By Debbie Hauss, Editor-in-Chief
Recently I had the opportunity to listen to an inspiring presentation by Horst Schulze, Founder of the Ritz Carlton Hotels and, more recently, Capella Hotel Group. His goal during the presentation was to inspire a room filled with students in the Cornell School of Hotel Administration to be passionate about hospitality.
Today, he said, many employees are there to “fulfill functions rather than join us in our dreams.” While it may be hard to imagine every Walmart worker feeling inspired to join Founder Sam Walmart in his lifelong dreams, you know where this sentiment is coming from.
Unfortunately, I would bet that each one of us can readily share a very recent bad customer experience; and we might be hard pressed to think of a recent great customer experience.
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So why aren’t more companies able to deliver that great customer experience we’re all looking for every day at every moment from every brand?
Schulze put the great customer experience into three simple buckets:
- Offer products with no defects;
- Provide customer service in a timely manner; and
- Care about every customer.
Simple? Not really. But we have to have goals and these are good ones.
How Deadly Is The Queue?
Schulze stated that “People used to get annoyed after waiting 20 minutes. Today it is 20 seconds.” While it’s true that we are much more impatient than we used to be, sometimes queues are inevitable. Retailers that make the best out of the queue experience will be ahead of the game.
Disney comes to mind as the leader in queue entertainment. While waiting 20 minutes for the two-minute Tower of Terror experience, you hardly realize you’re literally in line for 10 times the amount of time you’ll spend on the ride. That’s brilliant customer service on Disney’s part.
Schulze recommends interacting with each customer and letting them know they are important. He shared a bad example of an experience in a bank that ended with a very abrupt, unfriendly interaction with a teller. Thirty years later he remembers that bad experience vividly. He noted that, instead of grunting at him all the teller needed to say was: “Good afternoon. Sorry for the delay. How can I help you?” in a friendly tone.
Importantly, that one bad, one-minute experience with one bank employee turned Schulze sour on the entire brand. That’s what we need to remember every day when we’re considering how to prioritize our budgets. What is more important than engaging our store employees and managers so they will be the brand advocates we need on the front line?
