Category: WOW customer service

How a Sanitizing Wipe from Timberline Steaks Made Me Say ‘Wow’ about my Customer Experience

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So, I sit down for a quick breakfast in the airport at a friendly joint called Timberline Steaks and the hostess hands me a sanitizing wipe with my menu. What a wonderful value-added service! Airports are filthy. Our roller bags reek with germs.  Do you ever think about how many people have sat in seat 14C before you? Giving customers sanitizer in an airport restaurant is a warm gesture. It says, “We know you’re in a high-traffic area filled with germs and that you probably didn’t have a chance to wash before joining us.“ It says they care enough to be proactive, to go the extra mile.

What little thing might you add to your service experience to show customers you can be proactive and that you care? Think about that. Come up with at least one value-add and then do it. It doesn’t have to be something tangible. It can be as simple as committing to greet customers within 10feet or 10 seconds of them entering your store. Perhaps it ‘s taking a few seconds to make small talk with a customer over the phone. Get creative. 🙂

The Beyond WOW Customer Experience

The explosive ideas in this book will help you go beyond the WOW experience to build, repair, and grow customer relationships. 

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by Myra Golden and Dr. Jeffrey Magee

“From the first page I was taken in!” 

“Beyond WOW is a powerful tool for those of us who work with customers on a day-to-day basis. 

“I refer to your book when I need to re-motivate myself.”

  • Completely restore customer confidence and regain goodwill after any service failure

  • Learn how to launch relationship marketing campaigns to strengthen loyalty with your current customers

  • Get your customers back from the competition with our powerful win back strategies

  • Discover why you need to forget customer satisfaction and strive for customer loyalty

  • Deploy more than 50 growth and retention tactics today

  • How to create a customer recovery plan

  • Converting ballistic customers into advocates

  • Customer winback strategies – the step-by-step process

 

Take a look inside:


View table of contents

Look at back cover

Read a sample chapter

Get your copy of Beyond WOW for $29.95. Buy now.

Or get Beyond WOW instantly in eBook format for just $20!

My Client Gave Me 3 Levels of WOW Customer Service!

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Last Friday I had the great pleasure of delivering 2 half-day workshops to a wonderful new client, Silverstein Properties. Silverstein Properties is a full-service real estate development, investment, and management firm based in New York. I fell in love with this client from our first conference call. My primary contact, Andrew, has a real spirit of service. He arranged interviews for me with the principal managers so that I could indeed get to know the Silverstein culture, goals and challenges. He meticulously worked behind the scenes on so many levels to help me be great.

During my stay in New York City, Silverstein gave me super impressive accommodations in a corporate apartment. The apartment deco was just fantastic, and it felt like home away from home. I stayed at the corporate apartment the night before my workshops. During a break during the morning workshop, the head of Corporate Housing, Katrina, asked me how my stay had been. I told her how much I loved the apartment layout, interior design, amenities, concierge, and location. Katrina asked a few follow-up questions to ensure that my expectations had been met and exceeded. There was one little problem I experienced. I couldn’t get wifi. I was hesitant to tell Katrina because everything else was so fantastic and I didn’t want to “complain” about this one little thing.

The first WOW. Katrina could tell I had something to share.

Katrina picked up on my body language or hesitation and probed politely until finally, I told her about the wifi issue. She apologized genuinely and assured me she’d have the wifi taken care of before I got back to my apartment. Her response made me feel good about giving her the feedback.

The second WOW. My problem was fixed at lightning speed.

I finished the first workshop, enjoyed lunch with the participants and set up for the second workshop. Right at the start of the second workshop, a lady, Sarah, walked in, introduced herself and told me that she had just left my apartment and fixed the wifi. Apparently, a cable had been unplugged from the modem. My reaction was “WOW!” Talk about responsive!

The third WOW. Wine and Chocolate.

Then, get this, I get back to my corporate apartment, and a bottle of wine and a basket of goodies await me, along with a note from the business apartment staff.  If Silverstein treats its tenants this way, and I’m sure they do, tenants will never want to leave their properties!

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My Parting Thoughts About DoubleTree’s Customer Experience

I happen to be staying at a DoubleTree Hotel and on my desk I saw this wonderful comment card. This is really a great example of how to ask customers for feedback and I’m sharing the comment card with you because I think it’s so good.

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DoubleTree warmly asks guests for “Parting Thoughts.” Guests are asked such questions as, “Did you receive a warm chocolate chip cookie at check-in?” and “Did we make you feel welcome and comfortable?” One of the 3 open-ended questions ask, “Did any of our staff go to extra effort to make your visit a good one?” It’s really clear from DoubleTree’s comment card that their focus is on creating a warm and welcoming customer experience.  

I can’t wait to give DoubleTree my feedback. Here’s why.

When I checked in, the famous DoubleTree cookies were in the oven. A few minutes after I got settled into my room, a member of the staff walked up with 3 hot chocolate chip cookies and 2 bottles of water. Last night my husband and I ordered Italian from an outside restaurant and delivery did not include utensils or napkins. I called DoubleTree room service and explained my dilemma and they immediately sent up napkins and utensils. That was a WOW, as we hadn’t even ordered from the hotel. I’d say that their staff definitely took extra effort to make my visit a good one. I’m looking forward to completing the DoubleTree comment card to let the hotel know they met and exceeded my every expectation.

My Starbucks Barista Is Fully Empowered and Your Employees Should Be Too

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My daughter and I have this Starbucks thing. We go into Starbucks on Friday mornings before school to browse mugs and music and we both get a drink. This morning I ordered the Venti Caramel Macchiato with skim milk and no whip. The Barista asked, “Have you tried our new Hazelnut Macchiato? If you like the Caramel Macchiato, you’ll love the Hazelnut flavor!”

Just as we were walking into Starbucks, I was telling my daughter that I had a coupon for a free Tall Hazelnut Macchiato. But I left it in the car and besides, I wanted the very large Venti size today. So, I say to the Barista, “I actually have a coupon for free Tall Hazelnut Macchiato. Can I upgrade that to a Venti and pay the difference and then I’ll run out to my car and grab the coupon?” Get this, this completely empowered employee says, “I’ll tell you what. Don’t worry about the coupon and I’ll give you the Venti Hazelnut Macchiato for free.”

The Starbucks employee was completely willing and empowered to honor the coupon that I didn’t even present and he gave me a drink 2 sizes larger than the coupon would have granted. This is true empowerment and it’s part of what makes for a warm and delightful customer experience at Starbucks. (Contrast the Starbucks empowerment with my encounter with a completely un-empowered donut shop employee.)

Train, empower and trust your employees to make decisions on the spot. True empowerment makes for a faster, more delightful and wonderfully memorable customer experience. A lack of empowerment results in a slower and more frustrating customer experience and it actually lowers employee morale. The choice is yours. What will you do?

Need help training or empowering your customer service team? Consider our Customer Service Training.

We are best known for our classroom training – and it is amazing! Our customer service training is led by the industry’s best trainers…experienced, engaging, and energetic. If you poke your head into a Myra Golden training session, you know this training is different. Participant involvement is astonishing. People are having fun and they are completely engaged. Most importantly, the participants are learning real-world strategies that will absolutely empower them to deliver exceptional customer service. Every one of our customer service training sessions is custom designed to meet our client’s objectives and every session delivers a measurable return on investment.

Explore our customer service training now!

Myra Golden’s Slide Deck from the Progressive Business “WOW” Presentation

I sure enjoyed presenting today for my long-time client, Progressive Business! We took an inside look at Disney, Zappos.com, and Apple and we learned so much! As promised, here is my slide deck from today’s presentation.

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Thank you everyone for all of your questions, emails, FaceBook posts, Linkedin requests and tweets after today’s program. You really made me feel good! 🙂