Seven Minutes

As I walked up to my customer’s desk last Friday, the first words out of my mouth were an apology. “I hope that you don’t mind my causal dress. After we talk, I’m headed to XYZ nursery to buy my tomato plants for this season.”

Gesturing away the apology, she replied, “Your dress is no problem.” She hesitated and then added, “I don’t go to that nursery anymore. We had a problem out there last year.”

“Really? What happened?”

“My ten-year-old son really loves plants, and he wanted to go out there last year to get some to put out in the yard. As soon as I could after work, we drove out there. We had barely walked in the door when an employee approached us and said, ‘You have seven minutes until we close.’ I thought, ‘That’s a poor welcome.’ But that wasn’t all. A few steps later, another employee walked up to us and said, ‘You have five minutes until we close.’ No offer to help. No what are you looking for? Just a warning. I was quite surprised and very irritated by this behavior. However, we quickly grabbed a couple of plants that my son wanted and went to check out. The person who checked us out had a name tag on that said manager, so I related how two employees had approached us and given us warnings of the nursery’s closing time. I expected him to apologize, but what he said shocked me. ‘That’s what they are supposed to do,’ he replied. ‘Tell you that the store is about to close.’ As we walked out the door, I explained to my son that this is not the way to treat customers. I am thrilled to say that my son understood. He gets it; he really does.”

I, too, was shocked. “Wow! That’s not smart. Well, I don’t do a great deal of business with them. I buy my tomato plants there every year because I like their selection and the plants seem healthy, but I am amazed that any small business would treat their customers that way.” I paused. “Although, thinking about it, they don’t market to get more of my business so maybe this is not all that surprising.”

This is a great example of how bad word of mouth gets started. I noticed that my reaction to her story was to feel apologetic about doing business with the nursery. In my reply to her, I emphasized that I only bought my tomato plants there, and then I began to think less well of the nursery. Her intent in telling me the story was not to dissuade me from going there, but simply to relate to me, who am always interested in customer service examples, what had happened to her and her son. In fact, she ended our conversation on the subject by saying that “We’re not going back there for a year or two.”

While I’m certain that she does not tell this story to everyone she knows, the fact that the story exists to tell gives an opportunity for bad word of mouth which the management could have avoided. We all have encountered situations when we could not satisfy the customer which resulted in bad word of mouth. However, there are situations such as this which we can control.

You see, how employees act is a result of management. Management sets the tone and gives the example of how customers are treated. In this instance, the employees’ actions came directly from the manager, as he himself stated. I know why he instructed employees to get customers out of the nursery so that they could close on time, and so do you. He was focused on sticking to his scheduled labor dollars by adhering to hours and not paying extra labor or overtime. In other words, keeping expenses in line was a higher priority than generating revenue.

If he wanted to generate revenue, he would welcome those arriving toward closing. Rather than instructing them in how many minutes they had to shop, he could have an employee offer to assist them in finding the plants that they had in mind. With this assistance, the employee could maximize how much is sold and move the customer along toward the completion of the sale. This could all be done in a very helpful, unhurried manner which would accomplish getting the nursery closed as soon as possible but still getting as much business from the customer as possible.

Think about it. She and her son probably would have purchased several more plants had they had assistance, don’t you think? I do. As it was, I’m certain that they felt pressured to find something, pick it up, and get out of there. When they walked out the door with their purchase, they felt so upset about their treatment that they had a bad feeling and were not interested in returning soon, which makes this also an example of bad customer service.

Leaving your customer with a bad feeling which can spawn bad word of mouth is bad for your business. In addition to being bad customer service, it also offers no opportunity for customer development. Through his directives on store closing, this manager put his business in a negative position with this customer. Although she says that they may return in a year or two, I wonder if that will happen. In that two years, she and her son will likely find another business from which to purchase plants, and that business likely will be much more customer-focused.

Take a look at your employees. How have you instructed them to handle customers at closing time?

The People Difference

While corporate excess, greed, and mismanagement are exposed on a daily basis, last night I saw a news piece on NBC called Making a Difference which showed the difference between some large corporations and many small businesses. The piece featured Joe Works, owner of B& W Trailer Hitches from Humboldt, Kansas. Although business had slowed, he didn’t feel right laying off his employees, many of whom had become friends. Instead, he kept them on the payroll and sent them out into the community to fix what needed fixing: a baseball diamond, children’s playground, a church, and more.

Joe hasn’t forgotten his roots. He and his partner started the business in a garage in 1987. His partner, Roger Baker, had been having difficulty in his classic car restoring business, and Joe had been having trouble keeping the family farm. They joined forces, initially, to make the best truck bed. They accomplished that goal, producing a durable bed that looked good. As their reputation spread, they branched out into headache racks, tool boxes, matched paint, and pin striping.

Then they designed a hitch which revolutionized the gooseneck hitch industry. At that time, the best way to get rid of a hitch when it was not in use was to install it on a large plate that folded down. The installation required cutting a hole in the truck bed. Joe and Roger addressed this problem and designed a ball hitch which could be pulled out, turned over, and stowed underneath the truck bed when not in use. They called this new hitch the turnover ball. Today, every manufacturer of gooseneck hitches uses a variation of Joe and Roger’s ball and storage system.

Joe and Roger designed a better truck bed, a better hitch, and a better business.

In 2006, B & W was chosen one of America’s top ten machine shops. The award was based on safety, quality, productivity, on-time delivery, employee training, employee retention, and continuous improvement. Joe’s commitment to these factors has not wavered. With slow sales, his focus is still on his employees. He views them as human beings, friends, and neighbors. He also sees them as an important part of B & W’s operation.

Therein lies a substantial difference between many small businesses and many large corporations. Most small business owners care about their employees. They see their employees as individuals. They understand how much their employees contribute to the operation of the business.

Many corporate managers view employees as only people occupying positions. They see their employees as nameless, faceless, meaningless parts of the organization which may be changed or discarded at will with no consequence to the business. They don’t care about the individual. They don’t understand how the individual makes or breaks a business.

That is one of the reasons why many large corporations are in trouble right now.

Valuing employees’ contributions to the business and respecting them as individuals contribute to the health of the operation. These are reflections of management’s attitude toward customers, too. Customers are handled with the same respect, or lack thereof, as are the employees. Management sets a culture as to how people are treated, and that culture permeates the entire organization. Whether it pertains to an employee or a customer, how a business treats people makes the difference in its success or failure.

How does your business treat people?