Our daughter Nicole just received her first college acceptance letter from Seton Hall, along with a HUGE academic scholarship! She has about eight more applications out for other schools, so she’s going to see what else happens. How exciting!!
Our daughter Nicole just received her first college acceptance letter from Seton Hall, along with a HUGE academic scholarship! She has about eight more applications out for other schools, so she’s going to see what else happens. How exciting!!
I want to preface this blog by saying that I am not obligated to Delta in any way, nor am I working for them. In fact, I have not always been a fan of Delta, as I lumped them into the same “poor service”category as all the other airlines. I say this because I have written recently on a few occasions about Delta’s great service and leadership and it could be construed as biased. Not the case. My writings and musings are unbiased and completely honest, based solely on first hand experience.
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On Monday, November 7th I was flying from Naples, Fl. to San Diego, Ca. with a connection in Atlanta. Shortly before boarding in Atlanta, the gate agent announced an aircraft and gate change. Of course, everyone moaned and groaned as we made our way over to the new gate. The change delayed our flight by thirty minutes or so. But here’s where Delta went above and beyond for the passengers and continued to prove their commitment to extreme customer experience. Just before boarding, the pilot came out to the gate, grabbed the microphone and announced - “Folks, we’re very sorry for the delay, however, this is a nearly five hour flight and the plane scheduled for this flight had no entertainment system, it was not working. We figured you’d want to have something to do on such a long flight so we made the call to switch aircraft.” Now, as we are on the plane and getting ready to depart, the flight attendant came over the PA system, apologized again for the inconvenience and announced - “Ladies and gentlemen, to show our gratitude for your business and your patience, the captain and crew would like to give each of you a free cocktail. Also, if you swipe your credit card to watch a movie on the video display we will credit the charge for you.” and the exceptional service never stopped, for nearly five solid hours! Constant attention, pleasant service and just plane better than other airlines - period.
If you can, fly Delta! In the words of Forrest Gump - “And that’s all I have to say about that.”
Disney World resort opened in 1971. So, for arguments sake let’s say they should have thirty years of historical data regarding things such as attendance. Well, I called today and asked a very simple question, but received no answer. The situation: My wife and I are taking all four of our children to Florida and Disney for Thanksgiving week. We wanted to hit the theme parks on the least busiest day and are trying to determine if we should celebrate Thanksgiving Thursday and hit the parks Friday, or hit the parks Thursday and celebrate Thanksgiving Friday - all depending on which day is historically the busiest. So, I called Disney World and asked that very simple question. The answer was - “Oh, we don’t have that kind of information here.” I said - “After all these years of attendance record keeping, you can’t tell me historically which day is busier?” She said - “No, nobody here or anywhere has that kind of information.” Hmmm, perhaps there’s a research company out there that would like to help Disney help their customers. Just a thought.
In the last ten days I have done seven presentations across the country. The clients ranged from agricultural to healthcare to manufacturing. No matter the industry, each company was seemingly very focused on improving their customer experience and their culture. This is why they brought me in. After one of my programs I sat down with the CEO of this very large international manufacturing company. He was in from Austria. Also at the table was the CEO of North America and two Vice Presidents. The question from the global CEO was this - “I understand and completely agree with focusing on extreme customer service and innovation in service to acheive sustainable profits and success, but how do you convince the shareholders that this is necessary, when all they think about are quarterly earnings?” Good question! Perhaps the answer is - “Rather than make the presentations to the board and shareholders all about hard assets, such as cash, inventory, etc., make part of the presentation about soft assets, such as people, service and culture. Sometimes you have to give up a dollar today to make two tomorrow. It’s not always an immediate return on investment. Large, publicly traded companies lack nimbleness because they lack understanding. It is my new goal to reach out to the shareholder community and show them that YES, you can measure culture and customer focus, but good things come to those who wait!
I recently returned from a program in Portland, Oregon. I flew from Portland to Atlanta and then Atlanta to Syracuse. On the Portland flight I was in the last row in the first class cabin. Directly behind me was the bulkhead and beginning of the coach class cabin. Sitting in the bulkhead were two sheriff’s and their very large German Shepard’s. These dogs are search and rescue dogs. Each man had the entire row to himself and his dog. The man directly behind me had a four year old female who was very well trained. The man across the aisle from him had a two year old male who was going through training.
Here’s the part of the training I wish I didn’t have to endure. During a four hour flight this dog took a monster sized dump THREE TIMES! It was also a monster sized smell! At first I was getting very upset because I thought I was going to throw up! Then I looked at the dog and had to tell myself “It’s not his fault. He’s a dog.” Then I had to tell myself “It doesn’t smell….you’re not going to puke….hang in there….find a happy place.”
No point to this post and no hard feelings. I just thought it’s a funny story and wanted to share.
I’ve been around a lot of companies and a lot of leadership groups in my time. There are very few company executives who have made the sincere and determined effort to have a consistently high quality service level for every customer and every employee the way the leadership at Delta Airlines has done. I’ve never been more impressed.
I just returned from Atlanta, GA where I spent the day producing a training video for Delta Airlines. The video was produced and shot in a talk show format in the training auditorium at Delta’s corporate headquarters. The host, Lisa Holland was absolutely fantastic! The format was designed by the training department at Delta and the content was created by me. The talk show format is intended to captivate and entertain, while at the same time delivering critical information about customer experience and Delta brand building throughout Delta’s airport operations. From all initial feedback, the program was a huge success. I will post clips from the finished piece on my website when it is available. Thank you Delta!
I was in a grocery store recently, which also has a pharmacy. I was filling a prescription for my daughter. The store manager happened to be behind the pharmacy counter and was talking to a young lady (perhaps mid 20’s) who was helping to fill prescriptions and work the cash register. I believe her title is “Technician.” She said to the manager - “I’m just having a really bad day.” Jokingly I said to her as she approached me to take my order - “What can I do to make your day better?” She replied - “Go away.” She said this without a smile. I said - “Wrong answer.” The manager looked dumbfounded and with a smile said to the young lady - “Now that wasn’t very nice.” You’re right Mr. Manager, that wasn’t very nice at all. And by the way, you should have stepped in and taken care of me, knowing you had a time bomb working behind the counter.
Great leadership skills are hard to come by. If you are in a management or leadership position, be sure to let your employees know that customers really don’t care about their bad day and they certainly don’t want to hear about it. Especially when they’re reaching into their pockets to give you their money.
I was recently staying in a top level hotel - part of a very well known chain. The overall stay was nice. The room was nice, the people were nice, everything was nice - then I went to the restaurant for breakfast. As I waited for the waitress, I noticed the coffee mug in front of me was very dirty on the inside. I switched it for a clean one on the other side of the table. The waitress approached me and asked if I would like coffee and I told her I would. I handed her the dirty cup saying - “You might want to send this back through the dishwasher. It’s quite dirty.” She said - “Oh, it’s not dirty. It’s just stained. Everyone thinks it’s dirty. You just can’t get the stains off after so many cups of coffee.” Then she put the cup back on the table!
I called the hotel chain’s corporate headquarters and told them this story. I told them about Perceptual Reality. Here’s what I mean. Even though the cup is literally clean, it’s still very dirty. Why? Because that’s the way I and many others perceive it. Here’s another dangerous slope this high-end hotel is now slipping on. The restaurant is independently owned, leasing space from the hotel. However, in my mind and the minds of others, this is a “Hotel” issue. The “Hotel” is dirty. The ”Hotel” doesn’t care if they serve food and drinks in dirty cups and plates. The “Hotel” doesn’t care enough about their customers to clean their kitchenware. The “Hotel” brand is being damaged. Not the restaurant.
What would it cost to throw this cup away and replace it with a new one? A couple of bucks? What will it cost if their reputation gets tarnished and potential overnight quests, or corporate conference planners decide against this hotel and others associated with it because of dirty restaurants? What would it cost if I blogged this story and gave you the “Hotel’s” name? It would cost a lot more than replacing a “stained” coffee cup.
There are a couple of lessons to be learned here. First, know what your customers or clients are thinking. How do they perceive you and your service? You may perceive it one way, but I guarantee you - they are perceiving it a different way. Use their perception as reality, not yours. Second, if you use outside vendors or suppliers to serve your customers, keep them tightly within your brand strategy, brand integrity and service commitment. Anything “they” do is a reflection on “YOU.”
Perception is reality. When you’re dealing with the public, the public’s perception always wins.
The hotel headquarters is now contacting this particular location and hopefully remedying the situation.