Wal-Mart, winning me back, one associate at a time.
I was digging through a dresser junk drawer that has followed me around for years the other day when I ran across some old pins – Wal-Mart Distribution Center pins that I used to wear on my badge fifteen plus years ago. My “Trainer” pin was there. That particular pin marked the beginning of this career in Learning and Development. “Back in the day” when I started with Wal-Mart, the service culture permeated the entire organization. Sam had just passed, and the reverence for his way of doing things was still fresh, almost to a fault. I believe I have mentioned it here, but the very first time that the Wal-Mart Board of Directors met in a Distribution Center was in the facility I was based in, and I got to coordinate the meeting. The exposure to people like Rob Walton, David Glass and especially Don Soderquist really left an impact on me.
I’ve never forgotten sitting on the tarmac with Lee Scott in Porterville after the Board Meeting waiting for “the jet” and him saying, “If you ever need anything, give me a call.” Of course, he wasn’t the CEO then. I still have yet to call for that chit… I wonder if it has expired. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: customer service, Wal-Mart
Required Reading: The BBB/Gallup Trust in Business Index
I recently read a survey done by Gallup for the Better Business Bureau. The study focuses on TRUST in Business. I like that. If I trust a business, that is really saying something. Trust is one of those very elusive things that I struggle with in many aspects of my life - getting it, giving it, keeping it. I’m pretty tight with my trust distribution to companies I am a customer to. I have learned via loved ones in my life and traveling down my own roads that trust is earned, not freely given.
In the Gallup survey, it is reported that good customers service is the primary prerequisite for one in five people to trust a company. If you add honesty and integrity to customer service, the numbers skyrocket to a composite 50-60% of what make people trust companies. That’s not a surprise, really, but if you look at what people look for in a company, the data falls nicely in to the Pareto principle, or 80/20 rule. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: customer service, research, survey, trust
Caliber Collision, Hwy 620, Austin TX
After a major hail storm ripped up my little car, I had to file the first claim in some time longer than a decade with my current insurance carrier. The interaction with them is another post that could be titled “Service Recovery.” They gave me a list of “Preferred” repair shops, and my car has been gone for two weeks tomorrow… Which brings me to my first point.
Honesty in time and date estimations with customers is not an option. When you tell a customer a time or date, you’d better either get the job or task done before that date or at the very least let the customer know the status and when they can expect the work or service to be done. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: auto body repair, honesty, poor service, service, timeliness
Get a human!
I’m conceptualizing a post about surviving service in the world of Interactive Voice Response (IVR, an oxymoron and acronym all rolled neatly together.)
In the mean time, I’ll share one of my favorite links, the “gethuman list.” Read the rest of this entry »
The outsource dilemma: It’s your ears.
Thank you for calling XYZ Company, welcome to Gurgaon!
A primary focus of my roles in the last twelve or so years of work has been training agents in contact centers.
My first interaction with call centers was in Sandpoint Idaho, when Coldwater Creek was a small company of 250 people. I was the training department in its entirety. We trained our agents then to be virtually ominpotent uberagents - the calls were answered within three rings (or less than one ring much of the time) by a well spoken, happy, smiling human being who could handle all of your product questions, place or track your order, basically help you with anything you could think of, including supplying the returns address for our major competitors of the time.
Fast forward a decade or so, and I find myself traveling through the bustling streets of Delhi, Bangalore, or Hyderabad. The industry has changed, as now the agents my team is supporting are supplying technical support to consumers in the US rather than selling clothes to the “Land-Rover Woman” but the premise is the same: People on the phone serving customers. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: call center service, India, Philippines, service
Six Sigma and Service…
I currently work in a six sigma shop… and while I understand and use the process, there are some places it just is NOT the right thing to do… That said, this is a favorite article of mine. Enjoy.
Six Sigma Doesn’t Belong in Customer-Centric Environments
Some tenets of a Service Culture
If I collect these momentary brain dumps in to lists of Service Tenets, who knows, maybe someday I’ll have a good list. Here are two to start.
Service Culture Tenet: Everyone serves each other first.
I started my professional career as a training manager for Wal-Mart logistics. Back in those days, Sam’s philosophies were still very much alive and well. My job was to train new supervisors and managers in the distribution centers, and whatever else, of course. There are a few memories I have of that job that have helped shape my philosophy of service interactions. The interesting part and point of this post is that those experiences were provided me by the leadership of the Company at the time.
I don’t remember how or why I ended up there, but a group of fellow training managers and I were at Sam and Helen Walton’s modest home in Bentonville for some sort of event. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: culture, customer, service
Quick thoughts on Service & Leadership
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.”
Max dePree wrote that in his “Leadership is an Art” book over fifteen years ago. I once wrote a training class based on the contents of that book, and it is still one of the definitive pieces of leadership literature in my mind and library.
While this site is about service, I have to relate service to leadership and management. Leadership and management have been an integral part of my career from the beginning. I remember the first management training class I led as a brand new Training Manager in a huge company. There I was, a kid in his early twenties, trying to tell battle hardened frontline managers how to get the most out of their receiving dock workers… it was really intimidating. It would have been much worse had my new boss not sat me down and told me that “as a Training Manager, you have to be the ideal. You of all of the managers here MUST walk the talk, or you will have no credibility.” Then he handed me a copy of Robert Greenleaf’s paper “Servant as Leader”… Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: culture, leadership, service
Firehouse Subs, Round Rock TX
Jeff, someday I hope you find this post. Jeff is the current manager of Firehouse Subs in Round Rock TX.
Firehouse Subs is our family’s “go to” lunch and last minute dinner spot. Whenever we can’t decide where to eat, we all know that if someone says “Firehouse” there will be no complaints. The food is really good, sub sandwiches that have MEAT on them, unlike some more popularized unnamed sub chains… with yellow and green logos… and there is a huge selection of hot sauces - all arranged by “heat index” on the counter for you to put on the sandwiches. That fits with the firehouse theme nicely. If you’re a sauce lover like me, the sauces themselves are a big selling point.
Good food and a unique twist is a good start.
Good service is a good finish. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: corporate, food, service
Holiday Inn Express, Lawton OK
I have to note - on the trip for my wife’s Grandmother’s funeral, everything that the Comfort Suites in Fort Worth WASN’T, the Holiday Inn Express in Lawton Oklahoma WAS. The room was substantially less expensive, larger, cleaner, safer, etc.
As customers, we often only gripe about our experiences. I have no complaints about the time we spent in this hotel, and as a result of this stay, Holiday Inn Express has gained my attention as a place my family can stay while traveling. That’s good. 
So, two thumbs up for Holiday Inn Express in Lawton! Thank you for a nice stay after a not so nice one the night before we arrived!