As a responsible consumer, before parting with your hard-earned cash, it’s important to determine whether or not the benefits of a purchase will outweigh its cost. If not, then you’re better off saving your money.

For those of you who are considering the purchase of my new book, Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary, I have a quick and easy way for you to assess whether you should make the investment or hold on to your nickels.

Delight Your Customers may not be for you if:

• you frequently roll your eyes in disgust after interacting with customers who are confused, misinformed, or otherwise “difficult.”
• you think the customer’s problem is his problem.
• you would prefer to chastise customers for their ignorance rather than take ownership and resolve their dilemmas.
• you feel that being asked to perform the basics of customer service (i.e., smiling, making eye contact, and adding energy to your voice) is an unreasonable request.
• you prefer to treat each customer like the last customer.
• you believe that enthusiastic, high-performing coworkers are “goody-goodies” who are only trying to gain favor with the boss.
• you think picking up the napkin or candy wrapper you just walked past is somebody else’s responsibility.
• you’re more interested in looking down at your text messages than looking up for the opportunity to serve a customer.
• you think it’s okay for a customer to wait while you wrap up a personal conversation.
• you don’t see a problem with smoking near a customer entrance, bantering with coworkers in front of customers, or walking past a customer without acknowledging her.
• you’re the type of employee who would cause the mortified Undercover Boss to remove his wig and reveal his true identity in order to suspend you right away.

If you see yourself in any of the above bullet points, then you may not fully appreciate the customer service message contained in my book. In fact, you will probably think I’m nuts.

But for those of you who are appalled by the attitudes and behaviors reflected in the bulleted list and are seeking a resource that will enable you to raise the quality of customer service that you provide or influence, this may be the best $12 you’ve ever spent.

Watch the 90-second book trailer.

Read the Introduction.

Preview Part One of the book.

Don’t settle for ordinary. Choose extraordinary. (It’s always a choice.) Pre-order Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Steve Curtin (AMACOM Books, June 11, 2013)

I had planned to post a blog this week announcing that my new book, Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary is available in its Kindle edition as of Monday, May 13^th.

While I was thinking about the post last Thursday, I received the message below in an email from a local business owner, Mike Huggins. After reading his note, it occurred to me that it did a better job of conveying the benefits of the book than anything I could write. So I contacted Mike, thanked him for the note, and asked if I could share it on my blog. He said, “For sure! It’s at your disposal.”

I’ll let Mike take it from here:

Steve,

I just pre-ordered 10 copies of your book for the car wash staff and will be doing the same for the bar closer to the release date. I am super excited for it and will suggest to my car wash business enhancement group that it be our next read.

I also thank you for your generosity in sharing your blog posts. I forward them on to our staff from time to time and we get into great discussions about them. June 11^th (the book’s release date in print) cannot come soon enough. I assure you that we will be spending the summer going through your book at both businesses. If you ever launch a seminar on this or any other aspects of customer service, please keep me in the loop.

As a testament to your work, look up The Glo Express Car Wash and Arvada Tavern businesses on Yelp. I give your work/blog the credit for the 4.5 star ratings at both places.

Hope all is well and I look forward to our next crossing.

Sincerely,

Mike Huggins, Owner, The Glo Express Car Wash and Arvada Tavern (Arvada, CO)

Don’t settle for ordinary. Choose extraordinary. (It’s always a choice.) Pre-order Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Steve Curtin (AMACOM Books, June 11, 2013)

Last night, my 10-year-old son, Cooper, and I swung by Park Meadows Shopping Center following his basketball practice in order to purchase an umbrella as a gift for a colleague who is relocating from Denver to New York City. (Having lived there myself, I know the value of a decent umbrella on those rainy days when available taxi cabs are few and far between.)

We began our quest at Nordstrom. After lingering in the accessories area of the women’s department, I was approached by a sales associate whom I asked where I might find a nice umbrella for a colleague who was relocating to New York and was stunned by her response:

“We might have some in back but we don’t have anything nice. They’re the same ones you can find anywhere.”

I have a habit of refusing to reward poor customer service with a sale, so I thanked her and moved on to a second retailer: Michael Kors.

At Michael Kors, after glancing about the showroom, I was approached by a friendly associate who asked, “Is there something I can help you find?”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m looking for a nice umbrella for a female colleague.”

His response was amusing: “We don’t carry those this time of year.”

Surprised, I said, “Really? It’s April. You know, April showers bring May flowers… If not now, what time of year do you carry them?”

Following my rationale, he smiled and laughed. Together, Cooper and I moved on to a third retailer: Brighton Collectibles.

There, we were assisted by a helpful sales associate who produced a bright umbrella displaying a pattern of colorful pink and red cherries, which, unfortunately, was not exactly what I had in mind for a newly-minted New Yorker.

Sensing my disappointment, the associate expressed genuine interest in identifying an alternative gift by posing a series of questions (“Who is the gift for?”, “What is the occasion?”, “What is her style?”, etc.). Within minutes, I had located a suitable option among the eclectic mix of accessories on display.

Leaving the mall, I reflected on the quality of customer service received at the different retailers we visited. My takeaway was not that the customer service quality at Brighton Collectibles is better than at Michael Kors or Nordstrom. My experience proves that, regardless of a company’s reputed customer service culture, the quality of a customer’s actual service experience hinges on his one-on-one interaction with a frontline service provider.

In truth, frontline employees don’t merely project the organization’s customer service culture. They are its customer service culture.

Don’t settle for ordinary. Choose extraordinary. (It’s always a choice.) Pre-order Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Steve Curtin (AMACOM Books, June 11, 2013)

Illustration by Aaron McKissen

Yesterday, my son left school early complaining of itchiness and blurred vision in his right eye. I immediately suspected conjunctivitis (commonly known as “pink eye”) since his mother had just recovered days earlier from the highly contagious infection.

I phoned our health care provider, Kaiser Permanente, before noon to inquire about setting an appointment for our primary care physician (or another doctor) to see my son that afternoon at our local clinic in order to diagnose his illness and prescribe a remedy. The Kaiser representative I spoke with said that for suspected cases of pink eye (being that it’s highly contagious), “a nurse will phone you to conduct triage over the phone.”

My initial reaction was that Kaiser’s process made a lot of sense. With something as common and observable as pink eye, it was prudent to allocate treatment over the phone and, with a physician’s consent, prescribe antibiotic eye drops to eliminate the infection.

About an hour later, I received a call from the nurse who asked a series of questions about the condition of my son’s right eye:

Does it itch? Yes.
Is it swollen? Yes.
Is it pink? Yes.
Is there discharge? Yes.
Etc.

During our conversation, I happened to mention that my son had removed his contact lenses and was now wearing his eyeglass frames. To my surprise, the nurse said, “If he wears contacts, then he’ll need to see someone at the Kaiser eye care facility in Highlands Ranch.”

I said, “The Highlands Ranch facility is 35 minutes away. His primary care physician is less than 10 minutes from my house. Why can’t we go there instead?”

The nurse reiterated that I must take him to a Kaiser eye care facility because he wears contact lenses. So I asked her, “If Coleton wore eyeglass frames rather than contact lenses, would we still have to drive all the way to Highlands Ranch for him to receive treatment?”

Sensing my irritation, she repeated Kaiser’s policy of referring patients wearing contact lenses to one of its eye care facilities to diagnose conjunctivitis. She then offered the next available appointment time of 4:15pm. (For those readers who are unfamiliar with Denver, the only thing worse than a 45-mile round-trip commute from SE Aurora to Highlands Ranch, is doing so during weekday rush hour.) I accepted the appointment time, hung up, and then left immediately with my son for the OnPoint Urgent Care facility located about three miles from my house.

There, after a 5-minute wait in a very comfortable, non-clinical “waiting room” (see photo above) and after a brief examination, (for the cost of a $25 co-pay) the physician assistant diagnosed that Coleton had indeed contracted pink eye and prescribed Ofloxacin antibiotic eye drops. Prescription in hand, we stopped by our local Walgreens pharmacy on the way home, paid $11.24 for the medication (perhaps $1.24 more than Kaiser would have charged under our medical plan), and began treating Coleton’s infection by 3:15pm.

At that point, I phoned Kaiser and canceled our 4:15pm appointment in Highlands Ranch.

When I looked at the receipts, I saw that only 48 minutes had elapsed between the time I paid the copay at OnPoint Urgent Care and the time I paid for the prescription at Walgreens. That’s less than the drive time from the Highlands Ranch Kaiser eye care facility to my house in SE Aurora in rush hour traffic.

My wife and I have been with Kaiser since relocating to Colorado in 1998. In that time, we’ve had four children and our healthcare costs have quadrupled. Although we have a choice to change providers during annual enrollment each year, we continue to choose Kaiser Permanente. We like our primary care physician, his support staff, and the employees we come in contact with at the pharmacy.

What we don’t appreciate is an absurd policy that requires an ophthalmologist (who’s located 22 miles away and is not available until 4:15pm) to diagnose an eye infection that a physician assistant (who’s located 3 miles away and is available right now) can diagnose after a 2-minute exam.

Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) like Kaiser Permanente are often criticized for their bureaucracy, escalating fees, and mediocre patient service—which is often demonstrated by their insensitivity to the needs and realities of patients. As a result, nimble urgent care centers like OnPoint Urgent Care are carving out a niche by providing better patient service (more comfort, convenience, and responsiveness) than HMOs like Kaiser Permanente.

Don’t settle for ordinary. Choose extraordinary. (It’s always a choice.) Pre-order Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Steve Curtin (AMACOM Books, June 11, 2013)

Over spring break, I stayed at a lodge in Breckenridge, Colorado made up of 46 privately owned upscale condominium units. Many of the units offer balconies with spectacular slope side views, spa showers, granite countertops, and high-end appliances.

Imagine that you were a guest at this lodge and noticed that the ice maker in the Sub-Zero side-by-side refrigerator was not producing ice cubes. When you phoned the front desk to report the problem, you were instructed to contact the intermediary company (e.g., VRBO, Interval International, etc.) through which you booked the condo to inquire about a repair. Meanwhile, you’re going to have to find another way to chill your martini…

Now, fast-forward to the TripAdvisor review you are encouraged to complete upon check-out. When asked to provide an overall rating for this property (on a scale of 1-5, with 1=Terrible, 2=Poor, 3=Average, 4=Very Good, and 5=Excellent), based on the above experience, how would you rate it? When asked to write a review, would you mention the broken ice maker or the front desk agent’s deflective response to your problem? What would be the tone of your review?

When I spoke with a front desk agent at the lodge about the relationship between the lodge management company, owners, and guests, I learned that 29 of the 46 units were managed by the lodge management company. Under this arrangement, the lodge splits the condo rental revenue with owners. The revenue paid to the lodge provides for the maintenance and upkeep of these 29 units.

The other 17 units are managed by other intermediary companies that also split the rental revenue with owners. The lodge management company is not compensated for the maintenance and upkeep of these 17 units. As a result, the lodge’s management budgets and schedules maintenance staff to maintain 29 (not 46) condo units.

If you were a guest occupying an intermediary-managed unit when you experienced the problem with the ice maker, how would this knowledge of the difference in service agreements between lodge-managed and intermediary-managed condo units influence your TripAdvisor rating and review of the lodge?

Given this dynamic, there is an opportunity for lodge employees to communicate effectively with guests in order to clarify how best to rectify problems experienced (particularly maintenance problems) inside the condo units. It’s important that lodge employees position the differences in the intermediary-managed versus lodge-managed service agreements as a matter of fact rather than as justification to deny service requests.

Beyond effective communication, lodge employees can offer solutions regardless of who manages the condo unit. Using the broken ice maker scenario as an example, the employee can offer to deliver a bag of ice to satisfy the guest’s immediate need for ice cubes and provide contact information for the intermediary company responsible for addressing appliance maintenance issues as an agent of the owner.

Most reasonable guests will adjust their expectations and make service allowances knowing the maintenance protocol for intermediary-managed units. But if they’re unaware of this protocol and misinterpret an employee’s response as passive or aloof, then they are likely to offer stingy service ratings and critical reviews on TripAdvisor or other social platforms.

A customer’s perception will be formed with or without an employee’s participation. But when employees take the initiative to communicate effectively and offer solutions to customers’ problems (whether or not they have to), they will positively influence their customers’ perceptions—and their online ratings and reviews.

Don’t settle for ordinary. Choose extraordinary. (It’s always a choice.) Pre-order Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Steve Curtin (AMACOM Books, June 11, 2013)

Last week, I delivered customer service training to the staff of a New Orleans hotel. During a table group activity midway through the class, a participant suggested providing complimentary coffee in the lobby each morning as a way to pleasantly surprise hotel guests.

In response to his suggestion, I overheard another employee say, “If we give the coffee away, then we won’t get pay raises.” Although I did not expose the comment to the rest of the class, it reveals a common misperception among employees: that exceptional customer service is a zero-sum game, whereby, if customers win, then employees lose.

If you believe the Bain & Company research that delighted customers (promoters) are less price-sensitive, have higher repurchase rates, and are responsible for 80-90% of the positive word-of-mouth about a company or brand, then clearly businesses are disproportionately rewarded for exceptional customer service quality. And this tendency is further validated by the  American Express 2012 Global Customer Service Barometer research report that, for the second straight year, found that two thirds of consumers surveyed stated that they are willing to spend an average of 13 percent more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service.

Complimentary coffee may or may not be the best way to delight your customers. The point is that, as you uncover those “little extras” that resonate with your customers, you offer them with the understanding that what benefits customers likely benefits the organization—and its employees.

Here’s a way to motivate skeptical employees who think about providing exceptional customer service in zero-sum terms: Share the above research and remind them that their discretionary effort (doing more than expected) prompts customers’ discretionary spending (spending more than expected).

And since consumer spending and demand are positively correlated, this can benefit employees through increased hours to schedule, overtime wage premiums, eligibility to participate in company-sponsored benefits, job stability, career advancement opportunities, etc. In a hotel setting, guests may further reward exceptional customer service by offering increased tips, referring friends and colleagues, leaving favorable reviews at websites like TripAdvisor.com or Hotels.com, or choosing to purchase ancillary services such as spa treatments or recreational activities.

Oftentimes, the “expense” (whether expending dollars or discretionary effort) required to improve the customer’s experience turns out to be an investment in exceptional customer service that ultimately benefits customers, companies, and employees alike.

Don’t settle for ordinary. Choose extraordinary. (It’s always a choice.) Pre-order Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Steve Curtin (AMACOM Books, June 11, 2013)

Illustration by Aaron McKissen

Once, while I was sharing a retail example of exceptional customer service during a seminar in New York City, a participant interrupted to ask, “But what if you don’t want the cashier to act all phony—like she’s your best friend? What if you just want to make your purchase and get the (heck) out of there?”

Knowing that such a question has the potential to steer the presentation into an unproductive debate between the two of us (while causing other participants to look at their watches, fold their arms, and mentally check-out), I posed the question to the larger group. Their comments ranged from “You can’t please everyone” to “It’s the cashier’s responsibility to read her customer and adjust accordingly.”

While I largely agreed with the comments shared during the ensuing discussion, it bothers me whenever genuinely enthusiastic service providers are labeled as “phony” or “goody-goodies” or worse… Instead of their passion and enthusiasm being seen as sincere, it’s viewed with suspicion—as an “act”—to earn a bigger tip, get mentioned by name on a comment card or online survey, or gain favor with management.

To all those truly enthusiastic employees out there who look forward to going to work and serving their customers, this post is for you. Jaded skeptics may question your authenticity but you know otherwise. Never dull the edges of your enthusiasm in order to fit in with apathetic or indifferent coworkers or to appease tenured employees who are content to simply go through the motions at work, relying on their seniority to insulate them from having to expend any discretionary effort.

There’s nothing phony about genuinely serving others. Exceptional customer service is not about masking your true feelings. It’s about actualizing them.

Don’t settle for ordinary. Choose extraordinary. (It’s always a choice.) Pre-order Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Steve Curtin (AMACOM Books, June 11, 2013)

Illustration by Aaron McKissen

In last weekend’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, there was an excellent story about travel photography by Kevin Sintumuang, titled Snap Out of It.

The gist of the article is that “old school” photographs (e.g., famous landmarks, generic landscapes, and buildings you can barely remember) are no longer engaging when compared to “new school” photographs that capture the essence of the trip (e.g., the letterpress stationery in the hotel room, the $14 apple fritter that was actually worth it, and the little girl in Mumbai who knew all the words to “Material Girl”).

He’s right. My photograph of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe looks identical to hundreds of photos that emerge from a Google image search of the falls. But my photograph of the in-room signage at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge warning me to lock my balcony door to keep the calculating vervet monkeys at bay is interesting. It tells a story.

It’s the same with service. Most customer service interactions are “old school”—quite routine and forgettable. Like my picture of Victoria Falls, these encounters are common and indistinguishable from one transaction to the next as employees regress from enthusiastically serving customers (generally, after completing new-hire orientation) to, over time, dispassionately processing them—treating each customer like the last customer.

Although entrenched, it’s possible for service industry employees to transcend this factory mentality (that reduces customers to “units” and experiences to “transactions”) by embracing “new school” customer service behaviors. Using the photography metaphor, it boils down to a choice between taking a picture or telling a story. Just as it’s feasible to add layers to the narrative by photographing in-room signage warning of mischievous monkeys, so too is it possible to evoke stories from customers by including unexpected nuance that’s rich in detail, accentuates their experiences, and produces lasting positive impressions.

Compare these examples of both “old school” and “new school” approaches to serving customers:

Old school (common): “Tonight, our featured appetizer is the Pâté de Foie Gras. May I interest you in an order?”

New school (unique): “Our chef trained at the prestigious Restaurant School in Philadelphia and apprenticed at Le Bec Fin. She also traveled to France to refine her knowledge of French delicacies such as truffles, escargot, and foie gras. In fact, our Pâté de Foie Gras is our signature appetizer. May I tempt you with an order?”

Old school (forgettable): “Our restaurant is located in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter.”

New school (memorable): “Our restaurant is located in the Gaslamp Quarter which is named after the gas lamps that lined the streets in the early 1900s when the area was a red light district known as ‘Stingaree.’ The name was probably derived from the fierce stingray fish in the San Diego Bay. It was said that you could be stung as badly in the Stingaree as in the bay!”

Old school (no story): “This building is over 100 years old.”

New school (story): “There’s quite a bit a history in this building. In fact, in 1926 the famed magician Harry Houdini escaped from a sealed underwater coffin beneath this very roof when it was the Shelton Towers Hotel.”

Capturing memorable photographs is a lot like providing memorable customer service. By including an open car door on the right side of her photograph of Arizona’s Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, the photographer has added context by stimulating all those road trip memories.

In the same way, when the barista takes a moment to share with his customer that ‘macchiato’ means ‘marked or stained’ in Italian, saying, “Your espresso macchiato is ‘marked’ with a teaspoon of milk,” he’s done more than simply process an “old school” nondescript transaction. He has chosen to provide “new school” customer service by creating an interesting story for his customer, resulting in a lasting positive impression.

Don’t settle for ordinary. Choose extraordinary. (It’s always a choice.) Pre-order Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary by Steve Curtin (AMACOM Books, June 11, 2013)

Photo credit: Diane Cook & Len Jenshel

I know what you’re thinking. Do we really need another customer service book? Before you respond, consider your last customer service experience at a supermarket, restaurant, post office, car dealership, or airport. How did it go?

If research by the ACSI, J.D. Power and Associates, Bain & Company, and Echo Research is any indication, U.S. consumers are unimpressed with the quality of customer service they typically receive. I too am tired of tolerating mediocre customer service as if exceptional customer service is somehow unattainable or simply limited to an exclusive set of companies like Nordstrom, Disney, and Zappos.

After working in the hospitality industry for more than 20 years, I spent much of 2012 writing Delight Your Customers. Certainly there are many books available on the subject, so it’s fair to question what makes this book different from any other book on customer service that you’ve read (or ignored) lately. Unlike many books in the genre that contain the obligatory story about the surly flight attendant or the inattentive waiter followed by a 5-step process that conveniently spells S.M.I.L.E. (or similar), Delight Your Customers opens with an important distinction that will forever change the way employees (both hourly-paid and management) view their job roles.

By demystifying its root cause, Part One of the book reveals the source of lackluster (or worse) customer service quality and identifies three truths common to exceptional customer service. Part Two presents seven behaviors (not steps) that, when demonstrated by employees, distinguish extraordinary customer service from the ordinary, transactional variety to which you and I (and, evidently, most consumer research respondents) have grown accustomed. (Sorry, there are no contrived acronyms.) Part Three provides guidance on ways leadership can shape a work environment that fosters superior customer service by design rather than by chance.

Illustrated with real-world stories and more than 200 examples from a variety of industries, Delight Your Customers is a resource that will help readers take their customer service from ordinary to extraordinary!

Don’t settle for ordinary. Choose extraordinary. (It’s always a choice.) Take a minute now to reserve your copy: Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary (AMACOM Books, June 11, 2013). Thank you!

A story broke last week about the customer backlash against Maker’s Mark after the bourbon maker announced that, in order to stretch its supply to meet global demand, it had begun diluting its bourbon—reducing the alcohol content from 90 proof to 84 proof.

It turns out that bourbon shortages are not uncommon. Bill Samuels Jr., the company’s chairman emeritus, said that he presided over shortages in 20 of his 35 years at the helm of Maker’s Mark. (Too bad he didn’t preside over this one.)

Another well-known bourbon maker, Knob Creek, experienced a similar product shortage in 2009 but instead of diluting its product to meet demand, it took out full-page newspaper ads displaying an empty bottle of Knob Creek and the line, “Thanks for nothing.”

The ad went on to explain that, because Knob Creek is so popular, demand has finally outstripped supply. And since the bourbon maker refuses to sacrifice quality by reducing the 9-year aging process for its bourbon, there would likely be isolated product shortages for a number of months until the next batch is ready for bottling. I recall seeing the above ad in the Wall Street Journal during the summer of 2009, appreciating the message, and buying a bottle of Knob Creek within a day or two.

Maker’s Mark’s handling of its own shortage this month had a different effect on me. Rather than endearing me to its brand, it brought to mind the Aesop’s Fable, The Goose With the Golden Eggs. The greedy farmer exploited the goose for his own gain, ultimately killing it. Maker’s Mark’s recent misstep may not kill the brand but it certainly has tainted its reputation among bourbon drinkers and eroded its storied brand promise.

If there is a silver lining in all of this for Maker’s Mark, it’s that it may have less of a product shortage than originally forecast.