I was recently interviewed by Aaron and Mayumi Muller on the Lifestyle Business Owner Show and we got into a discussion on why I don’t feel great customer service is enough to make you Uncopyable.
To be sure, there are places where great customer service can give you an advantage over competition, but in most cases, it’s temporary. Delivering great customer service is usually the choice of the supplier.
There’s a big difference between choosing to provide amazing customer service and choosing to create a customer experience that steps outside the traditional scope of service.
In this week’s UNCOPYABLE Business program, I share specific examples of both from Mattress Mack and Gallery Furniture in Houston, TX.
I’m testing a new system that delivers quizzes and assessments as lead magnets to prospects. You can have a little fun and help me out at the same time by taking a 10-question quiz. After you’ve taken it, please let me know if you had any difficulty or if there are any glitches. Contact me at stevemiller@theadventure.com. Here’s the link:
Hi Steve, Those are interesting examples you used to explain the concept of customer service vs customer experience, however, as a business owner, I would not be happy if those were my employees. The elevator story sound like an accident waiting to happen; I could only imagine the worker’s comp claim that would have resulted had one of those delivery people fallen to the basement floor from the 4th floor down the elevator shaft. In the case of feeding the cattle and riding the horses; when my crews are done with a delivery, I expect them to go on to the next one or come back to the shop, not hang around and ask the customer if they had any odd jobs they can do for them at not charge while their employer is paying them to work. These are pretty extreme examples, even if they are true, which I have no doubt they are, however, I don’t think too many employers would encourage their employees to follow these examples . Just my observations.
Hi Dan, thanks for your observations.
You are absolutely correct about the elevator story being an accident waiting to happen. Gallery Furniture does not condone, nor encourage, such actions by their delivery people. Mack made it very clear to everybody to not do anything so dangerous. Still, it’s a GREAT story.
As to the other story about feeding the cattle. I understand what YOU expect from delivery people, and it’s true for the vast majority of other employers. Not so with Mattress Mack. he DOES encourage his delivery people to ask, “What else do you need done?”
That’s why somebody like Gallery Furniture will win long term. Future success will not be based on efficiency. It will be based on whether the customer has a memorable experience. As I say in my book, “A richly imprinted experience whats to be REPEATED. It wants to be REMEMBERED. And it wants to be SHARED.”
If you were competing with Gallery Furniture, who do you think customers would be talking about?
And while the elevator story was extreme, the cattle story wasn’t. They delivery people had many stories almost as good. That’s one of the reasons why Gallery Furniture is one of the most successful independently-owned furniture stores in the world.
I have to agree with Steve on this one…being willing to take a risk in business is rare these days. As a customer, I hear phrases like, “that’s not our policy,” “that’s not my job” or “I can’t” way too often. The elevator story is not the norm, and wasn’t officially condoned. On the other hand, how many millions (billions?) do big companies spend on advertising? Stories of going above-and-beyond create word-of-mouth buzz like crazy.
Mack also took risks when he invited anyone and everyone who’d been displaced by the Houston floods to come and stay in his furniture store. He invited them to sit on the couches, sleep on the beds, eat at his tables….
I understand Dan’s point…but Mack demonstrates the entrepreneurial spirit, which to me is the opposite of “corporate think” and “playing it safe.” The proof is in the pudding, as they say, because Gallery Furniture is hugely successful. (I recently spent time in Texas, and deliberately asked locals about Gallery Furniture – the people I talked to said they’d never buy furniture anywhere else.)
A fun discourse, and I hope others weigh in! 🙂