Last week, I emailed a file to a local office supply store that offers printing services. In the message, I included a request to be contacted regarding pricing and an estimated completion time.

A couple of hours later, since I had yet to hear back from anyone, I decided to phone the store:

Me: “Hello. I’m just calling to follow up on a job that I emailed to your print services department. Is someone from that area available?”

Employee: “No. They’ve all left for the day.” (Avoid saying “no” to customers. An alternative might have been, “I’m sorry. Our print services staff has left for the day. Is there something I may be able to help you with?” I understand about product/service specialization though, in 2009, businesses need to take a cue from Apple Stores and cross-utilize staff. There’s no reason why a store employee cannot access the printing department’s computer and determine a job’s status in the four hours that remain between the closing of the print shop and the closing of the store.)

Me: “What time will someone from print services be in tomorrow morning?”

Employee: “Someone is usually in at 9:00 am. Why don’t you call back then?” (”Usually” does not instill confidence and, if it can be avoided, customers should not be asked to call back. The employee could have easily taken my name and number and passed it along to the incoming member of the print services department.)

Me: Okay. I’ll call back in the morning.”

The next morning (after not hearing back from anyone in the print services department), I placed another call:

Me: “Hello. I’m calling to check on a printing job. Is someone from that department in this morning?”

Employee: “Yes, but he’s with a customer.” (Avoid saying “but” to a customer. Whenever possible, substitute the conjunction “although” or “and” in place of “but” for a softer tone. Here’s how it might be worded: “Yes, although he’s with a customer at this time. May I take your name and number and ask him to return the call within the next 5 minutes?”)

Me: “Okay. I emailed a file that I need to have printed in order to pick up this morning. I requested to be contacted before running the job but haven’t heard back from anyone. Could you tell me, is it their practice to check messages first thing?”

Employee: “Typically.” (”Typically” does not convey confidence. It’s kind of like hearing “sort of,” “maybe,” “probably,” “I’ll try,” or “I think so.” There’s not much confidence associated with these types of responses.)

In the book Up The Loyalty Ladder by Murray Raphel, the author cites a nationwide survey of buyers across the United States who were asked the question, “Why do you buy where you buy?” And no, the number one answer was not price (price was number five on the list). The number one reason people buy where they buy is confidence. Confidence in the business—the people, the products, and services.

The other reasons, in order, were: quality, selection, service, and price.

People want to shop where they feel they will be taken care of, where the quality of the product is consistent, and where what you promise is what you deliver.

Are your front line service providers projecting the confidence your customers are looking for?

Patient: Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away?
Doctor: If you aim it well enough.

Throughout history, humor has been recognized for its healing qualities. The proverb proclaims what modern science has confirmed: “A merry heart doeth good like medicine.” Medieval professor of surgery, Henri de Mondeville, recommended mirth as an aid to recovery from surgery. More recently, a growing body of scientific evidence has reinforced the physiological, mental, emotional, and social advantages of humor.

Laughter has been called “inner jogging” because it stimulates the cardiovascular system, increases the oxygen throughout one’s bloodstream, exercises facial muscles, shoulders, diaphragm, and abdomen. A study by Stanford University showed a good belly laugh can give you health benefits equal to 10 minutes on a rowing machine. While laughter itself is delightfully stimulating, the residual effects create a temporary reduction in blood pressure, respiration, heart rate, and muscle tension.

Laughter enhances creativity and problem solving, reduces stress, eases strained relationships, and promotes mental health. It may even strengthen the immune system and contribute to longevity. In fact, University of Chicago studies show a great sense of humor can add an additional 8 years to your life!

Exercising your sense of humor doesn’t mean that you need to tell jokes all the time or be the life of the party. Just be open to the comic relief that daily life provides and cultivate the ability to not take yourself too seriously.

The French novelist, Colette, said, “Total absence of humor renders life impossible.” Being purposeful about using appropriate humor in the workplace not only affords employee morale and health benefits, it also makes customers’ experiences memorable—and that certainly beats the alternative!

Let’s do a word association. You know how these work: I’ll name a word and you, off the top of your head, identify a set of words that you associate with that word. Ready?

The first word is indifference. What words immediately come to mind?

The second word is enthusiasm. What words immediately come to mind?

When I perform this activity at my seminars, participants’ associations with “indifference” are words like: apathy, don’t care, unimportant, don’t matter, etc. and their associations with “enthusiasm” are words like: lively, energetic, smile, radiant, etc.

Consider this statistic: 68 percent of customers quit doing business with a company because of perceived indifference towards them as customers.

In other words, lots of customers feel as though employees are apathetic and don’t care, and that, as customers, they are unimportant and don’t matter to the company.

What could be leading customers to feel this way? Everyone’s experience is unique but definitely interpersonal communication effects this perception. When employees don’t smile, make eye contact, or add a bit of enthusiasm to their voices, customers notice.

But here’s the good news: When employees do smile, make eye contact, and add a bit of enthusiasm to their voices, customers recognize that too. And because it’s a change from the indifferent service that most customers have come to expect, it stands out as refreshing, unique, and memorable.

Recently, I was reading the book Love Your Patients by Scott Louis Diering, M.D. and came across the following passage:

“Everyone is important. Every person you meet is very, very important. Every patient’s problem, every concern, every appointment, every minute is very, very important. Everything is important to someone. All we need do is recognize that importance. Enthusiasm is the easiest way for our patients to know that they are important.

When we act with enthusiasm, our patients will know that we truly take them seriously. We must ‘get into it.’ Many of the techniques and suggestions (referenced above) show our enthusiasm: We nod our head, make eye contact, and listen intently. We do these things to show our patients that they are our biggest concern.

It does not matter how many other more urgent problems we have to deal with. It does not matter that our last patient and our next patient are dying. What matters is, while we are with this patient, we are not distracted, bored, uninterested or unconcerned…

The best ways to show our enthusiasm are to thank our patients, to ask some non-healthcare questions about them, and to let them know that we are glad to see them…

Someone may criticize this view. They may say small talk distracts us from real patient care. They are wrong. Our business is people. The more we know about our patients, the better we can serve them.”

Many job roles, regardless of industry, become process-focused and routine over time. Service providers systematically go about their tasks and may unwittingly convey indifference towards the customers they serve.

Always look for opportunities to convey authentic enthusiasm: smile, make eye contact, add enthusiasm to your voice, ask engaging, non-routine questions and let your customers know that you’re genuinely happy to serve them.

In doing so, you will be expressing your uniqueness by adding personality to an otherwise routine and indifferent transaction. Best of all, you will be seen by customers as memorable—which certainly beats the alternative.

Last night, my family and I visited one of those ice cream parlors that use a heated stone to meld together savory concoctions of an array of sweets and premium ice cream. Because each order is usually custom-made, it takes a bit longer to fulfill orders here than in typical ice cream shops where you order a flavor, a size, and you’re done.

When my family of six entered the store there was only one customer ahead of us. So far, so good. As my kids were deciding on the combination of treats they were planning to add to their ice cream, I noticed another three groups of customers come in behind us. I thought to myself, “Good timing.”

About this time, I realized that the young man working behind the counter was alone. There was no one in back to support the half-dozen or so customers who had lined up behind us. Others noticed too. I was reading the body language of customers who were rolling their eyes, sighing, looking at their watches, and craning their necks over the counter to see if another employee was hiding out in the back room. After several minutes with no forward progress, not surprisingly, the couple at the end of the line walked out.

You might be thinking that this is going to be a blog post about the importance of proper staffing and you’d be half-right. Staffing levels are important. It doesn’t make sense to try and shave labor hours at the expense of customer satisfaction and sales. But staffing is only part of this dilemma. The other aspects are employee attitude and the processes that are in place to mitigate the negative effects of being “in the weeds.”

Our server, Amir, displayed a great attitude. He took a moment to make eye contact with other customers in the line, smiled, and nodded as if to say, “I recognize that you are awaiting service and look forward to serving you.” Instead of appearing rushed and anxious, he smiled comfortably, offered samples to our kids, and served us as if no line had formed. I appreciated that and told him so.

Now, here’s where the processes that lessen the negative effects of being “in the weeds” come in. Having ordered three specials (which included a free kid-sized ice cream bowl for each medium-sized bowl purchased at the regular price), Amir told me that he needed to process three separate transactions. I told him that I was paying with a credit card and it might speed things up to put them all on the same transaction.

He was stuck. Despite sound judgment (and better customer service), he deferred to policy saying, “I know it would be faster but it’s store policy to ring up specials separately.” He was using one of those tiny dial-up machines so the delay (and customer angst) was compounded. So, as customers continued to wait—rolling their eyes, and looking at their watches—he ran my credit card three separate times, and issued three separate charge slips for me to total and authorize three separate times.

It was another example to me of subordinating customer service to protocol and policy. And the customers waited…

So, what’s a service business to do? Last summer, I wrote an article that contains several customer-focused actions that employees can take to get through the inevitable periods of high customer volume that most successful service businesses frequently experience.

Check it out and make sure your staff is prepared to take care of customers during periods of high volume. Also, review any policies that are in place that may not make sense for the customer even if they help you with your internal functions.

After all, customers are the reason that your business has internal functions—not the other way around.

When I was ten years old, during the summer months when we were out of school, my friends and I used to walk to a local shopping center to buy packs of gum or candy bars—whatever we could get for 50 cents or so.

I remember how hot the summers were in Kansas and how we would always end up at Hayward’s Pit Barbeque, a cramped restaurant at the corner of 95th and Antioch in Overland Park. The owner, Hayward Spears, at that time was the cook, cashier, table busser, and dishwasher. Our motley crew of sweaty kids would step inside the air-conditioned restaurant to cool off with no intention of buying anything.

Instead of running us out to create more room for paying customers, Hayward would bring us cups of ice water. The image is still so vivid. Do you recall those textured red and gold plastic cups? It seems like most barbeque and pizza restaurants used that style of cup back then. He’d bring over a tray of those cups with the condensation trickling down the sides and we would each take one and quench our thirsts.

Why so much detail in that description? Because it was a powerful memory for a ten year old boy that left a lasting impression.

In the years since that time, Hayward has expanded his barbeque empire to include a much larger restaurant near the corner of Antioch and College Boulevard, a banquet facility, catering, and offers a full line of barbeque sauces, which have become a staple of grocery and specialty stores throughout the Midwest.

A few years ago when I was back in Overland Park on business, I stopped into Hayward’s as I always do when I return. This time, to my delight, I saw Hayward greeting customers inside the entryway! I introduced myself, we shook hands, and I told him the same story I’m telling you. I told Hayward that, even though Kansas City is filled with quality barbeque restaurants, I always return to his restaurant because of the treatment I received three decades earlier as a sweaty kid on summer break.

Not surprisingly, Hayward has heard similar stories from other customers who themselves go out of their way to buy his barbeque. In fact, Hayward’s is so popular that they’re now serving more than five thousand customers a week!

There’s a saying that if you do it right every time, you’ll be doing it right at the right time. I bet Hayward Spears had no idea back then that his actions would make such a lasting impression on me that I would be posting a blog 33 years later about the memorable customer service I received.

Then again, did we even know what a blog was in 1976?