When I'm biking the streets of Chicago, I sometimes get angry at drivers. They seem to disregard the bike lanes and refuse to keep their eye out for bikes.
When I'm driving the streets of Chicago, I sometimes get angry at bikers. They seem to disregard the bike lanes and swerve into the middle of the street.
Your customers are the same way. One day they might like you, the next day they may like the guy across the street. The key is earning their loyalty and retaining it.
Are your customers angry at the bikers or the drivers?
When you buy your family cheap souvenir t-shirts from Florida, how long do they last? A day, a week, a month? Then the colors start bleeding and your family is stuck wearing tie dyed t-shirts from Florida.
Next time you go to Florida, you buy your family the higher quality shirts. You get a bit frustrated that you ever bought the cheap ones in the first place.
Of course you don't only do this with t-shirts. You do it with websites, with roofing, with mechanics, with paint, with brochures, with furniture.
Do you wait until it's tie dyed before you do it right?
Are you always connected?
Disconnect for a bit. See what happens.
The larger a company gets, the easier it is for people who don't care about it to slip into the ranks. People who don't truly believe in the company and just want their 40 hours and a paycheck.
This might work for a mediocre company. But it won't slide for a great company. With even a few wrong people on the bus, the bus can start to veer off course.
How does a great company filter out the wrong people while growing?
Some jobs require you to manage many complex situations simultaneously. They may also demand you perform numerous tasks that aren't related to your job in any way. All for the price of a job with a tenth of the responsibilities. Your employer wants thirty five employees for the price of one.
This frustrates the strongest of workers. Nobody likes to be overworked and underpaid. Some people don't like to be overworked regardless.
So what now?
You decide. Jobs like this will exist as long as there are people to fill them. And as long as the policy is set this way. It's up to you to steer the ship the other way.
It may not happen today, it may not happen Friday afternoon. There will be resistance because nobody wants that steering wheel moving. But after consistent pushing, it will happen.
Are you ready to steer the ship the other way?
Some companies are just lazy. They don't feel like providing the highest quality of service possible to their customers simply because it's too much work.
Comcast emailed me once saying that a credit to my account would be posted within 1 to 2 billing cycles. They could have been more accurate rather than providing such a vague idea. But they were lazy.
MediaTemple emailed me once saying that some of it's server clusters were affected by a problem. They asked me to click a link and see if I would be affected. They knew which server I belonged too and they knew if I was affected. But they were lazy.
Are you lazy?
I mentioned to someone that I was going to the dentist. They said to eat as much candy and sweets as possible before my teeth were cleaned.
I said the exact opposite. I wouldn't eat any candy or sweets until after the teeth cleaning. My teeth needed to look good for their regular cleaning.
Neither of us was right or wrong. We just had two entirely different views on the simple idea of going to the dentist.
Do you eat candy before or after the dentist?
If a potential customer thinks your website looks like crap, they'll leave. (And they might tell a friend too).
If a current customer loves the way you handle customer service, they'll smile. (And they might tell a friend too).
If a past customer has a great (or horrible) experience with your product, they'll remember. (And they might tell a friend too).
Your customers are constantly judging you. (And their friends probably are too).
Are you prepared to be judged?
The best CEO in the world won't do a company any good as a programmer. The best designer in the world won't do a company any good as an accountant.
Great companies have great people, but that's not what makes them great. Having those great people in the right positions does. Let people do what they do best. Developers that are great at developing, chefs that are excellent at cooking, account managers that rock at keeping things on task.
Do you have the right people in the right places?
People feel special when they're treated special. When they're backstage at their favorite band's show. When they're in the fast line for their favorite rollercoaster. When they're upgraded to faster shipping for free from their favorite online retailer.
Back in the day, flying First Class was special. You had to pay lots of extra money to get up there and they swiftly closed the curtain on all the petty regular cabin folk. They gave you blankets, drinks, food, and smiled with you as you told them about your day.
These days, United Airlines has 5 levels of "special" service: Economy Plus, Mileage Plus, United First, United Business, and Premium Service. By offering 5 options of "special" service, United has stripped the specialness out of all them. Now they're just more levels of service that anyone could buy if they want.
Are your customers special or are they just another "first class" customer?
Benihana happens to have great food. But that's only half the reason people go there. Dining at Benihana is an experience, not just a meal.
And the experience doesn't end when you're done eating. The staff is on duty the entire time you're there. A busboy was cleaning the table across from us and preparing it for the next party. But he didn't just quickly wipe the table and throw the napkins and utensils down. He gracefully created a little performance out of the cleaining and artfully placed the napkins at the seats. As I watched him, I momentarily forgot about our own table.
Every part of the experience matters to your customers, not just the part you think matters. Are you creating a full experience?
Most souvenir shops on the downtown strip of warm vacation towns sell the same things. T-shirts, mugs, hats, postcards, salt and pepper shakers. Shop owners hope customers wander into their store and not their neighbors. So how does such a shop stand out?
Be the one that has the air conditioning blasting. Customers will choose your shop first and remember it the next time they're on the strip.
Is your air conditioning on full blast?
The reasons behind why a policy was created are often forgotten when the policy creator is gone. The people left behind just keep on following the policy, unaware of why they're doing so. It might be a good policy, it might be a bad policy. Either way, they don't know why it's there.
If you can't remember the reasons for doing something, was that something worth doing?
Having more features in your software doesn't necessarily mean better software. Offering more services in your business doesn't mean you're a better business. Hiring 743 more employees doesn't mean you're more powerful.
Selling 45 different variations of a cheeseburger and fries will make you money. But simply selling the best cheeseburger and fries in town will make you more money.
Complicated doesn't automatically mean better. Does it?
People get used to average. It's easy to like, easy to maintain, and easy to get along with.
It's also easy to stand out in. If everybody's wearing their rubber yellow raincoats in the downpour, chances are somebody's going to be staring at you with no umbrella and no raincoat. When it rains, you're supposed to keep dry. You're supposed to at least wear a coat and hold an umbrella.
They'll call you crazy because you're soaking wet with no coat and no umbrella. They'll call you weird because they can't comprehend how anyone would want to be purposely caught in a downpour.
But does that make you wrong?
