I was in New York City for a business trip a week or so before my 10-year wedding anniversary. One afternoon, I stopped by the Tiffany & Co. flagship store on 5th Avenue to look at anniversary rings. A thoughtful representative named Duncan showed me several rings as he explained
I spent a fair amount of time last month on TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Yelp, and other websites offering hotel reviews. A majority of those reviews were written by hotel guests whose experiences were either very good or a very bad. It seems that when guests have an ordinary or typical experience,
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,
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
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
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
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
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
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
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