Chip R. Bell's Blog, page 12

Signing Your Customers

I live on a large lake known for great fishing and boating.  My neighbor put a large sign on the lake side of his boathouse that read: “Put Bimini Top Down.” The sign does more than warn the driver of the boat to lower the aluminum frame supported canvas cover before entering the boat house, it tells a story. Someone at some time forgot to lower it and the entire top got ripped off. Or, Scott feared that might happen.

All signs can potentially tell a story to your customers.  “Don’t even thin...

Innovative Service as a Summer Camp

We are in the season of summer camp! My three granddaughters all went to camp in July…for two weeks and in another state. Two went to camp in a neighboring state.  But, Kaylee, the oldest, flew cross country to California to an exclusively outdoor camp without knowing a soul. Before she went, if you talked with her about the California camp, you could hear a bit of apprehension in her voice.  But, when she was packing her large backpack and looking at the camp website, she was super excited a...

What’s In Your Customer Rolodex?

It had been over two years since I had stayed at the downtown Chicago Marriott. I hardly recognized the lobby interior given their renovation since my last stay. But, the desk clerk assumed I had the memory of an elephant and said, “You stayed on the 31st floor on the West side last time you were here. Would you like a similar room on that same floor again?” I said, “Sure.” But to be completely honest nothing about my last stay was in my memory banks. I stay in hotels almost every week and th...

How is Your Service Egress?

My mountain river house has a really cool feature. About 50 feet from the back porch there is a platform that sits right on the river bank. It is a romantic spot to sit and watch/hear/feel the river rushing by, especially on a clear starry night. Between the porch and the platform is a set of long steps leading down to the platform, and then on down a few more feet to the riverbank.

Now, here is the best part. There is a two-way light that enables you to turn on the lights at the porch and al...

United Airlines Should’ve Followed JetBlue’s lesson

Actions speak louder than words. We know a company is telling the truth by their history of promise keeping.
 
The focus should be less about immediate damage control and more about building a deep reservoir of trust. There will always be hiccups. Customer service is all about relationships, and to err is human. Customers do not expect a company to be perfect; they do, however, expect the company to care—especially when service fails to deliver what was promised.

With that deep reservoir of t...

Does Your Service Have a Busy Stage Door?

The stage door. It is the thespian demarcation line between fact and fiction; between fantasy and reality. It is the place adoring fans await to see performers after a play or concert. It is a setting for autographs, selfies, and intimate relationship-building. It is the groundwater of late night conversations and golly gee whiz memories. Stage doors are the venue performers use to appear after the final curtain call–sans costume, sans makeup, sans role, sans everything. As such, it is an opp...

Is Your Customer Service Accessible?

What if you were required to fill out an online form if wanted the phone number or address of an enterprise with whom you wanted to do business?  Let’s say you were driving to a meeting at their location and you needed to contact someone to let them know you were unavoidably detained.  You would have to pull over on the side of the road, fill out the online form, wait for a response, making you even later.  Sound ludicrous?  And, you probably already figured this blog is not about phone and m...

Unleashing the Power of Small Batch Service

The news announces that Sears is closing stores. Last week Macy’s and JC Penney made similar
announcements. What’s happening to big box merchandising? Some can be blamed on the change in buyer demographics—“shop ‘til you drop” baby boomers are buying less as they approach their later years; millennials are more frugal than were their parents. Some can be chalked up to the increase in e-tailers—the speed and simplicity of buying online. But, there is another reason—the return of specialty stor...

A More Perfect Derriere: Confident Humility

Guest post, by Bill Treasurer

Leaders are likely to get a butt kick during some point (if not many times) during their career.

Butt kicks are life’s mysterious and painful way of reminding us of the dangers of too much or too little confidence.

There is a delicate balance to leadership. Let’s breakdown the extremes and discuss what the sweet spot is—finding the perfect balance.

Extreme #1—Overconfidence

When we believe in ourselves more than we should, when we put more stock in our skills and...

Bill Treasurer is a Kaleidoscope Leader

Kaleidoscopes are really cool toys. Turn them or shake them and they surprise you with their ever changing cavalcade of sparkles! But, the stones inside (granddaughters call them jewels) never change. You don’t open up a kaleidoscope and change the cut glass that creates the visual magic. Great leaders are like that—their influence is ever changing as they help others grow and achieve. But that influence reflects core values inside that never change.

One of Bill core jewels is his generosity—...