Midweek Marketing: Delta Builds Customer Experience One Detail at a Time
“Success is the sum of the details.” Harvey S. Firestone
I’ve been an unapologetic critic of the money losing and seemingly customer hating airline industry for many years. Anyone who has flown a million miles or more has a good view to the workings of this flying bus business (with apologies to bus companies), and the view is mostly unpleasant. (Not always, just mostly.)
Imagine my surprise when I deviated on my return trip from my normal dealings with United, and flew Delta, and I actually enjoyed the experience. I checked my calendar and it wasn’t April Fools Day or Halloween, so all of the truly good-natured, helpful and smiling Delta employees might have actually meant it.
With more than ample time on my hands in two airports, I decided to go on an anthropological expedition of Delta operations. Here’s what I saw:
7 Details that Made the Delta Experience Delightful:
1. Happy, smiling employees serving customers. From gate agents to the flight crews, I didn’t run into a single Delta employee who didn’t smile and offer help. Yes, I used the “s” and the “h” words here. These people seemed genuinely happy to work with customers. (Related post: Smiles, Sales and Leadership.)
2. A lack of grumpy employees. Yeah I know this is redundant with my first point, but I’m still kind of shocked. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve observed the crews from other airlines (mostly United) bad-mouth their firm when they think no one is listening (sorry, I was walking behind you), or just visibly show the world that they didn’t give a damn. My favorite was the United flight attendant who wore a button that said, and I quote: “This airline sucks.” While some people accuse me of dreaming that one up, I almost needed to go into therapy after seeing that display of callous disregard for firm, clients and self.
3. Readily available help. Traveler help was everywhere, including an abundance of small kiosks offering: “Missed Your Connection? Scan Your Ticket Here for Alternatives.” Getting help when things go bad is one of the more stressful elements of flying, and here was an attempt to ease this burden. Nice. The ground-agents waiting to greet passengers and offer personal success were always there…and always smiling.
4. Easy access to the necessities of travel life. The world of business travel survives and thrives on plug-ins for power, internet access, good food and clean restrooms. A+ in the Delta terminals for these critical travel comforts.
5. Company Pride on Display! Every Delta plane sported a decal indicating that Delta had been named one of the World’s Most Admired Corporations (tops in the airline industry) according to Fortune. OK, a little chest thumping is OK if you can back it up.
6. Employee Pride on Display! Every plane had a decal on it under the Fortune banner indicating an employee who had excelled at their job. Nice…what a badge of pride if your name hits the list. (I seem to recall that this is a long-standing practice, and if so, it’s still a good idea.)
7. Pleasant flight crews who seemed to enjoy their jobs. The banter by the pilots seemed extraordinarily friendly and the rest of the flight crew engaged with customers in way that only Southwest seems to have ever cared about.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
While I’m not certain that my two terminal/two flight experience offers a valid sample set, the experience with Delta yesterday was noticeably different than the gross majority of my other airline experiences. Someone seems to be paying attention at Delta. It almost sounds like good leadership and excellent marketing… and great execution…concepts sorely lacking in much of the rest of this industry. The great experience is most definitely in the details.
I’m looking forward to my next opportunity to see if I was lucky or if they’re truly good. And for executives and marketers everywhere, It behooves you to give your employees reasons to smile and serve. The customers are watching.
Leadership Caffeine-Need Market Insight? Ride with a Sales Rep and Learn
Filed under: Career, Customer Service, Leadership, Management Education, Professional Growth, Sales
I had just been hired on in a senior strategic marketing role in an industry new to me, and job one was acclimating to the market and industry dynamics and trying to understand what a customer looked like in this world.
After the obligatory round of meetings with company executives, division heads and as many of their team members as I could convince to allocate some time, I recognized that the context, while appreciated, lacked the depth you can only gain from connecting with customers and industry players on their home turf. No rocket science here, just good common sense.
The sales and customer teams were happy to schedule some client meetings with me, and I appreciated their courtesy, but I wanted to go about this in a different manner.
The typical “new executive wants to meet customers” meetings (or, as I’ve heard them referenced, “educate the idiot from corporate” meetings) many of us have attended or at least witnessed, are largely ceremonial and usually highly caloric. Long lunches or factory tours followed by fancy dinners are lousy ways to do anything other than waste everyone’s time and expand your waistline. I suggested an alternative.
I asked for the opportunity to ride-along/travel with the firm’s top sales representative from each region. I wanted to gain my insights through the windshield and eyes of the people out finding and serving clients and partners. I had the good fortune to be working with a sales executive who understood that the better educated I was, the better I could work with and serve his team. And to ensure that I was in for the full experience, he set me up with two week long trips…Sunday night to Friday.
5 Valuable Lessons You Learn Riding with a Great Sales Professional:
1. Success knows no shortcuts. There is no down time. Waking hours are working hours. From planning time over breakfast to strategizing in parking lots to setting up the next few days activities during the evenings. The only thing that a sales representative has to invest is time, and the best ones invest this time wisely.
2. Follow the money after you understand the real problems. You need to know both the people with the budgets and the people with the problems. We met with plenty of decision-makers on our tour, usually after spending considerable time with the people doing the work and feeling the pain points.
3. The best way in to a new client is usually not through the front door. When we found ourselves with rare time between scheduled meetings, I learned a few lessons in people skills and chutzpah as this rep pulled into a gated parking lot after saying out loud, “I’ve been meaning to get into this firm for awhile. Let’s try it.” He proceeded to talk our way through the guard gate. Instead of heading in the front door, we started at the docks and ended up eventually finding the person with the right title for a 30-minute introduction meeting. This person was so impressed with the creativity of getting in to see him, he agreed to give us time at his team’s monthly meeting. While security measures may have tightened since he employed that approach, the lesson was very real.
4. It’s impossible to know what’s really going on in a game from the skybox seats. After weeks of listening to glowing reports of all of the great things my new company was doing (and why competitors were flummoxed in the process), it was painfully clear that the market reality didn’t match the corporate messaging. Warts, bumps, bruises, bruised egos, the emotions from the customers and alliance partners impacted by the programs, and the true strengths of competitors suddenly became much clearer after talking with the people using and selling our systems.
5. After riding with a rep, your view on supporting the front-line team members will never be the same. Spend a few weeks total riding or travelling with your top representatives, and in spite of the early awkwardness, you will form an important bond with these individuals, and you will cultivate a level of empathy for the challenges of everyone in that role that will make you a better professional.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
I recognize that not everyone has the latitude to “ride with a rep.” However, you can foster relationships and seek out the insights and wisdom of the people carrying the bags and cultivating the clients. Find ways to provide help to the people in the field and show genuine interest in learning from and supporting these professionals, and they will repay you with insights and observations you can only learn in the trenches.
For those who come into senior roles, you will likely have the opportunity to gain access to clients and other staff members. Say “no thanks” to the ceremonial and mostly superficial client meetings at this level, and roll up your sleeves and help carry the bags for your top producers for a few days. The education is priceless.
Dispatches from Mayo: “It’s a Privilege to Work Here”
Filed under: Career, Customer Service, Leadership, Life and Business, Management Education, Organizational Transformation, Performance
There’s no doubt one of the most significant challenges any service organization faces is how to sustain excellence in service delivery over long periods of time. After all, service organizations live or die based on the passion and commitment of the people providing the service. Once the passion goes, the service trends to the ordinary. Or worse.
Continuing my social anthropological work while immersed in Mayo, I had an opportunity to chat informally with a nursing student serving as an assistant here as part of her education. Her comments speak volumes about Mayo’s approach to passing along that pride and passion from generation to generation of service providers.
She grew up in the area around Rochester, MN, and when I asked her directly what it was like to be training and eventually working here, she offered (I paraphrase):
When you grow up around here, you just come to expect Mayo as the “normal” in healthcare. It’s not until you go to school somewhere else and then come in here and start listening to the patients and their stores that you begin to realize this is some place truly special.
Me: How does Mayo work with younger professionals like you to help build that sense of pride that is so evident?
Her: Really, it’s working with the patients and then working with the people that have been here for a long time. You learn very quickly about how much patients from around the world value being here. And you learn very quickly from the staff what a privilege it is to work here.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
I’ll end at, “What a privilege it is to work here.” Think about that. How many people do you know who view their employers through that filter? Those that do are the fortunate ones. And for those of you leading others, how do your people feel about working for you and your team? If it’s something short of “privilege,” you’ve got a few decades worth of work to do.
Frontline Leaders Help Our Firms Go and Grow
Filed under: Customer Service, Leadership, Organizational Transformation, Performance, Strategy, Talent Management
Fred Hassan’s article, The Frontline Advantage, in the May 2011 Harvard Business Review (subscription required), turns the spotlight on the too-easily ignored and truly critical frontline leaders who make our organizations go and grow. Frontline leaders are of course the managers and supervisors directly responsible for those doing the work.
“Typically, they make up 50% to 60% of a company’s management ranks and directly supervise as much as 80% of the workforce.”
Underscoring the importance of this group of leaders, Hassan offers:
“It is the frontline managers who must motivate and bolster the morale of the people who do the work-those who design, make and sell the products or services to the customers. These managers are central to a company’s business strategy because they oversee its execution.”
While there’s much I don’t like about this article, including my interpretation of Hassan’s royal CEO and sometime turn-around miracle worker taking a pampered and well-facilitated walk amongst the common folk tone, his core theme: frontline leaders are really important is spot on. (In Hassan’s defense, he clearly highlights that his advice is for other CEOs.)
Great Front-line Leaders Create “Hustle and Flow”
Regular readers know I’ve got a problem with stores and businesses where customers seem to serve as inconveniences to sourpuss cashiers, unhelpful shelf-stockers and clusters of employees gabbing about something other than improving customer service. While those workers are just plain wrong, the responsibility for their performance falls squarely on the frontline leaders.
Alternatively, the businesses where you are welcomed, greeted with a smile by every employee you encounter and where your problems are politely and promptly solved, and where the energy level seems to say, “let’s help, and let’s be prompt about it,” owe their success to great people selection and day-to-day leadership of good frontline leaders.
Great frontline leaders create great experiences for their employees. This flows immediately and directly to customers. And then it flows to the top and bottom lines.
Wrinkly-Shirted Bridge Lizards Need Not Apply:
During an interview for Practical Lessons in Leadership, one of the managers at a company we visited, indicated that the frontline leaders who did the most damage were the Wrinkly-Shirted managers, who preferred to spy on everyone from behind the one-way glass on the “bridge” above the retail floor, rather than interact with employees and customers.
The visual image of a green, scale-covered manager wearing a wrinkled corporate-issue button down shirt, standing on high with a tongue occasionally flickering out, and glowering at everyone through beady, black eyes, is a powerful and fitting image of the worst-kind of frontline leader.
Five Reasons why Great Front-Line Leaders are Priceless:
1. Frontline leaders are close to the customer. They know how the customers respond to every brilliant and not-so-brilliant idea that rolls out of corporate. They know the tastes and habits and brand preferences and problems of their customers, and they know what’s going on with competition in detail, long before corporate types have analyzed the latest competitive press release. These individuals are treasure-troves of real-time, detailed customer and market information.
2. Hassan is right…frontline leaders are the ones who execute on strategy. Everyone else plans, talks, reports, critiques and thinks about strategy execution…front-line leaders live it. Want to do a better job executing on plans where it counts…educate and support the frontline leaders and let them know how important they are in this process.
3. Frontline leaders directly determine how right or wrong the working environment (atmosphere) is for the employees serving the customers. A healthy, respectful working environment where employees are given quality feedback, supported for development and encouraged to cultivate new schools through training and job rotation, goes a long way to creating that “Hustle and Flow” referenced earlier.
4. Today’s quality frontline leaders are tomorrow’s effective general managers and executives. Learning the business from the front is infinitely more valuable than attempting to absorb it from on high. Give me someone who has worked in the trenches with the troops over the classroom educated chair sitter any day.
5. Great frontline leaders drive results. One of my favorite examples: the most valuable sales person in every organization may very well be the field sales manager who supports, coaches, motivates, and helps his/her salespeople move towards success. The same holds true for great frontline leaders everywhere.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
I’m always glad to see positive coverage of this critical group of organizational leaders. Hassan’s article serves to remind us how important it is to pay attention to and support our frontline leaders. Based on my informal “smile test,” there are a fair number of frontline leaders who need to be doing something else. Soon. And for those who get it…here’s hoping you run your organization some day. Just don’t forget where you came from.
The Meeting to Decide Whether to Outsource the Call Center
Filed under: Customer Service, Leadership, Performance, Social Commentary
Note from Art: this is a rave. I was on the receiving end of one too many miserable support experiences recently, and this is my, “I’m Madder than Hell…” response. Back soon with my regularly scheduled and much milder content on management and leadership.
Executive One: The numbers are undeniable. The money we’ll save by outsourcing the call center to (insert country where English is neither a primary or secondary language) will add a full percentage point to our earnings this year. The savings come from paying below poverty-level wages and instead of a building, we’re giving the people Burner Phones and letting them work wherever they want.
Executive Two: Has anyone thought about the customers?
Executive Three: Screw the customers. If they don’t like the service, they can switch to one of our competitors. And we all know that our competitors do the same thing. We’re just keeping up. I fully support this initiative.
Executive Two: Won’t this adversely impact our image?
Executive One: We’ve done extensive polling, and we project that our customer satisfaction ratings will move slightly from their current “Dissatisfied” to “Genuinely Pissed Off.” We can live with that. This keeps us well ahead of our two competitors who have ratings of “Hate Beyond Comprehension.” Heck, we might even pick up some customers if we market this right.
CEO: Do the people in this call center speak English?
Executive One: Yes, a bit. We’re exposing them to one new Dr. Seuss book every month. You should hear them read “Green Eggs and Ham.” And remember, our manuals are written in a combination of Kanji, Sanskrit and Pig Latin, so the customers will feel relieved to connect with someone who they can partially understand.
Executive Three: My favorite is Yertle the Turtle. Bet they’ll love that one.
Executive One’s Lackey: Don’t forget, we’ve created a fail-safe system to reduce call volume. The phone menu is a lot like playing “Angry Birds” blindfolded, and we suspect that 40% of callers will never reach the level where they connect to a real person.
Executive One: That’s right, Lackey. Thanks for reminding us. This is actually part of our corporate “Educate America” program, where we encourage more people to think for themselves and solve their own problems. And if someone is really stumped on an issue they can always use Twitter to get help.
CEO: Brilliant…I’ve been looking for a social media strategy and you just nailed it.
CEO: One last question, who do I call if I have a problem with one of our products?
Executive One: No worries, we’ve got our best local engineers available on call to take questions from the executive group.
CEO: Brilliant, how fast can we get this started.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
To all of the Executive One’s and CEO’s who perpetrate these miserable systems and services on customers, in my most heartfelt tone, you are complete asses.
If Dante were writing his Diving Comedy today, there would be a special level of hell reserved just for you. I suspect it would involve a miserable support call where you never get the answer, lasting for what seems like eternity. After all, that’s what you do to us.
Get a clue. Respect your customers. Put the support help in the market you are doing business in…and if that happens to be here in America, hire, train and support some Americans. I for one am tired of the crap you pass off for support.
As for you geniuses who have decided that live support is only at the end of an instant message, your level in hell is currently under construction.
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