Customer service is how you operate your business.

Most of this week, I’ve been having conversations with people about customer service. Ok, this week it’s been more like debates about what service is and how to treat customers. You see, there seems to be a group of people who think that customer service is all about giving customers free stuff. That’s it, just giving them free stuff.

As if customers really walk out of a store and say, “Honey! You wouldn’t believe the service I just received! They gave me a 10% discount – that’s amazing service!” This isn’t service. It’s pricing. There is NO service going on here at all.

Giving amazing service is about listening to your customers, paying attention to how they behave and what they want, then enacting that as well as communicating it to them. My wife went into our local big box bookstore this week to complete an exchange. She didn’t have a receipt, just the unread book given to her as a gift. It costs the bookstore absolutely nothing for this transaction. Zero. Nevertheless, she needed to fill out forms and answer questions. Why? So that the store felt comfortable that they weren’t being ripped off. The unintended consequence is that store is actually saying they naturally distrust their customers. This is a bad process, clearly showing how tied service is to operations.

If you are in the business of dealing with people, how you interact with them and move them through their experiences with you needs to be viewed as service. This became crystal clear tonight when I took the kids to McDonald's.

Anyone who has been to a newly renovated McDonald's can appreciate the time invested in designing a restaurant that is attractive for both senior and junior clientele. New colours, patterns, and textures scream out, “This is not the fast food restaurant of the 1980’s.” For this they should be congratulated.

But which architectural genius forgot to include a proper queue system? You see, at these new McDonald's, people randomly gather en masse in front of the order counter without any indication of how to line up. Is it one line per cashier? One common line up? Really, it is just a mass of people constructing their own ‘line’ waiting for the next cashier to yell out, ‘I can help the next person in line!”

This is not nuclear physics. We are not splitting atoms.

Yet without an established structure that serves customers through the wait, the order, and the pickup, McDonald's has created disservice. That’s right. Customers stand around confused, bumping into each other, not knowing when to advance or how to pick up their food. The basic food service delivery system fails to acknowledge how customers behave and what they need. At a quick service restaurant, no one wants to feel stupid or awkward. Do the basic operations of your business help customers connect with you or create disharmony?

Service isn’t about the free-bees. It is about listening, paying attention, and doing things that help the customer. Period. If your operations are poorly organized or poorly executed, your service suffers and the relationship you have with your customers break down.

Birdies, bells and a biathlon

In Halifax, you have to be living under an industrial size rock not to have realized that in just 13 days, 4 hours and 20 minutes (according to the countdown clock), the 2011 Canada Games decend upon our fair city.

For sports enthusiasts, this means 16 days of Canada’s best athletes performing for national glory and personal pride. Which of these ranks more important would be in the eye of the opinion holder, although I for one think it would be the latter before the former.

For the school kids in Halifax, it is an extra week off of school; yup, two weeks when all of public classes are cancelled. The official reason for this break is so that our youth can enjoy the inspiring events and activities of our national athletes. The only problem is that most parents don’t get a week off in February, much less two, so for many it has become a planned exercise in extended family care.

However, I’m going to be watching the Games closely in order to gauge the level of tourism literacy in Halifax. What is tourism literacy? This is how well our population understands the value of tourism visitors and how well we treat them.

Tens of thousands of visitors will descend on our region for two plus weeks. For many, it will be their first visit to our fine city, our city with roadways designed around a peninsula, a basin, an inlet, a highway and a harbour. Getting lost in Halifax isn’t uncommon, and if you’re not lost then you might be confused by intersections with five and six street options to choose from. I live here – it’s just a regular thing. But for new visitors, it can be mind-boggling.

I mention the traffic as an example because the Games are spread across 13 different venues, 11 of which are in the Halifax Regional Municipality. Here is my question on the traffic. How will our local population react to the massive influx of tourists, driving around Halifax trying to find their venue? Will we honk in annoyance when someone needs to cut in front of us because they are in the wrong lane? Will we curse under our breath when the Rotary slows down as they tentatively try to exit the combat zone?

You see, visitors remember some of the events that they attend, but they will hold close the feelings they have of the place. How they were treated by the locals at dinner, over breakfast, in traffic and just walking down the street. The economic spin off of events such as the Canada Games can be measured immediately; however, this is myopic. The benefits come over the next 18-24 months, when future tourists decide to come back to our region and our province based on either firsthand experiences or the recommendations of their friends and family. Parents who travel here to watch their son or daughter compete and have a warm, welcoming experience will likely a) come back in the next two years for a more leisurely trip or 2) influence someone else to visit with the stories they tell.

I have great faith in Haligonians to step up our game during the Games. After all, this is the Maritimes – hospitality is what we do! But it will be the little things that make the different, the smiles on the street, the quick hellos, the appreciation of their effort to come here in the middle of some less-than-pleasant weather.

So if you find yourself on the roads in February and the driver in front of you seems obviously lost, give them space, a wave and a smile. This patience will help in multiple ways. The likelihood that they will return will go up. They will return with an increased knowledge of our city (thus as better drivers). And our tourism industry will benefit in both dollars and reputation.

Just my two cents…
WCM

When the Sisters school the Prof

What a great day I had today. I was once again a student, learning at the feet of masters.

You see, here at Mount Saint Vincent University, we have an annual event called Caritas Day. It is a day about giving back to the community through volunteerism. The roots of Caritas Day comes from from a fire on campus in January 1951 which displaced students and the Sisters off campus throughout the community. Through the generosity of the community, everyone had a bed to sleep in and a roof over their head. Local halls and parishes served home to classes, keeping our students busy with studies during this tough transition. In return for all of the support, Caritas Day occurs every year in January when classes are cancelled and we try to focus on giving back to others in our community.

Today, dozens of students from the Business and Tourism department were out collecting food donations for the shelves of our on-campus food bank. It is shocking how many students become cash-strapped during the school year and need the hand up that our on-campus food bank provides. As citizens of the campus, we need to help our community members first, then we can lend a hand outside to others.

For my part, I had the pleasure of going up to the Sisters of Charity residence, located on our campus, with 10 students to work side by side with the Sisters. As we entered the dining hall, over two dozen Sisters were seated, waiting for our arrival with applause - what a fantastic way to begin. Then we heard from three of the Sisters about how they have tried to infuse the tenets of 'caritas', Latin for charity and brotherly love, into their lives. Some spoke on volunteering time with pregnant girls, committing to be with them before, during and for weeks after the birth of their child. Others told us about their weekly letters to members of government on issue ranging from authentically listening to their constituents to global warming issues. For me, the most powerful story was the sister beginning a new challenge in her life, post-70 years old, relocating to the Sudan with others of Faith in an effort to restore education and health services to a people in great need.

And why did these wonderful women welcome us with praise and cheer? Because we agreed to sit with them, side by side, making turkey sandwiches and decorating sugar cookies this morning. We gave an hour or so of our time this morning. Sandwiches and cookies. In return, it was made crystal clear to us that we were making a difference.

Now, I've been involved in the hospitality industry in one way or another now for two decades. I've served government officials and dignitaries; hosted rock stars, TV personalities and sports teams. This is to say that I've experienced pressure and stress in the pursuit of meeting the high demands of the affluent and note worthy. But today, I watched two sisters use butter knives to spread homemade icing, blue and green and pink, onto handmade sugar cookies with the care and patience of artists. Gently, through word and by example, they advised us how to get in right to the edge of the cookie without going over. And how much icing to put on each cookie - not too much but don't be stingy. Once the icing went on, they reviewed the options of sprinkles and toppings available, each cookie decorated slowly and with care. It was Zen-like. Everyone around the table slowed down, moving in a gentle rhythm, letting the Sisters lead the conversation, telling their stories and sharing their skills.

Why did they take such care, and expect us to do so, with this simple food?

Because tonight, in the heart of Halifax, in the cold of this wintry night, at a shelter that cares for those without homes, someone will receive this cookie. They will look down at it and clearly see that it wasn't store bought. That another human being gave their time and attention to spread the icing just so, and place the sprinkles on them just so.

It will be food for their body and warmth for their soul, if only for one night.

Before returning to our regular routines, we were asked to reflect on our day at some point and think about our experiences giving back to our community. So here is my reflection, using technology that didn't exist 60 years ago.

Today, I sat at the gentle feet of masters who have chosen to give unto others in a full time, no-holds-barred way, not just as a side note in their busy lives. It was humbling and inspiring. I was in school again, learning how to be a better human being. And before I tucked my sons in tonight, I was able to tell them that I learned something today. And when that happens, it is always a good day.

When inauthenticity has a scheduled appointment…

With four mouths to feed in this family (not counting Luna’s cat kibble), my wife and I are always trying to keep our radar open for some savings, whether it is more quantity at a reduced price or better quality at a similar price. Let’s face it, food isn’t cheap and the money tree has trouble surviving our Canadian winters.

One of our discussions centred around purchasing a part of a cow and/or pig. We were up at the market in Wolfville, NS speaking to some fabulous cattleman who will rough butcher and deliver a cow to you (1/4, 1/2, or the portion you want) as long as you find the right group of people to split the rest of the animal with. Fair deal – four families who all want a 1/4 of a cow each can purchase directly from a local farm, and have it butchered and delivered by his team.

We hadn’t pursued it any further. We became distracted, busy with the day-to-day business of life, but we still have their contact information. Easy to find at the market every week and we could visit the farm to talk more at any time. Great people! But this story isn’t about them, not directly anyway.

To quote the great Bill Cosby, “I told you that story so I could tell you this one.”

Last week, we get a call from a ‘local’ company who somehow had my name, saying that we had talked about buying 1/2 of a cow. This company apparently does all the middle work – we no longer needed to find the other families to split the animal with. They asked if they could drop off a price list on Friday around 6 pm.

Friday comes and it is storming out. We get a call from the representative staying that he’ll still be by – no worries about the weather. Door bell rings at 6 pm. Being hospitable, his coat is taken and hung to dry and he’s invited in to the kitchen. It was storming after all. Come, sit for a second, share the price list.

The sales pitch begins. He’s asking questions about how much meat we eat, what would we like to eat if price wasn’t an option, how his company would customize a one year delivery of our chosen food and specific cuts of ‘local’ meats. He’s using such badly prepared sales patter than we wonder if this actually works on people. Twenty minutes go by and he’s still building our list; no mention of prices yet, just dreams.

The boys are getting bored playing by themselves at this point and need encouragement to leave us for just a bit longer. But he’s not getting to the point. The ‘local’ meat just became Canadian meat, and he’s not able to provide one example of a local farmer that they deal with. “We don’t share that, but it will be on the government ID sticker that comes with the meat.'” Scanning his four page list upside down, we start tossing in items not listed – trout is our preferred fish, and boy do we like lamb. The ''local’ fish just became Ontario and Pacific; the meat they can now get becomes international. “We can’t always guarantee the meat is Canadian but we get you the best we can.”

Then it’s food knowledge time. He starts into the speech on their aged meat and why it’s so tender. “You know why meat shrinks so much when you cook it, right?” Andrea looks at me. “Umm, yes. I actually used to teach food chemistry.”, I say. He doesn’t even pause, he explains it anyway. I start to ask about this list he is creating as it is apparently based on a pre-set total price that he is simply arranging our ‘optimum’ order to fit. I see a few unit costs, but not many, and he is not writing down quantities. He keeps saying they always send ‘enough’. The grocery store gives me unit prices. My tourism students will not pass unless they can calculate and work with unit costs. But none here. This is a strange combination of aggravating and insulting with the train-wreck, can’t-look-away phenomena.

After an hour, I very casually say, “You know that we won’t be buying anything tonight. Right?” Shock and horror as he looks down on his questionnaire form that looks remarkably like a filled in order sheet. I mention doing my due diligence, looking them up online, getting references first. No web page I’m told; can’t be found except via the one phone number to his head office in Ottawa. Saves on costs that way – lucky us.

From the get-go, he didn’t pass the smell test. His information on his company was vague and he had no collateral material or business cards. When pushed for a method of contact, he wrote down his name and an Ottawa phone number; that was the owner’s number of course, even though this guy apparently had an office in Burnside not 10 minutes away. Payments were easy he said, and scheduled to best fit us, but I had to push for the financial institution they use to perform ‘light credit checks’ and had never heard of them. When I said that we were going to discuss it first then call him back, he was offended and left his entire order sheet, including all of our contact information. Friday night, inauthenticity rang the door bell and we took in the full floor show.

I think next week, Andrea and I will take a drive up to that local farm, visit the cows in the barn and shake hands with our cattleman. You see, even he had a business card, given to me after the first inquiry. He prints a map on the back so you can find his ranch easily. I remember him working his small booth at the market, looking each local person in the eye, shaking their hand, and answering every question they had about his product. He took his time; people bought what they wanted. If not today, maybe next week. No rush.

Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll even get some of his dirt on my hands as I shake them once again with renewed respect. He’s the real deal. And his value just went up tenfold.