Time and again research confirms that customer encounters in which a problem is resolved quickly and efficiently receive higher satisfaction scores than situations in which there was no problem reported.

Obviously, each customer is different with respect to his temperament and tolerance for mistakes. But dropping the ball here or there can turn out to be a good thing if the problem is properly resolved.

Using a hotel example, imagine you’ve just been asked to answer a satisfaction survey about a recent hotel experience. As you reflect on how satisfied you were with different elements of your stay, you consider all the touch points in which you experienced the facility and interacted with the hotel staff:

• The friendliness of the hotel employees
• The timeliness of check-in
• The ambiance of the hotel (interior design and décor)
• The amenities offered in the guest room
• The value for price paid

According to analysis by J.D. Power and Associates, hotel guests who experienced one or more problems during their stay rate their overall experience lower than those that did not report having any problems (74.9 vs. 61.2 percent). This may seem obvious. Poor television reception, a noisy A/C unit, or a missed wakeup call are certain to have a negative impact on how you feel about your stay when you respond to the survey.

But not everyone who has a problem is destined to give a low rating. The determining factor is not whether you had the problem, but how the hotel’s staff made you feel about how the problem was addressed and resolved.

For example, if the hotel scores a “perfect 10” for problem resolution, overall satisfaction for the entire stay is higher than for guests who never experienced a problem to begin with. Do a poor job fixing the problem, however, and overall satisfaction drops below 60 percent!

So, while it pays to resolve guest complaints quickly and efficiently, according to research only 15 percent of guests felt that their hotel’s staff had resolved the problem perfectly, compared to nearly half who expressed outright displeasure at the staff’s problem resolution skills.

How well-prepared are your employees to effectively address and resolve the inevitable problems that your customers will encounter?

Last December I worked with a hotel leadership team in Dayton, OH. One of the discussions lead to identifying the obstacles that stood in the way of creating promoters of its hotel.

Consumer research firm Bain and Company defines promoters as those customers who are the least price-sensitive, have the highest repurchase rates, and are responsible for between 80 and 90 percent of positive word-of-mouth.

One of the executives, Ryan, mentioned that the frequency of problems experienced by hotel guests was an obstacle. In examining this further, it became clear that a contributing factor was the condition of the hotel’s guest rooms due to needed renovations that had been postponed due to the economy.

And they’re not alone. I’ve spoken with numerous hoteliers who are in the same position. They must now get by with a product that, in a more robust economy, likely would have been renovated by now. Because the product is worn, it contributes to the increase in reported problems experienced by hotel guests.

So what’s a hotel to do? Here’s an idea that I received from Horst Schulze, Founding President and Former COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., LLC. Mr. Schulze calls it the C.A.R.E. (Clean And Repair Everything) program:

Before the C.A.R.E. program, Ritz-Carlton hotels would take an entire floor of a hotel out of service once a year in order to deep-clean guest rooms. By doing so, its guest rooms would not deteriorate as quickly. At 75 percent occupancy, a typical Ritz-Carlton hotel room would last for five years.

Under the C.A.R.E. program, four rooms were taken out of service and deep cleaned every day. This meant the room was like new every three months. In a typical Ritz-Carlton hotel, a ten year-old room was newer and cleaner looking than a two year-old room in other hotels.

What effect did the C.A.R.E. program have on the frequency of problems experienced by its guests? The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., LLC is a two-time recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. During the last year Ritz-Carlton received the award, there was only one reported defect per 10,000 room nights sold!

What has your experience been? What are you doing to anticipate and reduce the problems experienced by your own customers?

Earlier this week, a friend of mine passed along a copy of Daniel Pink’s latest book, Drive. It was a pleasant surprise because, having read his bestseller, A Whole New Mind, it was on my buy list. One of the reasons I enjoy reading authors like Daniel Pink, Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Friedman, and others, is that they consistently challenge deeply held assumptions that I’ve guarded for years.

And while Drive opened in this way—causing me to rethink what I’d previously accepted as truth—I soon read a sentence that reaffirmed what I’ve known to be true for years: “Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

The implication of this truth, as it applies to my work in the field of customer service, is that to the extent employees see their jobs as a series of algorithmic tasks (the bullet points that make up so many job descriptions) as opposed to heuristic tasks (opportunities to “perform” outside of one’s job description), they will most likely focus on job function (the algorithmic tasks associated with their job role) at the expense of job essence (the heuristic tasks that contribute to their highest priority).

What’s their highest priority? For most customer service employees it’s to create delighted customers—those who will repurchase, be less price-sensitive, and recommend the company or brand to others.

The disconnect I most often experience as a customer of an airline, hotel, restaurant, or department store, is that employees tend to execute their jobs as a series of algorithmic tasks (e.g., issuing a boarding pass, obtaining a valid method of payment, taking an order, or ringing up a purchase) that they would define as work. In some cases, they might even define these tasks as routine or monotonous. And whenever customers detect monotony from employees, it contributes to perceptions of bland, uneventful, and indifferent customer service.

The opportunity then lies in reframing employees’ views of their job roles. That is, expanding job descriptions from a myopic set of required algorithmic tasks that focus on job function to include optional heuristic tasks that support job essence.

Here is what it might look like in a hotel:

Among other job tasks, a front desk agent’s job description presumably includes obtaining a valid method of payment from each guest prior to issuing a room key. That’s an example of an algorithmic job task (i.e., following a set of established instructions) that fulfills the employee’s job function of checking-in guests. In many hotels, employees and guests alike would characterize this procedure as transactional, process-focused, and predictable—each one like the last one.

Now imagine the above algorithmic job task being completed in a way that fulfills the employee’s job function while, at the same time, supports the essence of her job role: to create a delighted customer.

Perhaps the desk agent smiles, makes eye contact with the guest, and says, “That’s a lovely tie. It matches your suit nicely. Who is the designer?” The guest, flattered by the remark, may then proudly answer, “Louis Vuitton” or “Robert Talbott.” Either way, he will be complimented that she noticed and will likely characterize the experience as exceptional, guest-focused, and unexpected. And while he probably won’t recall the transaction at all, he’ll remember the compliment for a long, long time.

All the desk agent did was expand her job description from a defined set of required algorithmic tasks (i.e., obtaining a valid method of payment from the guest) focused on job function (i.e., checking-in a guest) to include an optional heuristic task (i.e., providing a sincere and specific compliment) that supports job essence (i.e., to create a delighted customer). In doing so, she expressed her own uniqueness and creativity by doing something that was entirely optional and beyond the confines of her job description.

The late J.W. Marriott, Sr. said it well when he reflected on his own view of work: “There weren’t these two opposites, work and play, one bad and the other good. It was having a vision of the way things ought to be and then making them that way.”

That quote really encapsulates the message of this post. To the extent that employees view their jobs as a series of others-directed obligations, their jobs will seem more like work—with all the limitations and monotony associated with it. And to the extent that employees exercise their freedom to self-direct their performance using a variety of optional techniques, their jobs will seem more like play—with all the freedom and satisfaction associated with it.

Comments? (Please don’t feel obligated…they’re optional.)

When was the last time you checked yourself into a flight and checked a piece of luggage at a self-service kiosk at the airport?

Like supermarket self-service checkout stations or ATMs, I find these kiosks helpful. Once they become familiar, they’re easy to navigate and usually end up saving me time.

Last week, I was flying out of the Denver International Airport and checked myself in using one of these kiosks. Because I checked a bag, I needed to wait for an airline representative to verify my ID, affix the luggage tag to my bag, and give me a receipt for my checked bag.

While the flight check-in only took about a minute before the machine issued my boarding pass, the wait for an airline representative to accept my luggage and issue a baggage receipt took much longer.

After checking my email and social media accounts on my BlackBerry to pass the time, I finally walked over to a pair of employees who were managing the line and asked one of them if she could help me to collect my baggage receipt so that I could be on my way.

Without acknowledging me in any meaningful way, the employee walked over to another bank of kiosks where a number of airline employees were clustered serving passengers and said something. A minute later, after finishing up with her current passenger, a female employee made her way down to my kiosk and mechanically said, “Checking a bag?”

I answered “Yes” and she said, “You need to check your bag in here (motioning to the kiosk), before I can accept it.”

I told her that I had already checked the bag in at the kiosk and was simply awaiting my receipt.

She then said, “I don’t see a receipt. Are you sure you checked your bag in?”

About this time, a male employee who was working behind the kiosk to my right handed her a luggage tag and receipt that apparently had printed from his station.

She then robotically asked for my ID, examined my drivers license, and handed me my receipt. Her farewell and gratitude for my business were bundled in the word, “Next?” as she motioned towards the line of passengers awaiting check-in.

Reflecting back on this customer service experience, I would describe it as routine, transactional, process-focused, and uninspiring (it certainly doesn’t inspire loyalty, future spending, or recommendations). And, unfortunately, it happens all the time.

Experiences like this one lead me to the primary question of my work: Why is it that we expect for those who serve us in person or over the phone to be attentive and engaged yet, on most occasions, encounter employees who are aloof and indifferent?

Your thoughts human reader?

Have you ever sensed an adversarial, “us vs. them” mentality from employees of service organizations?

Perhaps you were on the receiving end of what you would describe as rude or abusive behavior? Or perhaps it was more subtle—like dismissive body language or an exasperated sigh? Maybe it did not even involve you and was just something you overheard or observed?

Just last month I witnessed a supermarket employee chastise a customer in the store’s parking lot. When the customer failed to return his shopping cart to a designated cart collection area, the employee called out sarcastically, “Excuse me. That’s not where the cart goes!”

I get it. I know that supermarkets provide signage and make it relatively easy for customers to return their shopping carts to designated areas throughout the parking lot. And most customers cooperate and return the carts as requested. But a few customers do not for a variety of reasons: they have young children in the car, it’s raining, they’re in a hurry, etc.

Why is this employee competing with his customer regarding whose responsibility it is to properly secure the shopping cart? That’s an argument he will never win. After all, it’s his job to collect and return the shopping carts. That’s what he’s paid to do!

The customer’s only obligation is to pay for his groceries. And we can assume he’s done that. Instead of being admonished, he should be appreciated.

Last baseball season I was having lunch at one of the downtown sports bars in Lodo, across the street from Coors Field in Denver. As the game got underway, the restaurant quickly emptied as fans left for the ballpark.

About that time, three couples entered the bar and seated themselves at one of the many available tables towards the front of the bar. I noticed they were carrying burritos they likely bought from one of the many vendors selling food on the streets of Lodo prior to the Rockies game.

Within a few minutes the group was confronted by a server who said, “You can’t eat those in here.”

One of the guests, attempting to reason with the server, said, “We’re planning to order some beers and watch the game.”

The server reprimanded the group saying, “You’re not allowed to bring food into the restaurant—even if you order something to drink.”

From that point on, I was unable to make out what either party said because the comments were mostly under their breath. I can, however, attest that neither party appreciated the other and the group spent no money at the bar that day—and perhaps never will.

Now, I know that restaurants are in the business of selling food and that if every customer brought in his own food, then the restaurant would suffer. And most restaurants likely have formal policies against such “breaches of trade.”

Still, why the jousting? Is there another way the server could have handled this situation that would have resulted in a different outcome—one that might have benefited the guests, server, and establishment?

A few years ago, I was seated in the boarding area at Dulles International Airport awaiting my fate as a standby passenger on the last nonstop flight to Denver. About ten minutes after the last passenger boarded, my name was called and I was given a seat assignment and permitted to board the plane.

As I was the last passenger to board, all eyes were on me as I struggled to find space for my garment bag in the overhead bin. Just then, one of the flight attendants called down the aisle, “Ladies and gentlemen, we can only depart when this man is seated.”

She seemed to relish in using a perverse form of peer pressure to motivate me to quickly stow my bag and be seated. As I had yet to make any friends on the flight—and weary airline passengers can be quite ruthless—I settled into a most uncomfortable center seat for the ride home.

Again, I get the airline’s policy requiring all passengers to be seated with seat belts secured prior to departure but couldn’t this flight attendant have found a way to communicate this message without publicly admonishing her customer?

Always compete for customers, not against them. You’ve probably heard the saying: “You never win an argument with a customer.” It’s true. Even if you have signage to point to or a policy to reference, if you offend a customer then you lose—maybe a little or maybe a lot.

The next time that you draw a line in the sand between you and your customers, consider inviting them to cross the line. That way, you can be on the same side.

How about you? What is your experience or example?

The other day I walked by a supermarket employee who was hanging out near the front entrance of the store smoking a cigarette.

I noticed him because it always confounds me when employers permit their employees to smoke someplace where non-smoking customers have to pass through their second-hand smoke in order to spend their money.

But that’s a topic from an earlier post…

This particular post centers on the employee’s admonishment of a customer who failed to return his shopping cart to a designated cart collection area.

After a customer positioned the front wheels of his cart on a median in the parking lot, the employee called out sarcastically, “Excuse me. That’s not where the cart goes!”

The customer either didn’t hear the comment or chose to ignore it.

Customers are not obligated to return shopping carts. It’s nice when they do but it’s not their responsibility any more than it’s a rental car customer’s responsibility to clean out the car’s interior before returning it.

At some point, employees have to assume responsibility for their job roles. That means gathering shopping carts, cleaning a rental car’s interior, or whatever their job descriptions entail.

Do you see the irony here? The employee who’s chastising the customer for failing to return the cart to a designated collection area is himself employed to gather shopping carts from the parking lot and return them to the store. That’s one of his job duties. It’s what he’s paid to do. The customer’s only obligation is to pay for his groceries.

I suppose if every customer returned his or her cart to a designated cart collection area then that would save this employee time and effort, perhaps allowing for more smoke breaks in front of the store—but then who would he heckle?

Earlier this month, my brother-in-law ordered a glow-in-the-dark football from Baden Sports as a Christmas gift for one of my boys.

When the package arrived this week, my wife opened it to find a glow-in-the-dark soccer ball rather than the football that was ordered. She compared the product received to the packing slip and confirmed the mistake.

Right away, she sent an email to Baden Sports’ online customer service department informing them of the discrepancy. Ten minutes later she received an email from Tam Nguyen, a customer service representative at Baden Sports, apologizing for the mistake.

After a brief email conversation, Tam picked up the phone and called my wife. Instead of following the company procedure to exchange a product that involved shipping labels, returns, and delays, Tam was surprisingly willing to agree with my wife’s suggestion to donate the soccer ball to the Denver City Mission in lieu of going to the trouble of shipping the ball back.

Tam said that Baden Sports often donates its products to worthy charities during the year, so—although a bit unconventional when dealing with a fulfillment error—he was open to the idea of simply donating the soccer ball.

Now compare this experience with a typical online product exchange. Unless you’re thinking about Zappos or L.L.Bean, chances are you endured paperwork, delays, and perhaps an indifferent—or worse—customer service rep.

Congratulations to Tam and Baden Sports for making decisions in favor of their customers…while also making a child’s Christmas wish come true.

How many of you enjoy standing in line, waiting to be served?

Long before Disney mounted large flat screen televisions to keep its guests entertained while waiting in line to see the next attraction, supermarkets have positioned tabloid newspapers near the checkout aisles to ease the inevitable delays that accompany grocery shopping after work and on weekends.

Even though most high volume supermarkets offer a number of self-service checkout stations, it’s not uncommon to wait in line behind two or more people for a station to become available. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw this banner posted prominently above the checkout lanes at my local Albertsons supermarket:

“OUR PROMISE: Never 3 people in line at one time.”

With this bold promise, Albertsons demonstrates its commitment to customer service. And, while I don’t know the particulars of its process to ensure lines don’t extend three customers deep, I bet it involves cross-utilization of staff—enabling store employees whose primary job role is something other than ringing up groceries to fill in as cashiers when needed.

Contrast this with an experience I had last week at a major national toy retailer where the lines ran at least three customers deep while four employees stood behind the “Customer Service” counter within view of the congested checkout lanes.

I know from experience that this retailer wouldn’t dare post a similar banner for two reasons:

1.) It lacks the underlying commitment to customer service needed to display such a banner.
2.) It does not have a process in place to ensure the promise would be kept.

In fact, most businesses lack the underlying commitment to customer service and processes required to make bold promises in the area of customer service.

Don’t take my word for it. Judge for yourself the next time you’re standing in line, waiting to be served at one of them—which should be any day now.

What happened the last time you asked an employee to do something that was not his job? Did he cheerfully accept the responsibility and work beyond his job description to fulfill your request? Did the employee begrudgingly fulfill your request—making sure you knew through body language or words that he was doing you a favor? Or, worse yet, did you hear some variation of “That’s not my job”?

Last night, I stopped by my local King Soopers grocery store to pick up a princess balloon for my daughter who turned five years old today. The floral area where the packaged mylar balloons were sold was accessible to customers but, due to the late hour, there was no employee manning the counter with the large helium tank used to fill the balloons.

I went in search of a store employee and encountered Sean. Knowing right away that it “wasn’t Sean’s job” to operate the helium tank, I prepared myself for disappointment. Based on my experience as a customer, I expected him to say something like, “That’s not my department,” or “I don’t know how to operate the helium tank,” or “That person doesn’t come in until 7:00 o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Instead, Sean accepted the mylar balloon package from me with a smile. As we walked towards the floral area, he said, “I’ve never worked the helium tank before but I’m sure I can figure it out.” A minute later he had the balloon out and followed the instructions on the packaging to properly fill the balloon.

His first attempt resulted in a large explosion as the $10 balloon burst due to being overfilled. Undaunted, he retrieved a replacement from the rack and tried again. This time, he put a little less helium in it and within minutes I was leaving the store with a large princess balloon that he had tethered to a strand of pink ribbon.

Making a lasting impression on customers is not hard to do. It simply requires genuine caring and the willingness to work outside of one’s job description when necessary in order to fulfill their needs—such as filling full their mylar balloons.

How about you? What is your experience or example?

A few years ago, The Broker Restaurant in Denver, CO participated in a local radio promotion. As a part of this promotion, the radio station mailed out $25 unrestricted coupons to area residents who completed a survey about their radio listening preferences. Because there were no restrictions, these coupons were essentially treated like cash in the restaurant.

Over the course of the eight-week promotion, tens of thousands of $25 coupons were mailed out to survey respondents and the promotion proved to be very successful at increasing the exposure of The Broker and attracting many new customers.

Toward the end of the promotion, unbeknownst to the restaurant’s owners, the radio station began handing the remaining $25 coupons out to passersby on the 16^th Street Pedestrian Mall as a part of a separate promotion.

As often happens when people are handed unsolicited promotional material on the street, they tend to scan it quickly before tossing it in the nearest trashcan. As a result, hundreds of coupons ended up in the trashcans lining the 16^th Street Mall—many of which were later retrieved by members of Denver’s homeless population.

The Broker Restaurant is located in the old Denver National Bank building and is situated in an old bank vault. The European antiques are dark cherry wood and the vault itself, including the huge round door, remains to make The Broker one of Denver’s most unique and elegant restaurants. According to its website, “Not a day goes by when an observer will not spot some of Denver’s most prominent citizens enjoying lunch or dinner.”

It was in this setting that a homeless man in his thirties and his young son entered during lunch service and seated themselves in the lounge area of the restaurant, prominently located at the base of the grand staircase directly in front of the immense vault door.

A server approached their table and the father inquired about using the coupon he’d found to pay for their lunch. The server was uncertain about how to respond to the man so she accepted the coupon and excused herself to phone restaurant founder, Ed Novak.

After explaining the situation to Novak, the server was instructed by him to honor the coupon and serve the father and son as she would any other guests. During the meal, the server learned that it was the boy’s tenth birthday and came to understand further about the family’s situation.

In reflecting on the experience later that day during a conversation with Novak, the server shared how her initial discomfort with the situation dissolved as she took time to serve the father and son, treating them as honored guests rather than out of place vagrants.

As Thanksgiving nears, this true story is a timely reminder to all of us of the powerful effect our personal service can have on the lives of others. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Everyone has the power of greatness. Not for fame but greatness. Because greatness is determined by service.”

This Thanksgiving, don’t just be grateful. Look for opportunities to serve others and be great too!