What Message Are You Giving Your Customers

I snapped this picture recently at one of the coffee shops I frequent for early morning meetings.  I was fourth in line on the particular day I noticed this very obvious attempt by the young woman behind the cash register to solicit tips.  After snapping this picture I wondered if it would have any effect on customer behavior.  Would they or would they not respond to the demand?

I noticed a couple of things.  Each customer's order was taken by the girl behind the cash register with a tired, clearly sleep deprived "Good morning, what can I get you?"  After she took each order she continued on with the conversation she was clearly having about last night's festivities with the barrista.  Both her tone and energy clearly showed that her interaction with the customer was viewed more as an inconvenience to their conversation than anything else.

Not one single person dropped a tip in the jar.

When it was my turn to order I quickly ordered the simplest most mundane thing they had on their menu: large coffee, black, no "room."  She filled my order barely looking up, now looking at the text that had come into her cell phone.  I handed her my money and for giggles dropped a shiny new dollar in their little tip cup with a joking, "Don't want to get hit now do I?"

She barely smiled, clearly annoyed by my interruption of her text, and said looking over her shoulder at the barrista, "Well look at that, not everyone's a cheapskate.  See I told you Lori that sign would make a difference." 

No thank you.  No other acknowledgment.  Just a sarcastic comment about the other customers.

It made a difference alright.

I was fascinated that no one had ever trained these girls better than that.  I grabbed my coffee and rather than pull our my laptop out and do some work I decided to just sit there and watch and learn.  In the time it took me to finish my coffee seventeen customers came and went (yes I counted them - don't laugh it was fun!).  One woman dropped a few coins in their cup but other than that, no one else tipped.  Thankfully. 

Now I could have gone up there to preach to these girls why they have to try and make demands for tips and why that strategy clearly wasn't working.  I could have gone up there and taught them in five minutes more about customer service than their boss or shop owner clearly had in the entire time they had been employed there.  I could have gotten angry about the situation and elected to give them both a big piece of my mind about their rude behavior towards me and my fellow patrons.

But I didn't. 

In fact I didn't say a thing about it.  I just decided right then and there that I would never go back there again.  In directly I voted with my dollars.  A coffee shop that probably used to get thirty bucks of my money every month just lost a customer  (a $ 300 annual customer!) who quietly shook his head in disbelief and became determined to invest both time and money elsewhere.

I bring this to your attention my fine friends because I have to ask what message you and your company are giving your customers?  Clearly most of us don't try and hold our customers hostage for tips with such an overt display but have you thought you might be doing something just as bad?  For example:

1. Do you answer the phone on the first or second ring with a personable greeting?
2. Do you have someone dealing with the customers that display personality, friendliness and a willingness to help.
3. Do you return emails, voice mails and customer inquiries with a sense of urgency?
4. Do you treat each customer as gold regardless how much they spend with your company?
5. Does everyone at your company know that the customer is the single reason everyone at your company is employed?
6. Does your company take the time to get inside the mind of your customers to make sure that your company is offering everything your customers may want or expect?
7. Do you insure that customer service is not just a overused business term but part of the company culture?
8. Do you take into account the messages that you and your team are communicating to your customers?

We could spend hours literally talking about customer service and of course how different your job is from our little friends at the coffee shop.  Let's just say regardless of what kind of company you work for, the customer experience isn't all that different from theirs.  There are multiple touch points - opportunities to positively or negatively influence the customer's perspective of their experience.  We all have them.  The real question is do you know what they are and what message your customer takes away from them when they happen?

If not...maybe you should?

Because just like me your customers are voting with their dollars too. 

Ripple On!!!

How Not to Cater to the Customer

I had made prior arrangements to meet a colleague on Monday afternoon at a local cafe that specializes in gourmet sandwiches, baked goods and of course...coffee! I finished with my lunch appointment early and was excited to get to the cafe early and have about 45 minutes to hammer out some work before my 2PM meeting. I arrived with laptop bag in hand and money to spend to get a jump start on my caffeine fix prior to my meeting.

The cafe wasn't very full and I quickly found a table by a plug (damn computers should have endless batteries!) and started to unpack my laptop. Just then a "hmm hmm" sound appeared from behind me and it was one of the owners with a very disapproving look on his face. He motioned for me to look at the typed up sign that was hanging from the wall which said in no uncertain terms...

"NO LAPTOPS ALLOWED BETWEEN 11-2PM!!!"

I had known this cafe to not offer wireless access between these hours which was fine with me but now this sign indicated that if I was toting a laptop that I wasn't welcome. I sarcastically laughed at the owner and said, "Are you serious? I can't even do some work while I wait for a meeting I have at 2PM....I plan to buy something and know you don't have your wifi enabled until after 2PM."

"You are welcome to stay but your laptop isn't allowed on the table." He curtly turned and walked off to go serve a customer behind the counter.

Now I can empathize with these people who offer wireless access and have people that come in and camp out all day. Table turn is what it's all about in the restaurant world and despite what Starbucks says....it is only concerned with how quickly it can get people in and out of their stores as well (quoted to me by their VP of Marketing in fact) but even they are not as rude as this guy. I could not believe how mater of fact he was about it and this despite nearly half of his cafe being empty!

As I gathered my stuff a table full of business people had noticed the treatment and one guy remarked, "That guys is a *#&* (rhymes with stick)."

"So if you know this why do you come here," I asked him.

"Good question! Why do we come here guys," he asked everyone else at the table.

There were some snide comments about the coffee and sandwiches. Then a young lady spoke up and said to her colleagues, "His wife is a lot nicer but she hardly works the lunch crowd. And besides half the time the stuff we need to talk about is on our laptops so it doesn't make sense we keep coming here. Especially after that," referring to the treatment they had just witnessed.

I won't bore you with the back and forth dialogue but let me just summarize that they all agreed that finding a new place to lunch was a priority for their weekly (yes weekly) executive lunch gathering. Their entire table's business had to be worth at least $ 70-80 given the size and selection of meals spread throughout their table.

In one fell swoop in an attempt to avoid one customer this guy had managed to lose about $ 280 a month in revenue or $ 3,360.00 for the year at in total 12 customers (me included). Not to mention that several other tables seem to be paying pretty rapt attention to what was occurring and I suspect that this now very public debate would influence their future spending dollars as well.

I completely agree it is the business owner's right to make up their own policies and procedures and we as consumers can choose to agree or disagree with them. We ultimately vote with our dollars and that's the way it should be. However, this guy's over the top policy is just plain wrong. It fails to take into account his demographic which is mainly business folks that all tend to have an assortment of laptops and other electronic devices in tow. His policy, especially given the available number of tables, was majoring in the most minor of areas and that's just plain bad. Perhaps his policy was the reason that his cafe was only half full? Who knows but it wouldn't surprise me.

This situation stands as a good reminder to us all. Are your policies or procedures majoring in minor things and working against the support of your customers? If you don't know but suspect that they might, ask! It certainly makes more sense than to just outright lose their business doesn't it?

Ripple On!!!


Steve Harper