Category Archives: Customer Experience

One Delightful Thing

21 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Branding, Concentrating effort, Customer Experience, Customers, Innovation, Retail

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Around 500 BC a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus said, “Everything changes and nothing stands still.” Today, we are more likely to hear, “The only constant is change,” and feel like it’s a new idea. The truth is that change has always been, and always will be, regardless when we discover it.

When Henry Ford introduced the automobile he was amused by the idea that people really only wanted faster horses. When your grandmother drank coffee she was, at most, looking for cream and sugar not Butterbeer Frappuccinos from the Starbucks Secret Menu. When the Wright Brothers invented flight they didn’t quite imagine the International Space Station.

Recently, I attended Raylon’s 14th annual Art of Business symposium where I caught Josh Hafetz’ talk. Josh is the 3rd generation President of Raylon Corporation and he made a compelling argument. Like hair that is always growing, salon owners and managers must constantly grow, adapt, and remain relevant. Josh cited several very real examples of changes that are happening—right now—and why many of these changes cause salon professional product sales to remain flat, put pressure on salon service pricing, result in fewer appointments per year, and impact the loyalty of our clients to our salons.

After following Josh on a visual tour of the new ways our clients obtain information on beauty and style (social media, YouTube beauty tutorials, and mass-customization of consumer beauty products) another time-tested truism came to mind.

Consumer expectations are always growing.

The Kano Model (Google it) is a trendy way to understand changing consumer expectations but it too is based on an age-old truth. In a nutshell, what Kano says is this. There are three kinds of things consumers want at all times from any business:

  • Basic things: For example, A salon that is open, furnished, clean, with plenty of parking.
  • Expected things: Great haircuts, artistic hair color, and nice blowouts.
  • Delightful things: Complimentary finishing touches, outrageously good consultations, luxurious washbowl experiences, etc.

Kano also points out that, over time, things that were once “delightful” eventually become “expected,” and ultimately “basic.” This creates one of two situations for every salon owner and manager A) tomorrow we invent something new and delightful, or B) we stop inventing and start going stale.

This presents each of us with a bold and never-ending challenge: Change or go stale. Innovate or die!

I encourage you to sit down tonight, with at least one other person on your team, and list out all the products, services, and experiences your salon provides. Sort your list into Basic, Expected, and Delightful. Then look at your list and push one thing from Expected into Basic. Push one Delightful into Expected.

And then invent one new Delightful thing

Art, Beauty, Love

14 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Concentrating effort, Continuous improvement, Contribution, Customer Experience, Customers, Developing talent, Results

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The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
-Aristotle

As part of The Beacon Program at #cosmoprofna you just experienced two days of what it feels like to be considered the future of our industry. Even though I was only privileged to sit in on a couple hours of your experience, the goodwill and concentrated effort of your PBA hosts, facilitator Geno Stampora, and speakers such as Jay Williams, showed me people putting everything they have into giving you a personal head start. When Geno shares his “Words to Live By,” or when Jay talks about “Significance, self-worth, and sense of belonging,” what you’re witnessing are two people doing their utter best to gift you a lifetime of experience so you can achieve your own riches, potential, and happiness.

With that in mind, this is what keeps coming back to me as I consider you and your bright futures.

ART

For many, art is the enduring nuclear reactor inside your heart that provides the endless source of energy and passion for our business. As you create your journey, stay closely connected to your artistic self. When people say, “Motivation and passion come from within,” accept it as an invitation to renew your connection to your art.

BEAUTY

It is useful to ask yourself, “What business am I in?” Some answer, “hair,” some will say “beauty,” and others feel it is, “The people business.” Regardless, for convenience we end up calling it the beauty business. Even though it does change, sometimes change comes slowly—too slowly in fact. Friends behind the chair were recently telling me about how in Europe hairdressers are considered “professionals” while here in the U.S. not so much. After much reflection, I think professionalism, motivation, and passion are cousins that come from the same place—inside each one of us. So, if you want to be seen as a professional, choose a professional role model and act like her until you become one too.

LOVE

I have enormous respect for how difficult it must be to be your absolute best for every client, every day, every month, year-in-and-year out. We are all human beings and we all get depleted. We have ups and downs and some of us even get burned out. Believe me when I tell you that clients can sense when you’re not feeling your best and it impacts their mood and experience in your salon and in your chair—and maybe the rest of their day. We each have to find our own little happy place where we go to get our minds right before seeing our next client. If you haven’t found yours yet, I humbly suggest love is the answer. If you can pause to love yourself, and see something to love in each one of your clients, you’ll be on your way to being your best for every client every time.

SO WHAT?

My hope is that among these 500+ words you take-away just three and let them run as a little script inside your head: Art, Beauty, Love. That’s all you really need to remember in order to succeed in your new, meaningful, and lucrative career.

Don’t Let Diversion Divert Your Attention

23 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Branding, Customer Experience, Customers, Product, Retail

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Chances are you can describe your preferred type of client, you have a pretty good understanding of her needs, and you offer her services and products at fair prices. When clients spend money on what you offer, they are validating you as a business. Money is revenue. Enough revenue, combined with responsible financial management, becomes profit. Profit is, a sometimes rare, validation.

  • New clients validate your offering, your space, and your marketing. It’s good enough to try once.
  • Returning clients validate your total experience. It’s worth trying again.
  • Loyal clients validate your total experience. It is better than your competition.
  • Clients who are your advocates validate the presence of a strong emotional bond.

Usually salon owners I meet spend most of their time thinking about getting new clients—and then their attention is diverted. It is the owner’s responsibility, and opportunity, to create a deliberate plan to move their clients through each stage of Client Maturity.

New=>Return=>Loyal=>Advocate

Clients at each stage are open to different messaging and capable of different behaviors. For example, no one would expect a brand-new client to refer all of her friends to you—but for a Loyal or Advocate it would be natural. I argue, “Why do so many salons hand out referral cards to brand new clients?” I don’t think they are capable of “hearing” that message when they are still deciding about you themselves.

Client Maturity planning helps you focus energy to achieve specific results rather than throwing the kitchen sink at your entire client base and seeing what happens. Relating this to our topic of Diversion (and your need to grow your retail sales)

I urge you to first focus 80% of your attention on creating solid populations of clients within each stage and the retail problem will partially solve itself.

The converse is obviously false since focusing 80% of your attention on selling retail will not create Return, Loyal, or Advocate clients.

For any problem you encounter, ask yourself, “What is it about our offering, our price, our experience that is the root cause here? What can we do better to keep this client firmly in the Return stage and potentially grow them to the Loyal stage? If you’re not sure of that, no amount of asking them to buy your retail will help. From the time a new customer starts looking for a new salon, to the time they return, to the time when they rely on you to satisfy more of their needs, to the time they refer their friends; you are in relationship with them. The more responsibility you take for how they perceive and experience your salon, the more opportunity you have to make a good impression, satisfy their needs more deeply, and develop positive lasting relationships that translate into more sales of everything.

Shift Your Thinking about Diversion

22 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in Branding, Customer Experience, Customers, Management, Product, Retail

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MoroccanoilWhen it comes to selling professional hair care products, every competitor thinks about how to exploit her unique advantage.

  • Big box retailers take advantage of their location, their ability to offer a wide assortment, their purchasing power, lower pricing, etc.
  • Specialty retailers take advantage of their location, their appeal to a niche—or a specialized assortment, their product knowledge, etc.
  • The Internet takes advantage of convenience, low price, low overhead, high volume/low price, etc.

The salon distribution channel has powerful advantages too. Think of it like this. Imagine yourself talking with one of your good clients—not your best client because she already buys her product from you. To your good client imagine yourself saying this,

“Instead of giving your business to them, what if you let me earn it?”

This question is designed as an in-the-moment tactic to help you start a conversation with a good client. It is also intended to be strategically helpful as way to start a conversation with your staff.

As a salon owner, this is your tremendous advantage:

 “You have a personal relationship with your client and you, uniquely, have the expertise to diagnose her hair.”

Getting your staff to use this powerful advantage is more about shifting their perspective than it is about sales commissions or training. They need to shift their idea from “Just doing hair,” to “Serving their whole client,” and respecting their own work. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer, famously said,

 “When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”

Only a true professional hairdresser says, “I’m not going to allow someone to sell my client random hair care products she doesn’t need and that won’t solve her problems. She is my client before, during, and after her appointment and I’m going to make sure she buys the right products so she can feel as good about her look at home as she does when I do it here.”

Yes, sales training is important too. It is. But this single shift in perspective will help your staff grow into their potential, develop their professional status, serve your clients more deeply, and ultimately earn more retail sales.

Why Customers Buy into Diversion

21 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in Branding, Customer Experience, Customers, Product, Retail

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Pureology DuoIf you ask me, “Why do my customers buy their professional hair care products from big box retail, drug stores, specialty retail, or Internet distribution channels instead of buying them from me?” I have a pretty simple answer.

The first purpose of any business is, “To create a customer.” Doing that successfully usually means:

  • Precisely identifying your target customer
  • Understanding her needs
  • Having an insight into how to meet her needs better than the competition
  • Putting the right product within reach, at the right time, in the right quantities, and at the right price with the right support.

The fact is you already understand this. Think about it. You already create customers for professional hair care services. You have a salon. You have a staff. You have a list of services with prices. You have clients. However imperfect it may be, you have figured out how to create a customer for a hair cut, a hair color, a blow out, and so on. My educated guess is that you spent a lot of time thinking and dreaming about owning a salon. You studied and trained for years. You had your ups and downs but you stuck with it. You thought of nothing else but “doing hair” for decades. Some people have thought about it their whole lives.

Well, as it turns out, retailers spend the same amount of time thinking about how to sell retail product to consumers. In fact, some of them have been doing it for generations and others have been doing it long after their companies’ founders retired or went to the “big box in the sky.” In other words, they got good at because they focused on it. And guess what? It makes your job harder. But, guess what else?

They have not made it impossible.

Diversion!

20 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by in Branding, Contribution, Customer Experience, Customers, Product, Retail

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Enjoy DuoManufacturers of professional hair care products are not restricted to a single channel of distribution. Historically, brands have established their reputations and built their images through the salon distribution channel. Today the salon distribution channel moves an ever-smaller portion of a brand’s total volume. Other channels such as big box retail, drug stores, specialty retail, and the Internet make up the bulk of all sales volume and growth. You might consider this diversion but it certainly isn’t the grey market. Most manufacturers are well established in several legitimate distribution channels. You are not alone if you feel they unfairly exploit the salon channel and leverage their own success at the salon owners’ expense.

When I think of diversion I think, in particular, of the unscrupulous brand who has pressured a salon to take on too much inventory—more than they can possibly sell. Or, on the other hand, an unscrupulous salon owner who intentionally buys too much knowing she will offload some of that product in the grey market.

One of the biggest grey markets of professional hair care products operates completely in the open. Amazon.com. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Amazon is a bad company at all. And, frankly, they are at least three degrees of separation away from the real problem, that is, too much inventory getting stuffed into channels beyond their normal business capacity.

If you haven’t already done it, then look for yourself. There are many examples of hair care brands who purposely do not distribute their products through Amazon.com—and yet there they are. Why? Because some salon owner, or middleman, has the ambition to buy up excess inventory and resell it below “retail” (and “at or above” in some cases) directly to consumers. This, of course, offends the brands themselves, but more to the point, injures salon owners who play by the rules. They are the ones who build the customer relationships, diagnose individual needs, recommend effective products—while their customers often buy hair care products on line, or from other channels, to save money.

Knowledge Work is More than You Know

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by in Contribution, Customer Experience, Management

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Think about service businesses for a moment—especially businesses like hotels, restaurants, hair salons, and retail shops. If you peel back current fashions, modern conveniences, chains and franchises, and the cornucopia of offerings, these businesses exist much as they did in the 18th century. Merchants, hoteliers, and shopkeepers operate business models that are hundreds of years old and have very low barriers to entry compared to, say, rocket science.

In these pages, one thing you’ll learn is that service can set one business apart from another.

What’s more, knowledge sets one business apart from another—or even above the rest. Knowledge is such a powerful factor that when applied properly it actually transforms 18th century trades into 21st century businesses. Knowledge in the form of business management, human behavior, art, fashion, customer experience, sales, computer science, technical education, and so on carries with it the potential to separate your business from the millions of “entrepreneurs” who’ve gone before—and who are still out there, just opening and closing each day while conducting transactions in between.

Every day I encounter businesses—many of them national brands—that miss their opportunities to put knowledge to work for the benefit of their customers and the benefit of their own organizations. Think back on situations you’ve encountered:

  • Hotels where the receptionist asks you, “Is this your first stay with us?”
  • Coffee shops or counter-service restaurant employees who call out, “Next person in line.”
  • Hair salons who ask, “Who are you here to see?”
  • Dentists and doctors whose receptionists who say, “Just sign in and take a seat.”

Each of these, and many more, have the option to choose knowledge work over low-level, menial, dead-end jobs—and they don’t need to change careers to do it. When Peter Drucker coined the term Knowledge Worker in the late 1950s it came, rightfully, to mean people who deal primarily with knowledge like accountants, lawyers, engineers, and others.

By accepting Mr. Drucker’s famous challenge to search for the unused potential in every job, even a low level clerk can transform her work as a hotel receptionist into knowledge work by learning that people prefer to be looked in the eye, recognized, and greeted with a smile. See? It’s not rocket science.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
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The Same, But Different

26 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in Customer Experience, Customers, Shared values

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I am pleased to introduce you to Mike Bird from mikeandthecustomer.com. This guest post from Mike is a must-read for anyone interested in customer service–especially how it translates across cultures.

Virgin Atlantic

“We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.” – Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost

I have led customer service transformation projects all over the World, and if there is one thing I have learned, it is this: the customer experience of service is not the same on both sides of the Atlantic.

So if you try (as many companies do) to take a customer service strategy which worked in the USA and move it to your UK operation, thinking that the same things which worked in America will work in the UK, then I’m sorry: you will be entering a world of pain. 

I want to save you some of this pain. So here are some of the things to watch for, if you ever find yourself taking customer service thinking from the US to the UK. 

  • British people usually do not want a stranger to wish them a nice day. It is not part of normal conversation and to many British ears, it sounds fake and insincere.
  • British people normally do want to talk to someone to help sort out their problem.  But they don’t want to have a conversation about anything other than their problem. Discussion of how they feel, their health or their families is a distraction and an intrusion.
  • British people do not express enthusiasm easily, except at sporting events.  Even then, it will be qualified. “What a great goal!”  “Yes, but he should have scored earlier.” If your business is aiming to measure customer advocacy (such as through Net Promoter Score, or some such), such reluctance can make getting good NPS scores hard.
  • British people love to complain about companies, but they hate complaining to companies.  Britons normally try to avoid conversational conflict, which is why UK conversation is so punctuated by words like “…sorry…” and “…thank you…” It also means that they avoid complaining unless they feel a real need to do so.
    It is quite normal, for example, even after quite dreadful service, for a British person to apologise for making a complaint. So an organisation that gets only a few complaints, should not assume that everything is good–-these complaints could be the tip of a substantial iceberg.
  • By the same token, Britons use “I’m sorry,” in many different ways, situations and meanings.  And if you hear this combination “I’m sorry, but with the greatest respect…,” be very careful. It usually means the opposite.

Of course, these are hopeless generalisations, but they do have a truth at the core:  British people, like all customers, want to receive customer service which fixes their problems promptly–with emotional honesty and respect, on their terms.

And, of course, for companies like Virgin Atlantic or first direct Bank or Hiscox Insurance that do get customer service right in the UK, the rewards can be massive.

So is it harder to get customer service right in the UK or the US?  In my experience, it is equally hard on both sides of the pond; it is just that the challenges, in many ways, are different.

Mike is Customer Strategist with MikeAndTheCustomer.com where he helps companies turnaround their customer experience. Find more fresh thinking and practical advice about the customer at www.MikeAndTheCustomer.com or follow Mike on Twitter @Bird_Mike

Just for fun: What British People Say, Versus What They Mean

My Purpose Here

07 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in Contribution, Customer Experience, Management

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On one side of the coin it reads, “How do I help my workers achieve?” On the other side, “How do I make a contribution in this job?” These are the two sides of the same coin of managing people.

Recently, we were catching up with our friend who works as a receptionist at a campground where my wife and I spend several nights each year under the stars. We’ve always been impressed with Ola and her customer service and people skills. At 82 years of age, Ola looks forward to coming to work each day, serving her customers, and being the ambassador of her campground’s brand.

The campground has been under the same management for years and in all that time the owners have never shared their organization’s purpose and vision with Ola. Curbing my speculation, it seems their main interest is in maintenance, making physical upgrades, and keeping track of the cash flow and accounts. The rest, they leave to chance.

Well, as chance would have it, Ola is intuitively filling in the rest. She has a keen sense of what the campground stands for and its small-but-growing reputation as a destination. She recounts stories about visitors from all over the U.S. and several points abroad. How they heard about her place, how she made them feel welcome, and the positive experiences they had. She gets post cards from friends she’s made as they pass through her campground and her life.

I asked her if the owners support her and help her achieve these amazing results. Her reply, “No, not really. But, I don’t let that interfere with my purpose here.”

Ola demonstrates impressive knowledge in three little words, “My purpose here.” She looks for the ways to realize the unused potential in her job. She’s working for something larger than herself. She’s achieving results for her customers. Ola is a self-managed executive and an inspiration.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
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(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

The Real Ryanair, Please Stand Up

23 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Branding, Customer Experience, Customers, Management

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Ryanair

Mike and the Customer is a very good blog about how to improve things for the customer. One of Mike Bird’s recent posts caught my eye: Ryanair: kings of the customer experience. I prepared the following as a bit of conversation between Mike and me. If you’re interested in following along, please read his Ryanair article too. Ryanair is a low-cost Irish airline.

Mike, I really enjoyed your post and I’ve reread it a few times. Considering solely what’s in it, something seems a bit off to me in terms of emphasis. I don’t think the most interesting observation is, “Customer experience is not about being nice, it’s about meeting strategic goals.” Rather, I prefer something closer to, “Ryanair succeeds precisely because it is one of the few companies to have understood exactly the customer experience that it needs to compete strategically…”

My take is it’s about Ryanair understanding what its customers consider value. As you say, they value, “…Low cost, on time, with bags, that’s it.” From this perspective I read the story as a triumph of understanding the customer and driving the organization to deliver what they value without compromise.

To me, Ryanair hasn’t, “…Designed a customer experience to compete strategically.” Their customers don’t care about it and they know it. Instead Ryanair has chosen a low-cost, high-efficiency strategy vis-à-vis their competition to meet the needs of the utilitarian traveler. In that space customer “service” is all that is required and an experience isn’t a consideration. That being said, I do love the Michael O’Leary quotes you use (CEO Ryanair). He obviously knows how to promote his brand through the Press. Making fun of “Mother” is much more memorable than some dry statistic about on-time rates for take offs and departures.

Jim

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved