This morning I stopped by my local King Soopers to pick up a few groceries. One of the items on my list was a pound of sliced turkey from the deli counter. Sometimes I pass on deli meat if there’s a wait but today I was in luck as there was no line!

One aspect of my business involves mystery shop services, so I’m in the habit of evaluating wait times, employee behavior, cleanliness, and other aspects of customer experience. I started my watch.

As I stood in front of the deli counter, I noticed there were four employees present: a butcher preparing the display case in the meat department adjacent to the deli counter and three deli employees busily performing their job functions.

This is an important observation. As I waited, not one of the four employees was goofing off, sending a text, reading a newspaper, or talking with a coworker. All were on task.

While one employee had his back to me, the others were all facing forward. At six feet tall and 200 pounds, I am not a small man but no one seemed to notice me. I waited. Two minutes went by, then three minutes. As I continued to wait, a blog post began to form…

Consumer behavior is fascinating. There are a variety of ways that different customers might choose to deal with this situation. Some customers, in the absence of a bell, will wave their hand or call out to get an employee’s attention. Others, giving the employees the benefit of the doubt and being sympathetic to their side duties, will patiently wait to be acknowledged.

Personally, I’m inclined to walk away. Why should I reward poor customer service with a sale when there are three competing supermarkets within a mile of each other?

After three and a half minutes, I made eye contact with the butcher who smiled and nearly disappeared from view before he halted, recognized that I had been waiting a while, and called out, “Counter!”

The deli employee who approached me did not smile. Perhaps she was annoyed that I had interrupted her side work? She conveyed indifference as she prepared to execute another deli transaction: Take the order, slice the meat, weigh the meat, bag the meat, price the meat, and deliver the meat… “Next?”

Because of her demeanor, I made the decision not to reward King Soopers with a $6.99 sale for a pound of Private Selection Oven Roasted Turkey and decided instead to just pick up only the essential items on my list.

While in another part of the store, I encountered the assistant store manager, Ronnie, and shared my experience at the deli counter. She listened to my description of events, apologized on behalf of the deli employees, and made the comment, “It’s because you’re wearing a white shirt. You blended in!”

Ronnie was good natured and having a little fun—and I appreciate that. I did explain to her, however, that the reason I was overlooked had less to do with my attire than deli employees focusing exclusively on their job functions (the duties and tasks associated with their job roles) and neglecting the essence of their jobs (their highest priority): To create delighted customers.

She listened patiently, then offered to go to the deli counter and pick up a pound of the sliced turkey for me free of charge. I told her that was not necessary but she insisted.

While she was away retrieving the turkey, I checked-out and asked the cashier to charge me for one pound of Private Selection Oven Roasted Turkey and be sure to make Ronnie aware that I had paid for it.

The reason I did that is because there are many cynical employees who believe customers only complain to get something for free. That’s simply not true. Most customers complain because their expectations (for quality, accuracy, timeliness, etc.) were not met.

Ronnie met me at the store exit with the deli meat, smiled, and apologized again. Like many customers in the same situation, I thanked her for her help and left the store.

What happens next is entirely up to me. Will I put the experience behind me and return to King Soopers as I did following this incident or will I vote with my feet and shop across the street?

Of this I’m certain: If I choose to return, the quality of customer service I receive will be determined by whether or not employees choose to view me as a priority rather than an interruption—not the color of my shirt.

This post is the first in a series over the next 10 weeks that will identify 10 different obstacles that have emerged from my analysis of customer satisfaction data. Maybe you will have encountered one or more of these obstacles in your own business? The first obstacle is apathy.

Apathy takes many forms, including: neglect, indifference, and unresponsiveness.

I took the photo to the right at a small strip center in my neighborhood. The center contains a nail salon and a dry cleaner. Both businesses will succeed or fail based on their ability to improve the appearance of their customers—whether nails or attire. Yet neither business seems interested in improving the appearance of their stores’ exterior.

Now some will say, “If I’m the tenant, it’s not my responsibility. Certainly building maintenance, landscaping, and snow removal are included in the lease.”

“It’s not my responsibility?” That’s just another way of saying, “It’s not my job.”

This sentiment plagues customer service everywhere. I’m confident most of us have heard an employee say, “It’s not my job” or “It’s not my department” in response to our questions or concerns.

While I haven’t read their leases, I have formed an impression about both businesses—and it isn’t positive. Why should I have confidence that the dry cleaner will pay careful attention to detail with my garments when it so egregiously neglects the appearance of its storefront?

The opposite of apathy is initiative. And initiative simply requires a choice. Many service providers choose the well-worn path of least resistance. This results in predictable, routine, and indifferent customer service.

But exceptional service providers make the conscious choice daily to accept personal responsibility, take initiative, and make positive lasting impressions on their customers—even if that means doing something that’s “not my job” like, say, pulling weeds.

The other day, I trailed a King Soopers employee as she returned about a half-dozen shopping carts from the parking lot to the store.

She pushed the row of carts into another row of carts inside the store and then, with a dreary facial expression and a heavy sigh, returned to the parking lot to collect more shopping carts.

Besides her enervated body language, I noticed two things that telegraphed a lack of concern for her customers:

1.) By not bothering to evenly distribute the carts, she created an inconveniently long row of carts that left a very narrow space between the last cart and the wall. This created a bottleneck that forced shoppers attempting to exit the store to form a single file line.

2.) Although it was quite obvious in a short row of six or seven carts, she neglected to notice the used drink cup lodged in one of the carts (pictured). Or, worse, noticed the cup and chose to do nothing about it.

To me, this employee conveyed disinterest in her work and indifference towards serving customers.

So, what went wrong?

On the surface, it’s easy to blame the employee for being careless or lazy. But there may be other forces at work…

I’m reminded of the adage, “Blame the process, not the people.” In that spirit, King Soopers should examine every process that may have contributed to this young woman performing as she did during my visit.

Several come to mind: recruiting, selection, onboarding, training, managerial modeling, performance management (e.g., feedback/recognition), standards, etc.

In most cases where I have observed apathetic employee behavior, I have also observed ad hoc recruiting efforts, inadequate selection criteria, unstructured onboarding, insufficient training, inconsistent supervisory modeling, non-existent performance management, and low (or undisclosed) standards. In such environments, employees are set up to fail.

If I were advising King Soopers, the first thing I would do is revisit the performance standards. In the absence of high standards, good is good enough. Can you imagine King Soopers, or any company, embracing “Good is good enough” as its credo or slogan?

Once the standards (and expectations) have been set and communicated, every single process—from recruiting to performance appraisals—must reflect and uphold these high standards.

Next, I would remind its staff that their jobs consist of both job functions—the duties and tasks associated with their job roles (e.g., returning carts from the lot to the store) and job essence—their purpose/highest priority (e.g., anticipating customers’ needs and paying attention to details).

Most employees define their entire jobs solely in terms of job functions. And why shouldn’t they? Oftentimes, the feedback they receive from management—assuming they receive feedback at all—pertains strictly to the duties and tasks associated with their job roles.

When employees focus exclusively on job function, their jobs may become routine, monotonous, and transactional. In work environments like this, employees tend to become disinterested in their work and indifferent towards serving customers.

But when employees recognize the totality of their roles, which includes both job function and job essence, they are predisposed to provide exceptional customer service—by anticipating customers needs, paying attention to details, and expressing genuine interest in serving customers in other ways.

And this is not just wishful thinking. It is possible.

You wouldn’t expect to encounter a surly employee at Chick-fil-A, an unresponsive phone rep at Zappos, an apathetic salesperson at Nordstrom, or a used drink cup lying along Main Street, U.S.A. at Disneyland. Would you?

These companies have set exceedingly high performance standards and their employees are acutely aware of them. Employees also recognize both their job responsibilities as well as their higher purpose: to create delighted customers.

So, while employees are responsible for their personal conduct and performance in the workplace, their employers are responsible for setting high standards, for establishing processes that position employees to delight customers, and for defining an employee’s entire job role.

What do you think?

Last January I was one of those people who bought a new wall-mounted flat screen television set just in time to watch the Super Bowl on 52 inches of high definition eye candy.

I only have about 500 words, so I’ll spare you most of the gory details of my experience with Best Buy. Problems began when, after missing a four-hour installation window, my salesperson ignored repeated messages requesting an update that were left on his cell phone. Even more shocking, the store itself was not answering its phone at 3pm on a Friday!

Without being able to learn the fate of the Geek Squad installation crew, I took to Twitter and eventually heard back from @Coral_BestBuy. Although she was responsive, I got the impression that unless I could reach my salesperson or a store manager, the system would not be installed that day—and may not be installed in time to watch the game on Sunday.

After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally reached a store manager who lit the necessary fires to have an installation crew to my house by 6pm in order to complete the installation by 9:45pm.

In the days following the installation, as charges began to appear on my credit card, I noticed pricing discrepancies totaling $270.

I brought this to the attention of the same store manager with whom I spoke the Friday before and she said that she’d look into it and get back to me. That was on February 9^th.

On February 14^th, I exchanged Valentine’s cards with my wife but was feeling no love for Best Buy. I detailed my experience in a letter (old-fashioned, I know…) to Best Buy CEO, Brian Dunn and VP, Customer Care, Lisa Smith.

That was over a month ago and I have yet to hear back—not even a form letter. Either they have a tremendous backlog of customer complaints to respond to or they are simply indifferent toward customers. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s the former.

In reflecting on my Best Buy experience, I would rate my touch points and employee interactions as follows:

• In-store salesperson (pre-sale): Helpful
• In-store salesperson (post-sale): Fail
• Phone calls to store: Fail
• Twitter rep (@Coral_BestBuy): Responsive
• Store manager (regarding installation): Helpful
• Geek Squad installation crew: Outstanding
• Store manager (regarding pricing discrepancies): Fail
• Corporate headquarters: Fail

When half of your interactions with a company result in failure, that’s not good. The other insight I gleaned from this experience is that, if Twitter is your customer service strategy, you’re in trouble.

A responsive Twitter rep will not compensate for a salesperson’s refusal to return a call, a manager’s failure to resolve a pricing discrepancy, or corporate headquarters’ indifference toward a customer’s letter.

Regardless of whether your company has an engaging Facebook or Twitter presence, if you’re going to succeed with customers, you still must honor commitments, return messages, answer phones, resolve disputes, and respond to letters.

Otherwise, like Best Buy, you’ve failed.

Typically, when you think of airline connections, you think of events that occur between departure and arrival at your final destination.

But there’s another type of connection that’s equally important to the long-term success of an airline: personal connections.

I recently read a Wall Street Journal article about the customer service training being offered to 11,000 Delta Air Lines agents.

A few points in the article stood out:

1. Delta emphasizes being “present” when serving customers, suggesting that if agents don’t remember their last three customers, they’re just processing.

I loved this insight. In fact, employees who “just process” or simply go through the motions may be the single greatest barrier to companies achieving consistently high levels of customer satisfaction.

Every employee’s job is made up of both job functions (the duties associated with a job role) and job essence (his highest priority which, for most companies, is to create delighted customers). Issuing a boarding pass is a job function. Making a personal connection is job essence.

Many employees focus almost exclusively on job function. The result is accurate work that conforms to standards. In the process, however, customers often receive homogeneous, bland and uneventful service during the transaction and no personal connection is made.

2. After surveying customers, Delta discovered that one of their recurring frustrations was that “no one cared or apologized” when something went wrong.

Bravo to Delta for surveying its customers and learning how frustrating it is when employees don’t seem to care and refuse to apologize when something goes wrong. (Although this revelation is not surprising.)

Apathy or indifference conveyed by customer-contact employees is pervasive throughout the service industry—and airline agents are notoriously indifferent toward mishaps such as lost luggage, delays, and canceled flights.

By apologizing and expressing genuine interest when something goes wrong, employees can establish a personal connection, neutralize the customer’s frustration, and actually increase overall satisfaction and customer loyalty.

3. Later in the article, Delta reveals a peek behind the curtain at some of the lessons being taught to agents during the customer service training. For instance, “Never apologize for baggage fees when customers complain.”

I thought it was ironic that in the same article that Delta acknowledged customer frustration because “no one cared or apologized,” the airline would then advise its agents to “never apologize for baggage fees when customers complain.”

In fact, one of its customer service training role-play scenarios deals with customers who are angry when asked to pay baggage fees. If Delta knows this is a hot button with passengers, why escalate matters by instructing agents to refuse to apologize?

There’s no harm in apologizing to passengers by saying, “I’m sorry that you were surprised by the baggage fee.” From there, the agent can offer an explanation for the charge, such as: “To provide the best value, we offer an a la carte menu of services where customers pay only for what they use.”

It’s much easier to establish a personal connection with a disappointed passenger by apologizing and expressing genuine interest in working together to resolve her problem. It doesn’t mean the agent agrees with her position, for instance, on the merit of baggage fees. He is not admitting fault, making excuses, or assigning blame. He is simply empathizing.

The opportunity I see for Delta agents is to anticipate the problems that their customers will likely experience (lost luggage, delays, missed airline connections, baggage fees, etc.) and then rehearse problem resolution approaches that include the words “I’m sorry” and expressing genuine empathy.

In the airline industry, connections are important. And while properly boarding connecting flights is a vital job function, making personal connections is the essence of every agent’s job.

Though business has its own set of complexities, customer service isn’t one of them. Exceptional customer service is simply a choice.

Employees develop their own definitions of customer service and decide for themselves how they view customers: as honored guests who contribute to the success of the enterprise or as fickle adversaries who are just looking for the best deal.

And, as the lyrics from Rush’s Freewill advise, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

This describes most customer service employees. They have not made a conscious choice to provide exceptional customer service. As a result, they are indifferent toward customer service and customers.

Why haven’t they made a conscious choice? No one’s asked them to. In most cases, no one’s even brought it up.

As a result, employees go about their shifts tending to the mandatory job functions (i.e., the duties associated with an employee’s job role) for which they are accountable (you can bet these conversations have occurred) but give little or no thought to the essence of their jobs, their highest priority—to create delighted customers.

Ignorance may be bliss but it’s bad for business.

68 percent of customers surveyed quit doing business with a company because of perceived indifference toward them as customers.

Oftentimes, employees don’t even recognize when they treat customers indifferently. If you were to poll them, most would rate the quality of their personal customer service as excellent.

Why the discrepancy? There are many factors. Here are three:

1.  leadership apathy

2.  managerial myopia

3.  systems/processes that undermine service quality

If company leaders don’t emphasize the jugular importance of customer service to their employees, where else do they expect them to get the message? The framed mission statement hanging in the reception area? The employee handbook? Please…

Managers are largely tasked with running a profitable operation within a given budget. In order to accomplish this, managers oversee the execution of a set of defined job functions associated with one or more job roles. This is not the problem.

The problem is when managers focus solely on job functions and neglect job essence—an employee’s highest priority—which is always to create delighted customers. (Unless, of course, you work for the US Postal Service or some other entity that can lose $8.5B a year and continue to exist. Then, I suppose you can focus exclusively on job function and get away with it.)

Many organizations create systems or processes that undermine service quality. Perhaps the most common are call centers where employees are evaluated based on the quantity of phone calls processed and how quickly they can end those calls. In these environments, employees are conditioned to treat calls as timed transactions rather than opportunities to serve customers.

In the end, it requires a choice. Employees choose whether or not to express genuine interest, convey authentic enthusiasm, provide pleasant surprises or, in some other way, delight their customers.

Company leaders can influence this choice when they communicate their passion for serving customers in words and deeds. Managers can guide this choice by emphasizing the importance of both job function and job essence. And systems will reinforce this choice when they are designed to serve customers rather than frustrate them.

I welcome all comments, questions, bouquets, and brickbats.

In an earlier post I asked the question, “Why is it okay to behave indifferently toward customers and roll out the red carpet for the division president?” Specifically, why do employees paint, wax the floors, and polish the chrome for the division president and text friends, smoke near store entrances, and complain and banter in the presence of customers?

I have a theory about this. Here it is: Familiarity breeds contempt. Most employees rarely come into contact with and, thus, aren’t familiar with the division president. Oh sure, they may know his or her name but they’re usually not familiar to the point of lowering their guard in the executive’s presence.

Not so with customers. Customer-facing employees come into contact with customers all the time. And whether or not there is personal familiarity with a particular customer, there is a sense of familiarity with customers in general. And where there’s excessive comfort and familiarity, there’s contempt—a lack of respect—and a tendency to take the relationship for granted.

It’s not that employees don’t know what service is or how to deliver it. They do. And they showcase this aptitude in the presence of the division president. The issue is that many seem disaffected by customers—as in, “Oh, you’re just a customer. For a minute there I thought you were someone important, like the division president.”

In the introductory paragraph of this post, I listed three behaviors that I regularly observe in retail settings. These behaviors are chronic. They occur frequently. The only time they are exceptions is when the division president is on-site.

When executives grace the operation with their presence, the floors are spotless, there are plenty of employees scheduled, employees’ uniforms are pressed, there are lots of smiles, and there is a sense of urgency—dare I say, a bit of giddiness and extra pressure to perform?

The best operations don’t distinguish between a scheduled site visit by a division president and the scheduled opening of the store to service customers. Sure, there may be a bit of anxiety associated with the presence of a company executive—that’s natural—but the company’s standards don’t wane in the absence of headquarters staff.

Nordstrom comes to mind as an example of a retailer who puts its best foot forward whether a customer or Blake Nordstrom is entering the shoe department. The last time I was in Nordstrom, an employee from the men’s department walked me to the women’s department in search of an umbrella. When we returned to the men’s department, I decided to buy a bottle of cologne too. It was an impulse buy—in the moment. I didn’t plan to buy it and, in the absence of his outstanding service, I would not have.

Here’s an assignment for division presidents everywhere: If you really want to see how your operations run, stop by unannounced in a ball cap and jeans over the weekend. Don’t embarrass anyone. Just observe and take mental notes about what you see—the positive as well as need areas.

Then, assuming there was a gap (or chasm) between what you observed during your last official visit and this one, take action. Establish or reinforce credible standards to guide employees’ behavior. Make sure that every manager is aware of the standards and actively uses them to manage their employees’ performance. And, perhaps most importantly, hold managers accountable to model these standards at all times. If they don’t, the standards are no longer credible and become unenforceable.

Bob Farrell, author of Give ‘em the Pickle, is fond of saying, “What they see is what you’ll get.” When employees see their managers modeling established standards of service and procedure, they will perform similarly. When this happens, employees will stop texting friends, smoking near store entrances, and complaining and bantering in the presence of customers. And they will no longer seem disaffected by customers. Instead, they will treat them with the same courtesy, respect, and care with which they treat the division president.

Who’s more important: the division president or the customer? You decide and then your employees will follow suit.