Yesterday, one of my facebook friends posted a comment, that frankly, I couldn't help but comment on. He's a banker, a marketer, an entrepreneur, a hustler and I like him. He grew up in Corvallis and now lives and works in Portland. He's been a banker for almost 10 years now. Here's the post and the subsequent comments:
First of all, as an owner of an insurance agency, I feel I am qualified to comment here. We deal in a high volume of transactions every day, with a wide variety of clients- not unlike the business John engages in as a banker. (on top of that, I'm also a banker and licensed mortgage loan originator).
First of all, none of us are in the banking business anymore. There's no such thing as the insurance business, the printing business, or the personal training business. All that is left is the people business. Truly, everything is becoming a commodity from someones vantage point. At some point, you'll be able to buy virtually any thing or service online. Will that be the end of the local merchant or service provider? For many of them, yes.
The one thing that doesn't translate well online and over the phone is human touch, eye contact, attitude, genuine interest and caring. This is a competitive advantage "in-person" service and sales firms will have for many years to come.
Unfortunately, John is not alone in his gut-level reaction to the fat copy. In general, business is still short-sighted in it's view of customer interactions, thinking more about convenience, profit and policy in the moment, versus the long term impact on customer relationship, and the value of that customer for life.
The fat customer's request and John's response are actually addressed well in Ken Blanchard's book, Raving Fans, an awesome primer on revolutionary customer service. The book was written back in 1993- It was prophetic then, but now critically necessary.
In Raving Fan's, a the main character in the story visits a next generation department store. One of the things he notices during their tour is how there is no supervision of the dressing rooms- customers were allowed to freely take as many clothes as they'd like to try on, and from what he could tell, there were no security cameras in the store.
When he asked the manager about this, the manager responded, "We lose some product to shoplifting every year. We catch some of them, but many get away with it. However, why would we incovenience and show distrust to the overwhelming majority of our treasured customers, because a handful of bad apples take advantage of us?"
Is John really at risk of becoming a full-time free copier? Is that client likely going to post on their facebook later "Hey, if you're lazy, go open a bank account with John at XYZ bank and you can get free copies instead of paying 15 cents at Office Max". Will they immediately leave the bank and call all their fat lazy friends to tell them about the free copies they got while at the bank. And so what if they did?
This short-sighted, "We don't do that" old school attitude manifests itself in a number of ways, often subtle. The most typical I run into is this-
I've gone into a couple local stores, looking for this or that, can't find it, so I ask an employee. "Do you guys have this that or the other?". "No, sorry, we don't carry that." "Do you know where else I could get it around Corvallis?" "No, sorry."
Contrast that with the time I "needed" a pair of dress shoes for a business trip. I looked locally for what I wanted, couldn't find it, and then went to Zappos.com. They didn't have my size, but here's what the Zappos partner did without even flinching- "We will be getting those sizes in within the week, when do you need them Chris?" "I really need them day after tomorrow for a trip I'm going on." "Okay, well hang on one second..." About a minute passed and she came back on. "Are you in front of the computer? Go to Endless.com and type this in (...). They have the exact shoe you're looking for and it looks like it's even a couple bucks less, and they have overnight shipping available. Did you find it?"
She finished by saying" Hey Chris, I'm really sorry we didn't have what you were looking for this time. Please give us or call next time you need something. We'd love to help. Have a great business trip and enjoy those shoes!"
The CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, in his book Delivering Happiness, talks about how on pleasure trip he was hanging out with some friends in a hotel room after a bar crawl, and someone said, anyone know of a good place to get pizza? Tony joked (perhaps a little inebriated) Call zappos! One of his friends did, and without any prompting, the Zappos partner did some googling, looked at some reviews, found a delivery joint near their hotel and gave them the phone number for them.
Outlandish, goofy story? Sure. A little weird for a CEO of a $500M company to tell someone to goof on his employee? Kinda. An indication of Zappos' intrinsic, gut level, over the top service culture? Definitely.
Anyone else have a different take on the Fat Copy Requestor? I'd love to hear it.
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