George Carlin, Customer Service Expert

“New Rule for 2006: I'm not the cashier! By the time I look up from sliding my card, entering my PIN number, pressing "Enter," verifying the amount, deciding, no, I don't want cash back, and pressing "Enter" again, the kid who is supposed to be ringing me up is standing there eating my Almond Joy.” – George Carlin

You know, Mr. Carlin has a good point. I find two things unappealing about the typical checkout process these days. First, I don’t work for the store, so I shouldn’t be expected to process my own credit card. I’ll hand over my card and sign the sales slip, thank you very much. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to expect the cashier to do the rest.

Secondly (and this is the real kicker) I don’t want to be scammed into using my card for debit when I prefer utilizing the credit option.

At every self-swipe terminal I’ve seen – and that’s a lot, unfortunately for my savings – when you swipe your card, you are automatically asked to enter your PIN, thus activating the debit function of your card. If you want to use credit, you usually have to hit cancel (although this varies depending on the processing machine, the uncertainty of which only adds to the inconvenience.)

This isn’t a mistake. Merchants prefer you to pay by debit, because then they are not required to pay a fee, as they are when processing a credit card – usually 1-3%, but up to 8% if it’s American Express (a big reason most vendors don’t accept Amex, and I agree with them wholeheartedly on this point). The thing is, if the customer uses her debit card at the checkout, then it is she who is often gouged by her bank for going out of network.

It’s all a matter of who’s going to pay: the merchant (credit) or the customer (debit).

Do I see why the merchant would sign on to make it harder for its customers to choose credit? From a purely pennywise viewpoint, yes, I do. In fact, so long as every merchant pulls this same trick, then why not? Right?

Wrong. George Carlin has such a huge following precisely because he bases his humor on common experiences: We all feel inconvenienced by the payment process at countless stores and fast food joints. When a comedian like Carlin points out how ridiculous it is that we are made to suffer this abuse, we all chuckle and forward the jokes-email to our friends, who also identify with Carlin’s gripes. Everybody minds this treatment.

It’s pound foolish to inconvenience your customers. It’s pound foolish to abuse your customers with the manipulative debit-over-credit trick merchants put us through. As customers, we remember when we’re inconvenienced and abused. We resent it. And when we find a friendlier choice, we drop the old merchants and embrace the new. We tell all our friends, coworkers, family, and neighbors.

…Let me show you just how pound wise it is for a store to provide a more convenient checkout experience: pound wise, because the company in question is getting free advertising on a customer service web log. Oh, and it’s pennywise, too, because this service costs the owners not one cent to provide.

Sunshine Ace Hardware on Route 41 in Naples, just a few blocks from our home, is a company I think you’ll be hearing a lot more about in this blog and our future publications. They get what Five-Star service is all about – and yes, they’re “just” a hardware store. They compete with Home Depot and Lowes on the price of their hammers. I’ve checked. Yet still they’re Five-Star.

One of the many, many things that impress us about Sunshine Ace is how the checkout clerks process your payment cards for you. The machine is exactly the same as in any other store, but they do it all for you: swipe your card, then press the “cancel,” “enter,” and “OK” buttons for you, so you don’t have to.

Is it nothing? Well, it’s certainly a little thing. But it’s a little thing that makes a big impression, because nobody else does it.

And you know the best part? You’re free to eat your Almond Joy while the clerk does all the work.

Leadership, Culture, & Customer Delight

What came first: the customer-obsessed leader, the customer-centric corporate culture, or the best practices in Customer Delight?

My colleagues and I may be the experts in the field of Customer Delight – we like to think so, anyway, and that’s what our clients tell us – but we can’t answer this question. It’s the chicken and the egg all over again.

Companies exist to make money. When they do, they thrive; when they don’t, they close up shop. It sounds so obvious that it’s not worth stating, but somehow most business people don’t get that: look at the dot com boom and bust; look at Detroit.

While our favorite example of this profit-or die maxim are the fates of the grocer Albertsons (Fortune #46 in 2006, now defunct) and its comparison company, Wegmans ($3.8 billion and growing), they’re far from alone. Profit or die. To paraphrase my friends at Bright Horizons, profits are the lifeblood of any company.

Profits are based on sales and margins.

Superb customer service brings repeat sales, and it inspires referral business.

Good customer service drives sales.

Great customer service brings more sales.

Superlative customer service is a revenue-generating machine.

At Coiné, we’ve got our work cut out for us, because most leaders don’t get this yet.

But best practices in Customer Delight don’t just happen because middle management hires on consultants to teach a smile-training course. Best practices in Spoiling your customers Rotten are the natural results of a companywide Customer Service Ethic. Putting the customer first, last, and all in between has to emanate from the company’s culture like heat from a fire.

And without total dedication to that culture from the very head of the company, it’s just not going to happen.

At Coiné, we turn down business all the time; the bigger we grow, the more we do it. That may sound weird to you, but there is a very solid reason behind this decision. Since 2001, when Jane and I founded the first company with our name on it, we knew without thinking that past and present results would drive future sales. They would also bring us personal pride.

So, the first thing we do when we are approached by a prospective client is to evaluate the company’s leadership: is it committed to the customer service initiative it is asking for? Will leadership push for the culture change necessary to turn their company into a Five-Star Customer Service provider? Or will they stand in our way?

When we feel that leadership doesn’t get it, we generally pass. Because failure, or even mediocre success, just isn’t in our own company’s genes. It runs counter to our own company culture.

That’s why I personally work with top leadership – owners and C-level executives – over eighty percent of the time. If they want my help, they have to listen to my advice; they can’t defer it to subordinates.

We’ve learned this lesson the hard way, and we’re still learning with each client we take on. But it’s fun, and… well, as long as you don’t make the same mistake twice, it’s worth the experience.

Can you give world-class customer service without a culture that supports it? We doubt it. Can your company uphold such a culture when the guys at the top don’t get it? Probably not.

It’s good to be able to pick-and-choose your clients. Personally, I like helping people who deserve it, and passing on those who don’t. (Ask me about the car dealer some time – I’ve mentioned him in this blog before. Yikes!) But you don’t get this luxury until you can prove your past successes – and you can’t do that if you choose the wrong clients.

Another chicken and egg dilemma, I suppose.