Stereotyping customers can cost sales.

In March 2009 I needed a new company car. Armed with a generous budget I set out to order a car. I have no knowledge of cars whatsoever (if the oil needs changing I ask for help in the gas station and a flat… well that is why you have roadside help is it not?). I drive long distances a couple of time a month so I want a powerful car that drives smoothly and I like having small compartment for cards, coins and yes lipstick, but basically this it the extend of my needs in a car. Close to the office we have a Audi dealership and as we (alpha-male and I) have driven Audi before I thought I would spend my lunch break checking out the kind of car they could offer.

What happens: I arrive, hover around a bit looking at the cars whilst waiting for somebody who can help me, although I am the only customer in the showroom they all seem very busy doing paper work, and as I approach the desk one guy get up very reluctantly from his desk and decides that he have time to serve me.  But the service is non excitant, clearly he has come to the conclusion that no way am I going to make a decision without a man present, and thus he tries to fib me of with showing me just one car. Bearing in mind this was in early 2009 and the economic crisis were full on you would think that they would be more eager to sell me a top-end car.  My thinking here is obviously that if I get no service whatsoever when I am standing there with money in hand ready to spend – how are they going to serve me if I have a problem? Clearly I took my business elsewhere and now I am the very happy driver of a Volkswagen.

 The point missed by Audi in this case was they stereotyped me, by looking at me they decided that I was not the decision maker for this transaction. Completely wrong as the first time Alpha-Male saw the VW was when it was delivered. Treat every customer the way he/she deserves, do not jump to conclusions but take the time to give the service and make that sale.  If I get good service and a good product then I am a very loyal customer; my next car will almost certainly also be a VW.  Audi did not miss one but probably multiple sales.

Work environment

I love to hear about companies who really spoil their employees, who wouldn’t like working at Google or Apple campuses, where you do not have to leave work to go to the hairdresser have a nice crèche for you little ones and lunch room with proper food that is delicious and healthy, where you have not only an on-site gym but also games rooms.  Or a party means really dressing up – you might even bring your spouse instead of a lukewarm buffet with lazy beer and a DJ who frankly belong at a children party.

Unfortunately I do not have the budget to create a coffee/juice bar, an onsite gym – or even a shower, although I would love to offer it. If I should have a coffee bar, the bare minimum the team would have to give up is their lunch- voucher arrangement (for each day they work the receive a lunch voucher worth 6 Euros – they pay themselves just under 3 Euros (but that is before tax)) so it almost works out at an extra 70 -80 Euros a month in the hand. Even for a “free” lunch people do not want to give up the lunch vouchers so certainly not for coffee or juice.  When the choice is either introducing small luxuries and cutting peoples salaries, or keep the salaries and introduce small gestures the latter wins for me.

I think we have a great workplace, people are nice, we have the tools we need, the offices are not spectacular by any measurement but we have loads of light, nice furniture, neat meeting rooms and as we do not have a cafeteria we do have arrangements with a couple of local sandwich shops who delivers if we order before 10. There is ample of space to eat your lunch and whilst you have to pay for sweets we do offer free fruit for everybody.  We changed coffee machines a couple of years ago after a survey showed that most of the people did not like the coffee. When it came to choosing the new coffee supplier we ask the employees to taste and choose and the one with most votes won. The same goes for chairs – this year we needed to change the chairs in the office we had 4 different chairs on trial and asked a panel to choose which one we should buy. So although we do not have a very fancy office environment it is nice, and we do try to involve many people in the bigger decisions.

Experience makes a brand

Let’s face it in most industries the differentiator is not the quality of the product anymore. Most quality is “good enough”.

Take Nespresso, we (mostly the Alpha-male I live with) drink a lot of Nespresso coffee – much more than when we made percolated coffee.  And yes it is easy – you just make the one cup you need and it is very quick. But if you, like Alpha-male, drinks 5 cups in the space of 20 min you could probably get away with percolated coffee.

The point is that it is not better coffee, and there are other less expensive brands of (one –cup-at –a –time) coffees. In our house we like it because it “feels” good.

If I go to the Nespresso shop it feels good – the shop is luxurious  a life-style shop, the décor, the way you have a “membership”, the packing of the beautiful colored capsules in very nice looking boxes and the paper bags of small boutique quality. I know it is wrong on many levels:

• The, very tiny, eco-warrior in me hates that packaging wise there is a box for every 10 capsules when everybody buys 100 -300 capsules.
• The fact that even though they have tried to “sex” it up the recycling is pants.
• The fact the shop is on 4 levels of prime real-estate location – and through my capsules I am paying for that.

Despite my observant self knows all of this it still feels nice…..

If I am honest, I do not really enjoy spending my Saturdays waiting in my life-style shop – with the frequency we need the coffee, so I mostly order on-line. The webpage is easy to use – the delivery is quick and on the very few occasions I have had to contact Nespresso they have been super helpful (both verbal in their call center, but also in email). That makes me happy!

It is the entire experience that makes a brand: The shop – the website – the call center- the packaging – the delivery. At any of these points of contact you can meet my expectations, delight or disappoint me, at any point! And if your service faults I will go to an alternative (other differentiator – but the quality is still “good enough”).

All companies should keep this in mind; make sure that not only at the point of contact, but everybody in the company should know the value of the offering. Think of the cleaner at NASA who when asked did NOT answer “I am a cleaner” instead saw his job as “part of a team, that will send a man to the moon”.

For social media make a plan for what you want to achieve with the use of social media. If you have a FB page or Twitter account give some serious thoughts to what you want the customers to experience – have a plan with measurable goals and have “toll-gate” reviews to measure your progress but also to ensure you are going down the right path.

It is vital you have the right people who write on behalf of the brand (and the policies to back them up), you do not want to make a “Kenneth Cole” and alienate your “fans”. Ensure you monitor the “noise” about your brand and evaluate the impact. Every brand will be talked about – You need and want to be able to influence the talk about yours!

We are hiring!

 It might come as a surprise to some people, but as a hiring manager when I have read your application and decided to invite you to an interview, I actually want you to be successful. First of all because I want to fill the need in my team, but I also want to go back to do what I do best and not have to spend time interviewing people (and I guess  I also want to be happy to have picked the right candidates in the pile of applications on my desk).  Which means that already before you have said a word I am hoping you are a keeper.  So it is certainly a surprise to me that so many candidates are completely missing the point of “presenting” yourself at an interview. Here are some of my favorite dislikes and these are not even mentioning the answers some candidates’ give (I guess there is an entire blog post in that):

·         Dress code. Gone are apparently the days where you sported your “Sunday best” for an interview. Granted you should dress for the job you want – but I still believe at an interview you dress up at least a little. I see people for the second or third interview (they are told I am the “big fish”-  in a small pond I give you that... but still), so I do not understand why they show up in dirty jeans with an out of shape t-shirt and hoodie, if this is the “Sunday best” what will they wear on a normal day? This is not another Gen Y ‘isme - I am interviewing people in their 40’es as well.  Of course there can be good reasons (albeit not many). Once a candidate came in wearing jeans and shirt, the first thing he said was: “ I apologies for my dressing today, but as I am doing this interview in my lunch-break it would look really suspicious at my current job if I come in dressing up more” I completely  “forgave” him because

o   he acknowledged that a more formal dressing would be appropriate.

o   he explained and apologized.

·         Handshake: Be firm- don’t crush my hand but the limp/wet shake frankly gives me the creeps.

·         Be interested: One candidate showed no interest whatsoever in the job or the company – only when he realized our compensation package is better than the one he is used to did he show a glimmer of interest. If you are not interested in the job itself why should I hire you? Read our jobdescription, note our key- word, use them to show how you will be a perfect fit for our needs.

·         Agency forwarded. A fair amount of the candidates we have are presented by agencies. If I hire these candidates it cost me more (a fee to the agency) but it does give me the opportunity to give somebody I am not sure of a chance to prove herself. And I understand that if you are in employment and not looking around you would probably not have seen our opening unless the agency called you. However if you are current unemployed and actively looking I do not understand why you did not apply directly to our Monster or Stepstone adds. It does not show me a real interest in getting a job.

·         Do not be late. We have interviewed more than 20 candidates the last two weeks – a staggering four of those have been late.

o   One came 40 min late with no explanation

o   Two could not find their way  and came 20 and 30 min late

o   One took the bus a stop too much and did not want to walk back – because it had started to rain.  

My point is, if you want a job make sure you are on time – better even  be early and prepared to wait (for me it means that if I have the opportunity I will start the interview earlier and then move on to my “real” job – but it also shows me you are well prepared and eager). Also how difficult can it be to check a map if you go to an interview – even if you are on the bus look out the window check street names and numbers. For the guy who got lost and did not want to walk in the rain …. Really need I say more?

Inefficiency costing sales??

I have just returned from a 24 hour trip to Dublin. DAA Dublin Airport has opened a new terminal recently – and for the first time I went through it today. I was really looking forward, the old terminal is a bit dated – and I do love the new airports for their airy feel (like terminal 5 in Heathrow or Copenhagen airport). But man was I disappointed, not that the terminal is ugly or dark – It did look nice - there were many things I would have liked to explore had I just had the time. But the way you are treated there makes it not only impossible to relax and enjoy the surroundings but also so stretched for time that if you do want to explore you miss your flight.

The terminal is over 3 floors on the ground floor you check in, on the first floor you arrive and on the third floor you have access to the departure gates. As I arrived from the other terminal I arrived on the first floor which meant first going down to check-in then going up to the 3^rd floor to go through security, already this is ridiculous – too many people to go up multiple floors and only two escalators and 6 elevators, but I made it. Now through security  - and here is the same issue as in terminal 1 you have to snail your way through a long queue, the people are not very friendly and as you reach “the other side” where you think you can go through the scanners only to be met by even more queues. These queues are “organized” by four employees – and it really begs the question “why not organize the queues from the beginning (as in Brussels airport) then you do not have to have four people standing and shouting at people?” but maybe it is a kind of scheme to keep more people in employment?

So finally I made it to the scanners. I travel a lot – so I am pretty good at knowing what to have inside the bag and what to leave on show. But in Dublin Airport it is always just that little bit more complicated. Obviously I am not the only one in this situation so most people need to put their things through twice. This of course adding to the ever expanding queues. And the people working there (probably mentally exhausted from the endless queues and comments from tired travelers) are quite unfriendly – I mean they say the right things you can just hear that they do not mean it, which do not add anything positive to the experience.

 So this morning despite me travelling with only one piece of hand-luggage and having my stuff ready it took me 50 minutes just to pass security and by then my plane was on the final call. So I could only look longingly at the restos and shops as I ran to catch my plane which was so far out the pier it made Brussels airport look compact.

I feel sorry for the retailers – they must miss out on lots of sales because security is so inefficient.



Dress Code in Office

In our office we do not have a dress code as such, for health and safety we ask the team not to wear Flip-flops and thongs, but nothing else –generally we do business casual pretty well. But now as spring and summer is ahead and we have had a few days of unusual warm weather, it gets tricky.

 I must admit that it gets warm here – we have lots of windows, big open office with many people and lots of PC’s, and to top an Airco system that has seen better days. So when the women here starts to wear shorter dresses and bare legs it is understandable, but what about the guys? Some are wearing Bermudas or ¾ lengths trousers – I completely understand – but I do not like it.  

In my opinion when you are working in an office your clothes should not take any attention away from the work you do. So if you would feel perfectly at home by the pool or in a club you are not dressed right for the occasion. I have no problem with jeans and t-shirts- but there are things you should avoid. Ex I once saw a woman not wearing a bra but a T-shirt stating “Eat Me”, that might be fun at a party but in the office certainly not.

What do you do in your company? Where do you draw the line? Or should we just get over ourselves and not pay attention to what other people wear?