepreneurship
No food, no drink (and no customers) allowed!
1 Comment
When visiting the postcard-perfect town of Bar Harbor, Maine, which I’m lucky enough sometimes to visit, I’ve noticed that a social virus of sorts has spread from shopkeeper to shopkeeper. (Perhaps you’ve noticed a similar virus in your own hometown.) The entrance to nearly every shop now greets you (or, more accurately, assaults you) with a sign similar to this one:
More In Entrepreneurship
- Google & Wikipedia (not you) decide where prospects enter your site. Roll out the red carpet anyway!
Hell Breaks Loose
First, I’ll need to blindfold you (and teach you about serial positions)
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If you were here with me right now, the first thing I’d need to do is blindfold you. Then, I’d read you this list of spices:
Tarragon.
Lavender.
Cardamom.
Chicory.
Safflower.
Cinnamon.
Turmeric.
Marjoram.
And before things could proceed any further between us,
More In Hell Breaks Loose
Know Thy Customer
What level of service do you provide? Show them from “Hello.”
1 Comment
One of the first things you let customers know with your greeting is the level of service they can expect from your establishment. Are they going to get non-compliant service, compliant (reactive) service, or true anticipatory service?
The lowest level of service, non-compliant service –
“May I get some water from you, please?’’
‘”Uh, I think there’s a vending machine at the end of the block.”
will of course push away customers every time. They asked for a glass of water and received nothing—except a grudging set of directions.
More In Know Thy Customer
- Barriers to entry bar more customers than you think.
- Department of First and Last Impressions
- A warm welcome worth $100 million
- First, I’ll need to blindfold you (and teach you about serial positions)
Marketing Fun01
No food, no drink (and no customers) allowed!
1 Comment
When visiting the postcard-perfect town of Bar Harbor, Maine, which I’m lucky enough sometimes to visit, I’ve noticed that a social virus of sorts has spread from shopkeeper to shopkeeper. (Perhaps you’ve noticed a similar virus in your own hometown.) The entrance to nearly every shop now greets you (or, more accurately, assaults you) with a sign similar to this one:
More In Marketing Fun01
Money, Honey!
A warm welcome worth $100 million
0 Comments
.… or how you never know when a customer (or a benefactor, lender, or future star employee) will first come in contact with you.
A future benefactor of your business, whether a future customer, lender, star employee, or other benefactor, may first see your business in anther role. A future customer may now be a vendor; your future financial savior may have his hand out.
A most astonishing example of this is the case of pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly and her nine-figure bequest to Poetry magazine.
More In Money, Honey!
Systems & Such
Google & Wikipedia (not you) decide where prospects enter your site. Roll out the red carpet anyway!
1 Comment
Here’s an online conundrum: How you greet prospects and customers is crucial—but these days, by and large, you don’t actually get to decide where you greet them. Google, in general, is in charge of where most of your visitors will land. And, of course, Murphy’s Law will ensure that they land on some arcane, highly technical back corner of your website—one that definitely doesn’t put your best foot forward.
Let’s outwit Murphy with this three-pronged strategy:
More In Systems & Such
Humans (Yours)
Barriers to entry bar more customers than you think.
0 Comments
When you give a warm welcome (or don’t) to what you think of as a small, invisible group of customers, the effect goes well beyond that immediate constituency.
More In Humans (Yours)
The New Book
Check out Micah and Leonardo's hot new book: Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five Star Customer Service Organization.
"This book will allow you to recalibrate your business, on any scale, in a way that keeps your customers coming back for more."—Horst Schulze, Founding President of The Ritz-Carlton
"A must-read for anyone interested in transforming their interactions with clients." Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive and A Whole New Mind
For more customized help, host one of Micah's sought-after presentations at your organization!
Most Popular Content
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- No food, no drink (and no customers) allowed!
- Barriers to entry bar more customers than you think.
- Google & Wikipedia (not you) decide where prospects enter your site. Roll out the red carpet anyway!
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