I recently read about the recent resurgence of the McDonald’s Corporation, and what struck me was how the leaders attributed it to going “back to basics”.
How many times have you seen that one? A company loses their way, and their profits, and then suddenly has an epiphany – “Jeepers, we need to get back to the basics!”.
Even my dear Starbucks and its leader, Howard Schultz, fell into that one.
What are these magical “basics” that so many businesses find, lose, find, and then lose again?
Quality and Service.
Think about that for a second – it seems so elementary, doesn’t it? It IS basic.
Alas, something so logical can become lost in the morass of short-term profitability, or a belief that marketing magic that could somehow hide product and service deficiencies.
In the end, however, the circle always turns back to “the basics”.
Once I came to that epiphany myself, many moons ago, I was determined to never let them out of my sight.
So I like to put little reminders everywhere. One of my techniques is the “bulletin board”. It’s any place I can put a message where I know it can be seen by a lot of people. It could be a written message, or an electronic message – whatever works.
And l like to keep those messages simple. I call it my “rally cries”. I figure if everyone sees them enough times they will permeate the brain, and we will “rally” around them.
Here’s what I use to represent “the basics”:
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We Will Not Sacrifice Quality at the Altar of Expediency
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It’s all About Exceeding Expectations
While it may seem too simplistic to reduce an entire operating philosophy into two pithy statements, the beauty of it is that when your teammates or partners consider going down the opposite path, you can point to the bulletin board and remind everyone of “the basics”.
Try it and you’ll see what I mean. You may not use these exact statements, but these kind of “rally cries” can really keep your business on the right track.
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Thank you so much for saying this Terry. I had my own little run-in with poor customer care this weekend. Poor quality of service is particularly frustrating since, from a business perspective, it is actually the cheapest and easiest thing to get right. I guess businesses don’t spend enough time actually interacting with their customers/clients? Otherwise, how would they forget to care?
Great points Terry! This is SO EASY yet companies forget about this so often, for they focus on this quarter’s results instead of the greater good. Maybe if more companies went back to being privately owned this would be less of a problem. It’s unfortunate that not all employees think like owners, but really, what’s the incentive for them to do so? That’s our job as manager Terry, to help them see the connection between great service and great results.
Sorry, I hit submit before I meant to. I meant to ask HOW do we do this? How do we connect quality and service to profitability and relate that in a compelling way to our employees, to our teams, and ultimately how do we explain to our customers that even though it takes an extra 90 seconds, it’ll be worth it to wait?
Terry,
Great reminder for everyone is business and in life as well. It comes down to leadership for these businesses and continuing to stay true to the values of your business and not compromise. It comes from leadership walking the walk and setting the tone. If you are clear on creating a fully defined client experience then it’s much easier to stay the course and provide top notch service and value.
Thanks for the post,
I don’t think quality is sacrificed at the alter of expediency. I think it’s usually at the alter of “talent.” Good managers sometimes can’t find enough good people to deliver on ever-expanding demands for “more” “better” “faster.” Bad managers don’t know to teach subordinates how.
As for expectations, I completely disagree. Want to exceed your customers’ expectations? Give them your product/service for free. That will absolutely blow them away.
It will blow your business, too.
Meet their highest expectations? Yes. Exceed? Be very, very careful; trying to do to much often leads to a drop in quality.
I’m not sure why people have to be reminded of this, but I completely agree. It’s more than just a matter of the corporate execs putting it on a memo and setting it free to the wind. Someone has to beat this down to the people who work directly with the customers.
Unfortunately, many of the workers of today don’t understand the basics of quality and respectful service. Just as the schools have had to provide more than a basic education, companies will have to train workers who weren’t properly trained at home…or we as customers will just continue to settle for less. I’d rather not.
Terry–I have a funny anecdote related to the expectations of customers.
The tech services team I used to lead was known throughout the company for both expertise and prompt delivery of that expertise in support of the 600 people in our support domain.
I sent out random, very short surveys to ask our customers how we were doing.
One lady responded to say she was generally happy, but one time it took an hour to get help.
You tell me how many corporate employees find a response time of an hour from report of an issue to someone holding your hand at your desk through the resolution of it, yet it illustrates the hazard of expectations migrating so far above the norm that plain old fast, competent service (it sometimes boils down to that if you have four people and 600 customers: still delivering, but not as quickly as usual because of a spike in volume) is deemed something to note as a shortcoming in a quality-of-service survey.
I kept that survey comment. In a way, it was the best compliment the team ever received: we had our customers fully expecting service and results in a matter of minutes.
Terry,
I loved this post. Good timing too, as I’ve been doing some business-type reflecting and have been trying to figure some things out in my head. (It’s scary in my head, btw.)
You just gave me a really good idea… one of those kind of ideas I can actually put to practical use right this minute. (That rarely happens!)
So… thank you.
I preach this all the time…
As IT Director I get to deal with a lot of vendors. Some of them are very helpful, knowledgeable and friendly, and they get a lot of the business I can provide.
Others lose the business, but I always take the time to explain why on my blog. It’s funny how many times, when that happens, representatives from that company in question show up in your comments section offering the help someone should have given at the outset…a lot of pain and angst can be saved by treating people right and doing a good job.
David
http://www.mars.com/global/Who+We+Are/The+5+Principles.htm
Great post. I think you’d be interested in the link I posted above. It will take you to Mars, Incorporated’s 5 Principles web page. (I worked at Mars for over 4 years).
Mars, a family-owned company with global iconic brands (Snickers, M&M’s etc), stays as close and true to their 5 principles as possible. Instead of expediency they have Efficiency. Quality comes above all. They are listed in order of relevance: Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom.
If a company has basic principles, you won’t have to worry about straying from them. They will be posted everywhere and reinforced daily. I’m not saying that Mars is perfect, but whenever we were faced with a challenge, we had a road map set up by the Mars family. This road map was easy to understand and easy to use for every associate.
It’s all about quality and service. Due to increasing costs and reduced head-count, we recently had to discontinue our 10% “locals” discount. (We’re in a multi-season tourist town, but the locals keep us going all year long.) It was either that or raise prices overall, which didn’t seem fair to the tourists and would just be creating a “fake” discount for our loyal followers. We were completely taken aback by our customers’ reactions. “We come here because we love the food, the atmosphere, and the people. Not for the discount.” “We don’t understand why you offered the discount in the first place – no one else does.” “Discount? I’ve been getting a discount?” We had only one negative reaction which was caused by a poor presentation from the server, and it was quickly remedied.
No, I don’t think people want something for free. They know we all need to make something to survive in business. They just want to be treated as if they’re the ones responsible for that survival. And that’s exactly how we treat our customers – whether it’s their first visit or just part of their daily routine.