What I love

mac and cheese at cochonYou know what I love? I love interacting with employees who really know their stuff - like the other night at the bar of Cochon, a fab restaurant with a sophisticated menu of complex items. We could not decide what food to order and it was wonderful that the bartender could describe specifically what the different dishes were and how they were prepared.

Contrast this with another recent dining-out experience when we were served by a waiter who couldn’t tell us what beers were available. Or my credit union where I am learning a lot of employees don’t know the correct answer to customer questions.

How do those places with the great employees do it? I believe that kind of service comes from smart, conscientious, trained and motivated employees whose skilled supervisors pay attention in an engaging and alive organization culture.

So many variable and challenging pieces to get right. It is tough because each part must be managed both separately and in combination. Some of these moving parts need to be tightly controlled and others should be handled like you would hold a baby bird.

When you leave a place talking about the cool and helpful service, you’re usually not thinking about the great managers and supervisors. But they were there.

And, an operation that makes it look easy? Wow.

 

As always, I’d love to hear what you think.

Smiling Customers :)

smile!

I know Seth Godin wrote about this years ago but I experienced CD Baby’s customer service for the first time last week. Here is the note they sent confirming my order:

Thanks for your order with CD Baby!
Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing. Our world-renowned packing specialist lit a local artisan candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, March 22, 2012.
We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Sigh…
We miss you already. We’ll be right here at http://cdbaby.com/, patiently awaiting your return.

CD Baby
The little store with the best new independent music.
http://cdbaby.com cdbaby@cdbaby.com (503)595-3000

Never before has a confirmation note from a seller made me smile. And, I just had to share it with my husband and now with you. Plus my order was correct and delivered quickly.

Have you had a service experience that pleased you just loved? Do your employees create these kinds of results? Are you, as an entrepreneur, making your customers smile?

Thoughts?