Here is a blast from the past, a classic Customers Rock! post on taking care of your current customers. Thanks to @Foundora for bringing it back to my attention. Enjoy!

Many companies spend a lot of time and money on attracting new customers to their product or service.  Much of the marketing budget is spent on mass approaches such as advertising and direct mail.  While those media may have their place in attracting prospects, they don’t help companies with their most valuable asset: their existing customer base.

Taking care of existing customers is a fantastic, cost-effective way to grow your business.

Drew McLellan shares some advantages we have when we concentrate on the “old” customers.  I especially like the first advantage he lists:

“They know who you are and trust/like you enough that they’ve done business with you”

How well is your organization doing in its communications with your customers?   What would cause them to trust you and want to come back for more?

Take a brief break here and think about the last 5 communications you received from companies you (or your company) are doing business with.  What kinds of touches were they?  Interactions with existing customers tend to be one of the following types:

• A bill
• An upsell offer
• A cross-sell offer
• A renewal offer

While there may be some customer value in these actions, they tend to be more favorable to the company than the customer.  In order to keep and grow existing customers, a proactive strategy is needed.  Here are some great ideas from a few of my favorite bloggers:

Meikah of Customer Relations shares with us some insight from Jack Stahl, former president of Coca-Cola and CEO of Revlon, on how to strengthen relationships in a B2B setting:

“Persist in offering value. Give consistent and routine attention, which shows that you are always interested in your customer’s business, in good times and bad. Also, have an ongoing dialogue with the retailer, when an opportunity arises to regain your business.”

Offering something of value to your customers is very important to furthering the relationship.  If there isn’t value, customers may continue to do business with you for awhile, but the relationship will be short-lived.  Keeping the communications line open, whether or not the customer has recently purchased something, is one of the keys to keeping up a conversation with customers.

Joe Rawlinson of Return Customer gives us some ideas on communicating appreciation with existing customers.

“When was the last time someone told you how much they appreciated you? How do you feel when you get a thank you note?  If you’re like most, you get a warm fuzzy feeling inside. You smile. You feel a little bit better.

Don’t you think your customers would like to feel that same joy?”

Words of thanks are greatly valued by customers.  They are a nice antithesis to all the sales calls and could actually make the next call more fruitful!

Rosa Say of Managing with Aloha tells us how to deliver on the promise of our customers’ dreams.  She tells her readers about the art of creating loyal customers:

“Managing with Aloha incorporates the art of Ho‘okipa to achieve a service and product delivery that is unparalleled in the dreams of your customers, turning them into loyal customers for life. When people feel they have experienced the ultimate in good service and in hospitality, they return for more of it time and again.”

Customer loyalty comes from more than just great products and services.  The customer experience has a very strong influence on customer attitudes towards an organization.  I love the way Rosa describes it above – an experience that makes you want to return again and again.

Other ideas on how to create meaningful interactions with existing customers:

• Birthday cards/anniversary of start of relationship
• Invitations to customer appreciation events
• Asking for customer feedback, then acting on it and letting customers know the results
• Customer apologies, where needed
• Customer advisory boards

Which types of interactions you use depends on the company, it depends on the culture, and of course, it depends on what is important to the customer.

Finally, one can always use the element of surprise to keep relationships fresh.  Here is an unexpected example from Bounce fabric softener shared in Andy Nulman’s blog.

Sometimes it is the little things that make all the difference.

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Today we have a guest blogger with us here on Customers Rock!, Nate Bagley. Nate is the Social Media Expert at Mindshare Technologies. Mindshare is a leader in the Voice of the Customer industry, helping companies foster consumer satisfaction, build customer loyalty, and support employee retention. Click here to learn more about Mindshare.

Is Your “Lack of Remarkable” Preventing Customer Loyalty? by Nate Bagley

The most important aspect of any customer-driven business is consistency. If you cannot provide a consistent experience, it is impossible to generate loyalty within your customers. Without loyal customers, a business is just a whole lot of wasting assets.

The businesses that thrive despite a struggling economy, intense competition, or market saturation are those who have built intense customer and employee loyalty.

The best way to create loyal relationships is rather simple: You must measure the customer experience continuously. Measuring your customers’ feedback and acting on any inconsistencies (both good and bad) should be how you approach your business every day!

Recently, I attended a sports themed restaurant to watch the World Cup match between England and the United States. By the middle of the first half, the restaurant was packed with crazed fans… standing room only. I kept an eye on our server as she tended to dozens of guests within her section. She remained pleasant, yet incredibly busy.

Somehow, through all of the tumult, she managed to check on our table every few minutes. When she noticed our cups were running low on water, she brought us a pitcher, knowing she wouldn’t have time to fill them individually. She kept us happy, assessed our needs, and did it with a smile, despite having to work a section that was far over capacity.

Will we be returning? You bet we will, especially if every subsequent experience is of the same caliber as this one.

How can this restaurant chain ensure that every location provides the same level of service consistently to every customer? How can they make sure every staff member within the organization is consistently hitting customer service home runs like this? They must set a standard and then measure as many transactions as possible against it until they are consistently hitting the mark. The easiest way to identify irregularities in customer experience is through customer feedback. You must consistently listen to what customers are saying! Keep doing the things they love, and improve the things they don’t.

“When we measure satisfaction, what we’re really measuring is the difference between what a customer expects, and what a customer perceives he gets.” (“The Experience Economy,” Joseph Pine II & James H. Gilmore)

What are you doing to provide a consistently remarkable experience for every transaction in your business?

(Flickr Photo Credit: ogimogi)

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Recently on Customers Rock! Radio, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Richard Owen, CEO of Satmetrix. We had a great discussion around listening to customers, gathering social media feedback and turning it into action inside of a company, and of course we talked about the NetPromoter score and how to use it strategically.  You can listen to the 12-minute segments here (Segment 1), here (Segment 2), and here (Segment 3).

Richard’s colleague, and CMO of Satmetrix is Deborah Eastman, and she is our guest blogger today. Deborah shares with us about considerations when listening to customers, whether online or offline, and how technology plays a part.

Delivering Voice of the Customer to Enable Customer Delight and Financial Gains

I hope we can all agree that delivering a positive customer experience is the key to building customer loyalty and achieving financial success. Countless reports and case studies have proven this linkage. A recent report that caught my attention is Watermark Consulting’s 2007-2009 performance analysis, which examines Forrester’s 2007 Customer Experience Index and shows how customer experience leaders outperform laggards in the stock market.

Now, it’s likely that the CEOs of customer experience laggards will tell you that their companies strive to deliver an outstanding customer experience. However, understanding the principles of customer experience and actually delivering them do not necessarily go hand in hand. In 2008 Bain & Company found that while 80 percent of companies believe they deliver a superior experience to their customers, only 8 percent of those companies’ customers report having such an experience. Similarly, a CMO Council study found that fifty-six percent of technology vendors perceive themselves as being extremely customer-centric, compared with only 12% of their customers.

There is a clear disconnect between the experience companies think they deliver and what customers experience, perceive and – more importantly – desire. It’s not about what you think… it’s about what your customers think.

In order to determine whether you are disappointing, meeting or exceeding your customers’ expectations, you need to continuously listen. And it’s not as easy as it sounds. It goes far beyond monitoring the chatter on Twitter and other social media platforms or performing your annual customer satisfaction survey. It requires soliciting customer feedback on a regular, ongoing basis at multiple touch points, and closing the loop to address issues and understand root cause.

You should know what your customers are experiencing every time they interact with your company. Take, for instance, a bank. You must consider your customers’ experience when they open an account, deposit or withdraw funds, overdraw their account, receive quarterly statements, use your online banking tools, request technical support, purchase savings bonds, apply for a mortgage, refinance a mortgage, and so on and so on….You get the picture.

My point is that your customers’ experience at each touch point will form their overall impression of your organization, resulting in a financial impact in terms of retention, repurchase and recommendations. In order to improve, you need to continuously listen and deliver real-time data to empower employees to take action. To gain sustainable competitive advantage, you need view data in a way that reveals trends and helps you to identify structural areas in need of improvement (i.e. policy, process, pricing, products, etc.).

So, as you can see, managing your customer experience means monitoring multiple customer interactions, aggregating and analyzing a plethora of data, and distributing role-based information across the enterprise in a timely manner.

It’s harder than it sounds. No matter how well you understand these concepts, you can’t make them work to your advantage without the help of technology.

And yet, a December 2008 study we sponsored with the CMO Council reveals that most organizations have not adopted the technology necessary to support their customer experience programs, and therefore have major deficiencies in the way they respond to customer feedback. In fact, only 23 percent of the senior marketers surveyed said they were using enterprise technology to engage, listen and respond to customers in real-time.

First-rate technology can and should:

• Bust organizational silos and provide an enterprise view of the customer experience.
• Capture information from multiple touch points and distribute it in real-time to initiate required action.
• Provide sophisticated, interactive analytics and role-based reporting that allow you to quickly identify and act on performance gaps.
• Allow you to segment data to identify trends and performance gaps across business units, customer segments and product lines.
• Incorporate your CRM and financial data to provide a big picture view of the direct correlation between customer experience and business performance.
• Be user-friendly. Employees will be more likely to embrace the system if it is intuitive and integrates seamlessly into their everyday tasks.

Developing and maintaining a customer experience platform demands time and resources, but there is little doubt that it will pay off. One example of this pay-off is Experian, a company we have worked with for several years. They successfully leveraged voice-of-the-customer technology and processes to identify key loyalty drivers and improve the customer experience resulting in increased wallet share in a highly competitive market. Experian’s customer experience efforts were so successful that they were awarded a Forrester Voice of the Customer Award in June of 2009. If you’re interested in other case studies of companies achieving business results by focusing on customer experience, visit satmetrix.com or netpromoter.com.

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Today’s guest blogger is Michael Sansolo, author of The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies. Michael Sansolo is a consultant and frequent speaker for the food retail industry, and is a contributing editor and weekly columnist for MorningNewsBeat.com, a daily newsletter on the retail industry.

The Ultimate Customer Compliment

There is one simple line of praise that every business should seek when it comes to gauging the customer experience. It happens when one customer gladly recommends a store, product or service to someone else.

In our new book, The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies, my co-author Kevin Coupe and I argue that we can use popular films to tell highly descriptive stories to drive our businesses. And there is one movie scene on customer service that stands out for all time when it comes to winning customer recommendations.

Recall the most famous scene from the movie When Harry Met Sally. It takes place in a restaurant, and Harry, played by Billy Crystal, boasts about his prowess as a lover. Sally, played by Meg Ryan, asks how he can be so certain. Harry says he can tell, but Sally is skeptical.

In a scene of hilarity rivaled by few moments in movie making, Sally proceeds to experience what appears to be physical ecstasy despite the face she is sitting in a restaurant. Her movements, moans and groans draw the attention of everyone sitting around her as Sally presses on until she concludes with what can only be described as a sexual climax. And then she calmly returns to eating, having made her point that Harry doesn’t really know if his lovers are satisfied.

But that’s only the set up. Within seconds, the camera focuses on a much older woman sitting behind Sally, who was interrupted in the middle of ordering her meal. Asked what she wants, the woman points to Sally and says, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

It’s hilarious. And it’s a great statement on customer service.

Great customer service makes other shoppers want to get involved. Great customer service generates word of mouth, new clients, and a reputation that can’t be beat.  Great customer service makes others say, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Every business should seek to build that moment. They should seek to provide an explosion of customer delight that draw attention and raves. In fact, we should crave the “I’ll have what she’s having” compliment from trading partners, employees, and more.  We all want our business to be the admired business and the one that others want to work with or for.

On screen it’s an easy moment. Inside a business it is anything but. One premise of The Big Picture is that businesspeople can use film moments to build success stories.  Consider showing the restaurant scene to your employees and ask them what it would take to win that moment of envy.

The simple truth is that great customer service is so easily achieved, but also easily ignored because being average is usually good enough. However, an extra smile, courtesy or show of personality can go a long way.

A few weeks back I was in an Aldi Supermarket in Illinois watching customers. Aldi is known for extremely low prices. The stores have few items and few employees, so service is non-existent. But on this day, the young woman at the cash register was making magic happen.

As customers came through her lane she could have handled them quickly and accurately, and that would have been acceptable. But she did more, complimenting them on their product choices. With one simple move, she elevated the checkout experience and made each shopper feel special. It cost nothing and took almost no time.

Now imagine an Aldi shopper sharing that moment with a friend who had an ordinary shopping trip somewhere else the same day. In short, that cashier made others say, “I’ll have what she’s having.” That’s going to lead to new shoppers, new sales, and new success.

And just like that, an ordinary day becomes a happy story about customer service.  The Big Picture: Essential Business Lessons from the Movies is loaded with lessons like that.  We hope you’ll like it. More importantly, we hope those around you will see you enjoy it and will say to themselves, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

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I am pleased to have Kevin Stirtz as a guest blogger today here at Customers Rock! Kevin Stirtz is the Amazing Service Guy, a speaker and trainer who helps organizations of all kinds deliver Amazing Customer Service. His recent book: More Loyal Customers has won 5 star reviews at Amazon.com. Kevin lives in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis & St. Paul). I love the title of this post. It rocks!

Real People Rock! by Kevin Stirtz

A big mistake some companies make is they hire and manage people like they buy and manage equipment. They seem to believe people’s behaviors can be designed and managed like machines.

And a key tool in this strategy is the ever-present script. Most employees despise them. So do many customers. To a customer, a scripted employee sounds like a phony, uncaring employee.  This will not help you improve customer service.

Chris Garrett wrote a post recently about being real vs. phony. Here’s what he says about real people:

“Real people rock. If anything, I would always rather meet an imperfect human being than a fake robot. Be proud to be you, mistakes and all.”

When management forces unnatural scripting on employees, they can be become the robots Chris talks about. They say and do as they are programmed.  And this prevent them from delivering great customer service. Here’s why:

1. Scripts come from management

How much time does management spend serving customers? Probably very little. A smart, informed and engaged employee is better equipped to serve customers than a manager whose contact with customers comes from reports and surveys.

2. Scripts tend to serve the company’s interest first

Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of an employee script knows they exist to help the company get what they want.  But this is in conflict with our real job which is to help our customers accomplish what they want, in a way that works for us.

3. Scripts cannot predict or address every situation

Because they are static and based on history, scripts can never replace the judgment of a well-informed and trained employee. Things change too fast. There are too many possibilities to plan for.

But the biggest problem with scripting and programming employees is that is devalues people. It discounts the worth and the capabilities of employees. It says:

“We don’t trust you enough to do your job so we will map out every detail for you. All you have to do is follow the road map you are given.”

Scripts disregard customers too. When you script your employees you are telling your customers, you don’t care about having a relationship with them. You’d rather just walk them through some impersonal steps like a machine and hope that satisfies them.

You want loyal customers? Hire real people and let them be real. Give them the guidance, encouragement and resources they need to help their customer accomplish what they want. Forget the scripts. Hire real people.

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I have been reading quite a few blogs and comments lately about how social media and customer service need to come together. There has also been a lot of talk about the Social Customer and its importance. I wholeheartedly agree, and as you might imagine, I have a few quick thoughts on the subject which I will share below (inspired by some comments on left on Esteban Kolsky’s post at the blog TheSocialCustomer).

Service is the New Marketing

Been hearing that for ages; I even spoke at  a conference of that name 2 years ago! But what I believe is really trying to be said by this statement is that each interaction with the customer (each customer touch) has an impact on the customer’s impression of your company. That impression often imparts more about the brand than any marketing campaign. The contact center/customer service team/retail clerk is usually the place in the company with the most direct customer interaction (this is especially true for B2C companies). Hence, each customer service “touch” is an opportunity to “market” to the customer – or to leave them with a positive impression of your brand. In that sense, customer service is marketing – but I wouldn’t consider this to be new!

Community

My current role is in this area, and it is indeed a complex one. There are many types of communities: branded, customer-run, service-focused, etc. Interestingly, customers who are part of an online community are even MORE sensitive to “corporate marketing” than other customers, and they have a strong voice that will ring out over it. The main thing to remember here is that many of these communities have been around long before social media (for example, the customers participating in the San Diego Chargers forums are much more loyal than other customers participating in their other social media outlets), and the communities belong to them. Brands need to be aware of this type of “social customer” and realize that they cannot take-over these groups. They need to collaborate with  their communities to be successful.

Customer Experience

The customer experience is very important to understand across the organization. There has been talk about whether various departments will merge together in the future as social media begins to blur the lines of corporate siloes. However, I don’t believe the customer experience can or should be managed just through one department; our customers don’t see us that way! There is indeed a place for separate functions within the organization. There is also a place for metrics that will help companies understand how well they are doing with the customer experience and how well they are performing against customer expectations. Companies that are customer-focused tend to have customer-focused metrics that bring disparate business functions together, working towards one common goal: customer retention, loyalty, and evangelism. When these metrics are corporate, everyone wins.

The Social Customer

Yes, customers are much more socially connected in this day and age, so many of the aforementioned “marketing” activities are now taking place between customers (ratings/reviews/blog posts/tweets/etc.) rather than being broadcasted by the company.  However, that does not mean that each customer doesn’t want to be treated as an individual by the company. One-to-One Marketing has less to do with sending separate direct mail pieces to each person as it does with treating different customers differently. Having worked for/with Peppers & Rogers Group for many years, the 1to1 marketing process is mostly about managing the entire customer experience – which may be different for different customers (and likely is!). In order to do this properly, one needs to understand the needs of the customer. Now that many customers are interacting online, it is easier to listen and hear what they need. Companies just need to make sure they act on what they are learning – before their competitor does.

Your Turn

What do you think? How does an organization’s view of their customer need to change in today’s “social” world?

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This may be it. This may be the year that it finally happens. 2010 may just be the year that companies start to focus on their customers and serving them well.

Now, I am cautiously optimistic about this focus on customer service, but let me tell you why I feel this way.

- Brands are using a focus on customers as a competitive differentiator in their advertisements. Frank Eliason mentions the new commercial for the Chase Sapphire credit card service. It features the ability to talk “directly to a live person when I call” rather than being routed around an automated call queue. The new Domino’s Pizza commercials talk about how they have been listening to their customers and have improved their pizza as a direct result. Phil, who Tweets for them from Domino’s HQ, talks about how they have been serious about customer feedback and been researching this for 2 years. Kudos to these two companies and the many others who are making it public that they care about their customers and what they think of their brands.

- I am hearing more and more that “Customer Service is the New Marketing” from smart folks in the social media space (including in the above post from Frank Eliason). This isn’t a new concept; in fact, I spoke at a conference of the same name 2 years ago this February (where I first met Tony Hsieh from Zappos). Every customer touch is another brand impression of the company. Each contact with customer service, whether by phone, email, Twitter, or self-service is a brand impression. Each customer service representative says more about the brand by how they treat a customer during an interaction than any marketing campaign.

- Customers are having ongoing conversations with brands and with each other about products and services. Companies are realizing how influential these conversations are now that they are starting to listen to them via social media monitoring. And it is a good thing they are doing so. As I tweeted out earlier this week,

“Customer service is more critical than ever. The combo of social media and mobile devices = the perfect storm for an angry customer.”

Think about this scenario. A customer is standing in line at a retail store. The line is very long, and the checker seems to be taking forever. The customer feels like complaining to the closest person who will listen, and it is at his fingertips: Twitter/Facebook/posterous via his mobile phone. It is imperative that brands and companies constantly listen, and more of them than ever seem to be doing so. Those who are not will fall behind in 2010.

In my opinion, all the signs are pointing in the right direction for a focus on great customer service, and with it a rockin’ customer experience in 2010. Those companies that “get it” will rebound from this recession faster than those that don’t. Those companies that “get it” will have loyal customers who shout about how great that company is to anyone who will listen. Those who don’t may just hear a lot of shouting as their customers complain very publicly and then walk away.

What do you think? Is 2010 the year for a focus on the customer?

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I am enjoying my new radio program, Customers Rock! Radio, and on it I have the opportunity to talk with many different people. Some are from businesses, some are consultants, and others are authors. Later this month (January 25), I will have the privilege of hosting Barry Moltz on my program. Barry is the author of the new book BAM! Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World, recently chosen as a 2009 Best Small Business Book.

Barry is also my guest author today here on the first Customers Rock! post of 2010. Enjoy!

What Gets in the Way of Offering Great Customer Service? Guest Author: Barry Moltz

As consumers, we all want it. As companies, we all promise to give it. Somewhere in between, we lose good customer service. Why?

One of the biggest obstacles blocking customer service is confusion about why a company provides customer service in the first place. It’s a myth to believe that ethics, pride, or altruism are the reasons for a company to provide customer service. A company provides good customer service because it delivers an economic advantage—either in terms of increased revenue or reduced cost. Altruism isn’t a valid reason to provide good customer service. We like our customers a lot—as people and as customers, but our relationship is based on mutual economic advantage. We provide services that our customers need, benefit from, and are willing to pay for. BAM!-good customer service is part of our economic model.

Ethical standards of business behavior are unwavering. We believe that every company should behave ethically in all matters. The measure of ethics is whether or not a company keeps all its commitments in an honest and trustworthy way—these commitments may or may not include customer service. A side benefit of keeping customers happy and satisfied is pride in a job well done—but pride is not the  reason to provide customer service. The reason to provide BAM!-good customer service is because it increases the bottom line.

Here are some of the things that get in the way of offering great customer service. We call them BAM! Blockers.

• Many businesses have economic models that work only if front-line customer positions pay minimum wage.
• The computer or manual support system the company has stink.
• Customers are fundamentally unreasonable people who set out to prey on business owners, nicking away at profitability by asking for more than they are willing to pay.
• Our company believes in setting high goals and standards for our company, and higher expectations for our customers, whether we can deliver on those goals and expectations or not.
• There is nothing we can do in customer service since our products in the marketplace are so far from perfect.
• Just because the customers aren’t mad doesn’t mean you are delivering good customer service.
• What was good customer service yesterday may not be seen as good customer service today.
• Conditions have changed and the company cannot deliver the same level of customer service as before.
• The cell phone!
• The company leadership is saying one thing about customer service, but acts a different way.
• Employees don’t like their jobs. They kick the cat, taking their frustration out on the customers.
• The company doesn’t train employees with the specifics of satisfying customers.
• The company has set a price point that doesn’t leave enough margin to provide the level of service or quality that customers want.
• It’s inevitable that every business will keep customers waiting.
• Customers want a human relationship, and not every business can provide that.
• All businesses must use voice mail in order to keep expenses down.
• Well-trained and well-intended employees will not make mistakes that cause problems for customers.
• Employees may not be trained to efficiently and cost-effectively address customer problems without degrading service in other areas.
• Employees will never be able to figure out the right balance of authority and employee empowerment

What prevents you from offer good customer service? Tell us!

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I realize I have not been around much here on the blog these past few months. I have missed it, but more than that, I have missed the conversations I have with you, my readers! My plan for 2010 is to blog at least weekly, possibly more often if I keep the blog posts relatively short (like a Posterous-type post). Thank you all for hanging in there with me – I really appreciate your loyalty to Customers Rock! over these past 3 years (yes, I just celebrated this blog’s 3-year blogiversary in December!). More to come… much more.

I have been spending more time lately on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as I continue to build a Customers Rock! presence on those sites. I also created a Customers Rock! Facebook Fan Page and have been testing out a new Customers Rock Twitter account where, daily, I am sharing POSITIVE customer service stories and experiences I find on Twitter. Please feel free to come and chat with me at any of the above places where you also hang out!

I have also started a new radio program, Customers Rock! Radio. This came from my appearances on nationally-syndicated The Big Biz Show, where the hosts suggested I spin-off my own radio show focused on customer service, marketing, and social media to create rockin’ customer experiences. I have had some fabulous guests including Jeanne Bliss, Michael Brito, Don Peppers, Amber Naslund, and Tony Welch. You can listen online at wsRadio.com or download the mp3 files to your computer or iPod. Please check it out and let me know what you think! (I am also actively looking for sponsors for the show. Give me a shout for more info or if you have clients who might be interested.)

Again, thank you for everything, my faithful readers. For your holiday reading pleasure between now and the New Year, here are some great links to posts that I think you will enjoy. Some are newer posts, some are older, but they are all worthwhile reads.

Holiday Reading

MediaPhyter features a guest blogger, David Hauser of Grasshopper who shares five ideas for how to build loyal customers.  I wholeheartedly agree with you, David. I especially like #3, Create a Culture of Responsibility. Taking care of customers goes far beyond customer service!

One of my favorite customer service bloggers, Meikah Delid, wrote about the new report showing how much poor customer service affects global business. How many billions are lost per year due to bad service, and why do customers leave? Read this post and find out.

Steve Woodruff, fellow speaker and consultant, writes about a great customer service experience he had at Chick-fil-A. Even the simplest acts can make a huge impact.

Terry Starbucker’s post on 15 Basic Steps to Mind-Blowing Customer Service is fun to read – and it hails from his recent experience in a Parisian produce shop. Merci beaucoup, monsieur Terry!

Enjoy, and Happy New Year to all of you!

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Yes, it is that time of year when the Bathroom Blogfest comes around and our thoughts turn to those forgotten spaces where the customer experience, and customer perceptions, are still impacted. Yes, even the bathroom at your establishment (restaurant, retail store, hotel) reflects on your brand. As you know, here at Customers Rock! there is a strong focus on looking at your business from the customer’s perspective. Sometimes, that perspective takes place in the restroom, and this blogfest focuses on exactly that.

The Bathroom Blogfest 2009 has been taking place all week this week, with a variety of bloggers providing insight. While this is the fourth year of the Blogfest, I have participated in it since 2007 (see the end of my post for links to my previous posts as well as links to other Bathroom Blogfest bloggers). My previous posts have featured interesting bathrooms from Disney (both Disneyland and Disneyworld) as well as from the airport in Maui, HI, and Las Vegas.  This year’s Bathroom Blogfest post looks at bathroom theming in the guest rooms at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California. (Note: I took these pictures last year when I was at the Disneyland Resort for the NACCM Customers 1st Conference, where I am giving a keynote speech this year at the event in Phoenix, AZ. My speech will be about using social media for customer loyalty.)

Special thanks go to CB Whittemore for pulling together the Bathroom Blogfest this year and for our first ever Bathroom Blogfest sponsor Kaboom! (Disclosure: Kaboom! sent me a Bathroom Cleaning Kit to trial.)

Find the Hidden Mickeys

A popular game for Disney enthusiasts is to find the “Hidden Mickeys” throughout the theme parks (images of Mickey Mouse’s ears). This bathroom had Mickeys everywhere, including his hands. Take a closer look at these lights around the bathroom vanity. Mickey Mouse’s hands are holding the lamps – thanks, Mickey!

Check out that wallpaper; nice pattern, huh? Now take a closer look. The pattern actually incorporates Mickey’s entire image – welcoming us into the water closet.

The vanity itself is decorated with the Mickey ears as well as Sneezy, one of the Seven Dwarves, above the tissue container. Clever!

My favorite part, however, are the toiletries. Mickey ears adorn the top of the shampoo, conditioner, and hand lotion containers. These little beauties definitely came home with me!

These are just a few examples of the way branding can be carried through in even the smallest details of the guest experience, all the way down to the toiletries in the bathrooms. As a Disney fan, I was completely delighted with the entire hotel experience, but having these surprises in the bathroom told me a few things. One, Disney is very focused on making sure their brand continues to stand behind Mickey Mouse and his unique ears – and they should be. Second, Disney likes to pay attention to details, so I can feel confident that I will be taken care of throughout my entire Disney vacation experience. Third, these little touches are very clever, and they had me looking forward to my visit in the theme park so I could be surprised even more!

What Does Your Bathroom Say?

Whether you are a retail establishment, a restaurant, a service (such as a doctor’s office) or a corporate business, every aspect of your customer experience speaks volumes about your brand, your organization’s culture, and the way you conduct your business. While you certainly don’t need to “decorate” your bathroom with as many details as they did at the Disneyland Hotel, you do need to ensure at least the basics are met:

• Bathroom is neat and clean
• Bathroom has all the necessary supplies refilled on a regular basis
• Bathroom has the appropriate services to help meet your patron’s needs (purse hook for ladies, for example)

Ideally, your bathroom can also go a bit further and be a clear reflection of your brand or business. Carry through the color or decorative theming from the rest of your facility. Add a small something to “surprise and delight” your customer – could be a sign, a nicely framed photo or picture, or a fun color theme. (A note on fun – Macaroni Grill, a casual-dining Italian restaurant, has “learn to speak Italian” lessons playing over the bathroom speakers instead of music!)  Whatever you decide to do, don’t let your bathroom be an after-thought, or your customers may decide they don’t want to think about you anymore, either.

Bathroom Blogfest Resources

Here is a list of the other Bathroom Blogfest bloggers; go and check out their varied perspectives on bathrooms. You can also find them via tag #ladiesrooms09 on Twitter. Below the list are my links to Customers Rock! Bathroom Blogfest posts from previous years.

• Susan Abbott at Customer Experience Crossroadshttp://www.customercrossroads.com
• Reshma Anand at Qualitative Research Blog http://onqualitativeresearch.blogspot.com/ 
• Shannon Bilby at From the Floors Up http://fromthefloorsup.com/ 
• Shannon Bilby and Brad Millner at My Big Bob’s Blog http://blog.mybigbobs.com/ 
• Laurence Borel at Blog Till You Drop http://www.laurenceborel.com/
• Jeanne Byington at The Importance of Earnest Service http://blog.jmbyington.com/
• Becky Carroll at Customers Rock! http://www.customersrock.net
• Leslie Clagett at KB Culture www.kbculture.blogspot.com
• Katie Clark at Practical Katie http://practicalkatie.blogspot.com/
• Iris Shreve Garrott at Checking In and Checking Out http://circulating.wordpress.com/
• Julie at Julie’s Cleaning Secrets Blog http://cleaningsecrets.greatcleaners.com/
• Marianna Hayes at Results Revolution http://www.resultsrevolution.com 
• Maria Palma at People To People Service http://www.people2peopleservice.com/ 
• Professor Toilet at Professor Toilet’s Blog http://www.professortoilet.com/ 
• David Reich at My 2 Cents http://reichcomm.typepad.com/ 
• Bethany Richmond at The Carpet and Rug Institute Blog http://www.carpet-and-rug-institute-blog.com 
• Carolyn Townes at Becoming a Woman of Purpose http://spiritwomen.blogspot.com 
• Stephanie Weaver at Experienceology http://experienceology.blogspot.com
• C.B. Whittemore at Flooring The Consumer http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com and Simple Marketing Blog http://www.SimpleMarketingBlog.com
• Linda Wright at Lindaloo.com: Build Better Business with Better Bathrooms http://lindaloo.com/

Customers Rock! Bathroom Blogfest Posts

The Disney Experience

Luxury Disney

Door Signs

Hawaiian and Venetian (Sort of)

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