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Aggressive Small Business Marketing & Advertising
Big thoughts, ideas and how-tos for aggressive, fast-growth businesses and the entrepreneurs who fuel them.
Customer service at Starbucks
Posted by Michael Cage on Wednesday, October 11, 2006Over a year ago I posted about an experience at one of my local Starbucks. I had my days mixed up and pulled up an hour before they opened with a serious caffeine fix. You can read all about it here, but I'll give you the nutshell version:
As I was leaving a barista who was getting the store ready to open came out to get me, asked me if I wanted a drink, invited me in and took care of me. He didn't have to do it, but he did, and I think it is an amazing testament to the hiring practices of Starbucks that they sort for people who "get" what a great customer experience is all about.
From the original post:
Managers at Starbucks put tremendous attention into hiring good "people people." People who enjoy interacting with and pleasing others. Their hiring and training process is designed ... systematically ... to produce events like the one I described. It isn't an accident. It isn't left to chance. And it's part of why they win.
Fast-forward to yesterday, and I was browsing through my local Borders and saw this book. Turns out, my story made the book.
What didn't make the book, was the following:
The barista's name is Wen, and he works at this Starbucks. If you are flying into Dulles, live or work around Herdon, Reston, Chantilly or Sterling ... pop in and tell Wen he is famous ... and appreciated. If you are from Starbucks, give the dude a raise. He and people like him make you look good.
UPDATE: Incidentally, the lesson to take from this is not to mandate that your employees do 2.3 good things per day. That'd be as silly as mandating that all the introverts in your company magically transform into extroverts. The lesson is that Starbucks (or, at the very least, the management in our region) makes it a point to hire people for whom doing things the "Starbucks" way will be easy and natural. Do that well and the company can step out of the way and let the employees be themselves.
There are 11 comments, add your own!What failing 9 out of 10 times will get you…
Posted by Michael Cage on Tuesday, October 10, 2006I try to avoid linking to stuff that everyone else will, but this is worth it.
via Seth.
There are 1 comments, add your own!Philosophical marketing and the DNA of your business
Posted by Michael Cage on Friday, October 06, 2006A software product I use has undergone massive changes over the last 6 months. So much so they skipped from version 1 to version 3.
In response to complaints about the changes on their forum, they offered the following basic response:
We did version #1 and people complained, so we completely changed the ways things work to do version #3. And we still get the same complaints!
There is a very subtle and potentially damaging message being offered here.
It says, "we are a rudderless ship, being blown about by the whims of the sea."
Some would look at this situation and say things are great ... that this is an example of a customer-driven company. To an extent, I agree.
The problem is that I have no idea what they'll be moving towards tomorrow ... next week ... next month ... or next year.
Many businesses talk about the importance of building a relationship with their customers. But a relationship is a long-term commitment, and without a core philosophy that I can buy into beyond the here and now ... I'm missing a huge part of what I need to make a decision.
Think about it this way...
Switching from PCs to Apple computers was a big jump. I had to relearn a new OS, all new apps, find new resources sites to get things done. What encouraged me to do it wasn't the pretty hardware (though it certainly caught my eye) ... it was knowing their commitment to a philosophy of "it just works" going into the future. I was buying into a year from now as much as I was buying into today. Make sense?
Contrast that with the core philosophy of the Microsoft PC ... well, do it if you can figure out what it is. 
Here is an interesting question...
Imagine that I am a "perfect customer" for you. Now imagine I am standing in front of you and ask, "What are you doing right now, behind the scenes, to make my life even better going forward? And what is driving you to do it?"
Wouldn't a good answer to that go a very long way to getting me beyond buying your product and to buying into a relationship with you?
P.S. Ever wonder why "behind-the-scenes" blogs are so effective? Why we like to see the development process, as it is happening? It feels good to know people are working, day-in and day-out, to help your life work better. Right?
There are 1 comments, add your own!Simple marketing with Restaurant web sites
Posted by Michael Cage on Tuesday, October 03, 2006I live in Fairfax County, Virginia, smack dab in the middle of the Virginia "Dulles Tech Corridor" made up of Reston, Herndon and a few other towns. It is a very Internet-friendly place.
How is it possible that a restaurant with a significant delivery business in an Internet-friendly area does not have a web site with their menu and contact information?
It flat-out boggles my mind.
Let's do some simple math.
I order out 4-5 times per week, average about $40 per order. That works out to about $200 per week, or $800 per month.
Because I am not the greatest at recovering from interuptions, I have most of my meals delivered. When I get hungry, I don't dig through drawers for outdated, food-stained menus. Instead, I hop over to my del.icio.us bookmarks, pull up restaurants that deliver, and choose from the menus online.
It's important to note that NONE of the restaurants I regularly get delivery meals from are my favorites. There are restaurants that a) deliver and b) I like better all around me ... but because of the extra hassle of finding and holding onto the menu, my money goes to their competition instead of them.
I know for a fact a restaurant can get a kick-ass, easy to maintain web site that will bring them plenty of new business for around $1500-2000, probably cheaper if they go with "lesser" providers. The business they'd get from a single customer like me would pay for it in a few months ... and there are plenty of "me's" out there, not to mention full offices of workers (the Oracle people in Reston eat up a storm, I hear) and plenty of tech-saavy families.
A restaurant web site doesn't have to be fancy to be insanely profitable ... but it does need to be a) present, b) have a menu and c) be "findable."
Sometimes businesses go out of their way to avoid making money.
There are 6 comments, add your own!Saying Goodbye to Jason
Posted by Michael Cage on Monday, October 02, 2006
On Sunday, my wife, Michele, and I spent most of the day alternating between crying and remembering Jason, a cat I found half-starved and scrounging for food in September of 05. He was the most affectionate cat we've ever seen, preferring Michele's lap while she was working and a comfy spot between us both in bed at night. Many mornings we woke up with Jason looking at us, one of his paws resting gently on top of our hands.
We never could figure out how such a sweet cat could have ended up outside and alone, and we both feel lucky to have had him with us for the time we did.
A few months back he started having health problems. Nothing too severe, but we knew something wasn't right. After a lot of trips to the vet trying to uncover what was happening, it turned out to be cancer pushing against his spine. He gradually lost complete function of his back legs, and spent his last month stylishly lounging around the house in cat diapers.
He was sweet, affectionate and loving till the moment we said "Goodbye" on Sunday. The photo above was taken Sunday morning.
I saw a Flickr photo with the caption, "I want to be the person my dog thinks I am." For me, the same is true of this special cat.
There are 1 comments, add your own!