Image via WikipediaLooking for an awesome business read? Try Tuned In, a new book co-authored by David Meerman Scott, one of my favorite authors in the new marketing space (and a really good guy, to boot).
Tuned In is about listening to customers. Companies that listen solve problems that matter to buyers. Companies that don’t listen generally wind up creating products and services that leave customers yawning — or worse. These Tuned In/Tuned Out examples are top of mind for me.
Tuned Out – Einstein Bagel
Thankfully, the Einstein Bagel near our house is now closed. I don’t have to go there anymore. Their customer experience was on par with the Department of Motor Vehicles. You’d stand in a very long blog of a line that was essentially one continuous bottleneck. You see, certain orders like sandwiches take several minutes to prepare. Others, like the 4 plain bagels I’d order, take a few seconds. But Einstein’s system only goes one order at a time. So there I would stand, in a confused line with confused Einstein workers trying to fill orders and keep them straight. One big ball of confusion. Tuning in would not have been difficult — you wouldn’t have to be an Einstein to pick up on the non-verbal cues from patrons who were so frequently exasperated.
Nobody’s listening though. Click on the Einstein Web site and you’ll have to wait some more, wait for a useless, animated splash page to take you to a rather busy and confused site. Web site as metaphor for customer experience. On to more pleasant subject matter.
Tuned In – Olive Garden
This weekend my wife and I were eating dinner at Olive Garden when a waitress came bustling through with a loaded tray and spilled a full glass of soda on my wife’s seat, catching a good bit of the white pants she was wearing. Unpleasant, but not a major problem as far as we were concerned.
About five minutes later, the restaurant manager, Hector, comes by apologetically with several towels and helps us clean up. He asks us if everything is OK. He asks if he can bring us anything. We say everything is just fine. Our waitress also apologizes and asks if she can get us anything, unobtrusively and graciously. I begin to expect these people have been trained.
Hector comes back a while later with a coupon for free dry cleaning. My wife and I are surprised. We say it’s not necessary. Hector politely insists.
You think that was the end of it? No. An hour later Hector brings us the check and says he’s taking care of it tonight. I open the leather folder and instead of a bill, I see a coupon! Hector comped our dinner. My wife and I are almost embarrassed. We felt this was way too much. But gas prices being what they are, we didn’t argue. We did leave a rather generous tip, however.
Now I’ve eaten in restaurants all over the United States and Europe, from greasy spoons to the world’s finest. But I never remember feeling so cared about than I did at this neighborhood Olive Garden. It’s my new favorite restaurant. Hector turned me into an Olive Garden evangelist. Because he took the time to tune in to what was going on in his restaurant.
Smart business, wouldn’t you say? And by the way, Olive Garden’s parent company, Darden Restaurants, Inc. is performing very well in a sector that’s getting clobbered right now because of high input costs. The corporate execs can thank Hector.
Speak Up
When you think about tuned in and tuned out, what companies come to mind?
Hey Brad,
Thanks for writing about Tuned In. I love your examples! I’ve never been to either place, but you paint an interesting picture of both. Remarkable how well a Tuned In approach works.
Take care and thanks again.
David
It was the best of [companies];
It was the worst of [companies].
– A Tale of Two Companies, David Meerman Scott.
Thanks! Excellent post.
Whoops.
The author should be Brad Shorr.
Need…more…caffeine…
Zane, me too. Off to Starbucks.
Great story about customer service. That’s becoming even more important in today’s biz climate.
That story about the Olive Garden is great. Thanks for the heads up on David Scott’s new book. (I really enjoyed the New Rules of Marketing.)
I think you hit it on the head when you talked about what really surprised you.
Hector cared.
Maybe that was always a rare thing for one person to care about another. It certainly seems rare today.
Paul, let’s hope every company realizes the importance of customer service.
Mark, Caring customer service does seem rare, but then again, I’ll bet we’ve all had positive experiences but we just don’t talk about them as often. You’ve inspired me. I’m going to try to put as much effort into reporting good news as bad.
I HAVE been to both restaurants and agree 100%. What gets me about my local Einstein’s is the fact that they tried to address the bottleneck by installing a very high tech solution including wireless terminals and LCD displays in front of each food prep person.
Ironically, the line got longer because the the bottleneck, the order taker, was still single threaded. Lots of food prep people but only one order taker and he has trouble figuring how to enter my order because I want it MY way. After all of that, the majority of the time they have my order wrong. Wrong type bagel, wrong cheese, forgot the ham, etc, etc.
I gave up and went to a little local bagel shop nearby. There are always three food prep people waiting for me to walk in. Each takes orders directly and, after taking the order, prepares the food and rings me up. The complete supply chain is handled by one person and they don’t need an expensive computer system to handle it.
Craig, Our Einstein’s folded before getting that far, but your story proves technology isn’t always the answer. Thanks for visiting Word Sell, and congratulations on your fabulous book.