Performance

With all the snow we have had this year, the guy who regularly plows my driveway is having increasing difficulty finding a place to push it.  The piles he normally creates are getting higher and higher.  Since the piles will only go up so high before the snow rolls down, the piles are spreading out at the base and taking up more area.  Every snowfall, he plows the driveway, pushes the snow as he has always done, and leaves. 

In addition to this space challenge, the wind has been whipping snow back over my driveway and building two to three foot drifts that are level with the mounds of plowed snow on the sides.  Since the regular plow guy can be challenging to reach quickly, I have been shoveling as much of the drift as necessary for the car to pass through.  Last week I encountered the deepest drift yet.  This is ridiculous to shovel, I thought. 

I called the guy who had stopped to help me out a couple years ago when I was shoveling the end of the driveway.  I explained the drift and then asked, “Could you come over tomorrow and plow the drift for me?”

“I’ll be there around noon,” he replied.

After he plowed the drift the next day, he widened the end of the driveway.  Then he drove up the hill to my garage, and I walked out to pay him.  “Your driveway is plowed very narrowly,” he commented.  “I’m going to widen it out for you.  I’ll push some of this snow across the frontage road and get it out of your way.  I already widened the end of the driveway in a way that I hope will lessen the drifting.”

“Thanks!” I said, never dreaming what I would find when he was done. 

When I walked my dogs later that afternoon, I was amazed at the results of his efforts.  He had started at the top of the hill by the garage and widened that area more than I had thought possible.  Then he had gone down the driveway and widened it considerably.  He had pushed some of the snow across the frontage road into the ditch.  At the end of the driveway, he had staggered the piles so that they were not in a straight line. 

I was so impressed with his work that I called him immediately and thanked him profusely for his efforts and excellent performance. 

This is a good example of how a job can be done with the customer in mind or not.  The guy who usually plows my driveway just did what he has always done.  He didn’t attempt to find additional places to put the excess snow.  He didn’t notice the residual drifted snow that I had not shoveled.  He didn’t make an effort to widen the driveway.  He didn’t think about what he could do to help me.  He moved the main snow out of the driveway, and that was it.

On the other hand, the second guy looked at my driveway from my point of view.  He addressed the snow removal as if he was the one who had to use the driveway everyday.  He found unused places to put the excess snow.  He thought of new ways to stagger the snow piles in hopes of reducing the drifting.  He helped me have a clearer path through my driveway.

While both guys plowed snow, their performances were vastly different.  How a job is performed means everything to the customer.  Did that performance satisfy the customer?  Did the performance achieve what the customer needed?  Did the performance address potential problems so they did not happen to the customer?

Performance is a critical part of marketing.  If the customer is not happy with the performance, he may not return.  He may complain, not just to the businessperson but also to others.  He certainly will not recommend the business to others.  Performance determines marketing’s success.

This week's marketing trivia challenge is How has performance made a difference for your company?  E-mail me your answer. 

The Good Samaritan

I discovered Monday morning that the township plow had come down the frontage road and blocked the end of my plowed driveway with chunks of snow. I called the guy who plows for me and asked him to come by and unblock it. His wife said that he was out plowing and would come over. Since the time was 8:30 a.m. and I didn’t need to leave for class until 4:45 p.m., I was confident that he would take care of it.

My driveway is quite long and snakes down the hill with the end of it out of sight from my house. Normally, I would see it when I walk my dogs, but Monday I did not walk them because my schedule was very busy. Consequently, I had no knowledge if the driveway was unblocked or not when I drove down it to leave for class. Since I hadn’t heard to the contrary from my plow guy, I assumed that it was clear.

You can imagine my horror when I reached the end of the driveway to find that nothing had been done. With no shovel and no time, I chose the lowest spot, stepped on the accelerator, and drove into the mess. Thankfully, my car went through undamaged. As I continued down the road, I thought that I would have to shovel my way back into the driveway in twenty below temperatures when I returned home that night.

When I returned, I got out of my car with the intention of retrieving a shovel, but, as I walked through the ruts I had made on my way out, I thought that I just might be able to get back in without shoveling. I repeated my earlier efforts and was successful, leaving the shoveling until morning.

The next morning my plow guy called to tell me that his plow was broken and he was waiting for parts. I did not want to continue to risk going through the mess at the end of my driveway so I picked up a shovel and headed out to clear a path through it. As I was working on the lowest part which I had driven through, several pickups with plows drove past. Watching them drive away through my iced-up glasses, the marketer in me thought, “One of the best marketing actions that a person with a plow could take would be to drive around after a snowfall looking for plowing opportunities. Any of these guys could have picked up extra cash by stopping and offering to help me. They may have even signed up a new customer.”

The mouth to my driveway from the frontage road is very wide. Tuesday morning I shoveled just enough to get out, vowing to finish Wednesday when the temperature would be thirty degrees warmer and not below zero. Wednesday afternoon I went out to do just that. The temperature made a huge difference, and I had moved about a dozen shovelfuls when a pickup with a plow drove by. After traveling just slightly past me, I noticed the pickup’s brake lights. Suddenly, the pickup backed up and came to a stop beside me. Rolling down his window, the driver said, “Would you like me to help you with that?”

I smiled. “I’d love it; thank you!”

With four quick swipes, the truck’s plow accomplished in seconds what would have taken me an hour or more. When he finished, I asked, “Do you have a card?”

“Not with me,” he replied, “but I do have some paper. I’ll write my name and phone number on it.”

“Great! I might call you to plow me out in the future.”

“Call me anytime. I live close by. Merry Christmas!”

After he handed me the paper, I thanked him further, and he drove off. I was reminded of the story of the good Samaritan. Although I know that he helped me out to be nice, in doing so he made a very good impression. As I walked back up the driveway carrying my shovel, I marveled at how many pickups had driven past compared to the one that had stopped. That led me to wonder how many opportunities such as this the average business passes up everyday. How many customers do we pass by and miss the opportunity to make a good impression? Most of us are so absorbed by what we have to get done that we fail to take note of what is happening around us.

When did you last notice opportunity as you passed by it?