1to1 - Spring 2009 - (Page 16) On the Beat we by Mila D’Antonio Speaking Up In 2008 Biggby Coffee saw its highest sales in 12 years and added 22 new stores. 1to1 spoke with company founder Mary Roszel to learn the secret of Biggby’s success. love it! ComcastCares Turns Customers Into Advocates Customer community support groups are growing in popularity. One that has gained a lot of buzz is ComcastCares—the Comcast Twitter community. Frank Eliason, Comcast director of digital care, tweets on the site to handle customer questions and complaints. Recently, he tweeted that he wouldn’t be available to help customers on a particular day. When he returned the following day, to his surprise he found that some Comcast customers following him on Twitter had taken it upon themselves to reach out to other customers to offer help. They even used Eliason’s trademark “Can I help?” as the outreach to customers who required assistance. ComcastCares is an example of the unexpected positive effect of embracing social media. Mary Roszel, Founder, Biggby Coffee How do you stay committed to delivering quality service? We have a couple things we believe in strongly in our company: PERCs and Position Priority. PERC has four parts that all of our staff learns and practices in our stores. The “P” is the perception by customer that we respect their time; “E” is every customer leaves store in a better mood than when they arrive; “R” recognizes each customer as an individual; and “C” means consistently producing a high-quality beverages. We practice that every day and our customers come to expect those in our store. The other part of that is our Position Priority. We have three main positions in our store: the cashier, shot puller, and the milk steamer. The cashier is always supposed to be present at the point of order. The shot puller moves the order from the cashier to the milk steamer, and the milk steamer’s primary function is to actively engage the customer in conversation. What does it take to keep your employees motivated to stay engaged with customers? We have extensive training and I’m a strong believer that every employee wants to do a good job, so it’s our responsibility to make sure they have the tools to do a good job. The second part of that is we give them permission to talk and be friendly with the customers. How do you facilitate dialogue and stay connected with customers? Last year [our CEO Bob Fish] closed his office here in corporate and goes to the stores every day. Customers are excited about meeting him. He also stays in touch with franchise owners and staff. He has a website—biggbybob.com. We also have a feedback form on our website and a telephone line—the Be Heard Hotline. A customer can pick that up and it goes to our main office. Everyone who works in the main office takes turn answering that. The in-store experience is one of the keys to retaining customers. How do you do that, and stand out from that other big coffee chain? Our focus is providing the customer with the best retail experience they have in any given week. That’s the way we stand out: by providing training for staff and giving them permission. As far as Position Priorities, that sets us a part from a lot of different businesses because we believe in educating and training our staff. How do you plan to grow your customer strategy in 2009? We keep on doing what we’re doing. If that works, paying attention to the customer, talking with your customer… there’s no plan to really change what we’re doing because what we are doing really works and it serves us well. When we talk to customers, they always bring up how friendly our stores are and how they enjoy them. “I’m a strong believer that every employee wants to do a good job, so it’s our responsibility to make sure they have the tools to do a good job.” what were they thinking? Sprint Makes Fake Email Address for CEO When Dan Hesse came on board as Sprint’s CEO a year ago, his first priority was to fix customer service. Yet in the recent television advertising campaign where Hesse strolls through a variety of New York City street scenes, Hesse asks customers to email him with comments. However, when a customer sends a message to the email provided in the ad, he receives a generic automatic reply from a general mailbox, thanking the person for contacting Sprint and saying that the company appreciates the response. Sprint can’t seem to get it right. Great idea; poor execution. overheard “A company’s culture and a company’s brand is the same side of a coin.” —Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos “Recessionary time is a great opportunity…this is the time when customers evaluate who they’re doing business with in the long term.” —Brad Smith, president and CEO, Intuit “Employees get frozen with all these employees’ manuals. Instead of helping them find solutions, policies prevent you from doing anything that makes sense.” —Diana Dykstra, president and CEO, San Francisco Fire Credit Union These comments were overheard at the recent Net Promoter Conference in San Francisco. ONLINE EXTRA: Listen to the full interview at www.1to1.com/links/biggby.html http://www.1to1media.com/View.aspx?BioID=24403 http://twitter.com/comcastcares http://www.biggby.com http://www.sprint.com/index.html http://www.biggbybob.com http://www.biggby.com http://www.1to1.com/links/biggby.html
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