Chip R. Bell's Blog, page 22

The Magic of Service Pollination

The flowering of spring can be a wakeup call from the dreariness of winter. As we watch blossoms emerge from plants and grass turn from brown to green, we are reminded of the miracle of life. Innovative service is the unexpected wakeup call from the dullness of ordinary and routine service. The brownness of ho-hum is amazingly transformed into a sparkly experience that makes us smile.

The emergence of spring is brought to you by a crucial element with a mixed blessing—pollen. As spring dawns,...

Innovative Service as a Dance Organ

Sounds weird, doesn’t it? But, if you have ever heard a giant dance organ with its happy calliope sounds and its art deco designs while thinking about customer service, you will quickly get the metaphor.

Dance organs were popular in the early 1900’s and provided music for dance halls initially throughout Europe. They were literally full mechanical dance bands using punched paper or cardboard sheets like player pianos. Just like great service providers, their musical, instrumental and artistic...

Is Your Service Like a Light or a Candle?

It was the first thing that came to mind when I was asked by a radio host to characterize the difference between great service and innovative service. Lights are important since they provide us with the capacity to see (or see better). They help us traverse instead of stumble; read instead of squint; and be productive instead of lethargic. Candles do the same things but with style. If you want a romantic dinner, you don’t just turn on the light.

Innovative service is candle-like; great service...

The Cow Hide Chair Experiment

The chair was very unique in the pleasant but largely functional reception area. It was an intricately carved oak straight back chair. But, what set it apart from all the other chairs and sofa was the fact that the chair’s seat was upholstered in cowhide of a Texas longhorn. The brown spots on the white background exactly matched the caramel colored wood. It was the centerpiece of an experiment I talked my dermatologist into trying. So, here is the back story.

My dermatologist was refurbishing...

Do Your Employees Love Your Brand?

Shwetha loves HP! No, that’s not a carving on a school ground tree nor is it a Krylon spray painting on a water tower or overpass. Shwetha is a support tech operator for Hewlett Packard. And, her style, behavior and words clearly parade her devotion to the HP brand she fronts.

My new laptop had been supped up to Windows 8.1 and Office 13. While I have a new HP color printer; my old, reliable workhorse printer is a monochrome HP LaserJet P2015dn. Not only is this printer a veritable antique as...

Thanking Those Who Quietly Serve

It happened in the Atlanta airport—one of the busiest on the planet. I was sitting in the Delta gate area waiting to board my flight. A slightly stooped Asian woman with a droid-like expression and robotic movement was making her way through the waiting areas cleaning up trash left by passengers. She would have been one of those invisible and taken-for-granted maintenance people who serve in airports, hospitals, and office buildings except for an unexpected occurrence.

A young man less than ha...

Innovative Service Scenography

The food at this well-known seafood restaurant franchise was very good and reasonably priced. There were a few nautical photos on the walls. Except for those two features—pictures and menu–it could have just as easily been a steakhouse, Mexican or Italian food restaurant. I left without any thought of seaside on my mind…just the fact that my tummy was full. But, I could not help but notice the wide array of missed opportunities to turn a pleasant meal into a powerful memory.

The Greeks called...

Innovative Service is Tongue and Grooved

There was an old tobacco barn in the middle of a field on the farm where I grew up. My dad needed another barn in which to store hay after a bumper crop year. But the long abandoned barn had one problem–the roof leaked between the boards. Getting fresh cut bales of hay wet means it would rot before wintertime when our cows depended on it for food.

Luckily, my dad was an excellent carpenter. With a router and plane he turned the plain boards into ones with a tongue and grove. We removed the old...

Generosity: The Mother Lode of Innovative Service

Gem mining is a fun route to a granddaughter’s heart. We had our three granddaughters for the weekend and took them gem mining in the North Georgia Mountains. Granted the buckets of sand are previously salted with semi-precious stones collectively worth less than the $10 you pay for each bucket. But, that is not a “truth-in-mining” fact a five-year old cares to hear about.

The gem-mining place we chose was a mineshaft of innovative service. The exterior was littered with bright colored rocks p...

The Grackle and the Quail

Nature offers so many metaphors for innovative service. I was doing a keynote in Scottsdale and elected to go a couple of days early and stay at The Boulders in Carefree. Armed with my cell phone and laptop, I sat on the patio next to a gorgeous lawn and duck pond. I witnessed the territorial contest between the Grackle and the quail.

The Grackle is a large black bird that enjoys sitting in trees and being obnoxiously noisy. Their dissonant cry can be heard a block away. Grackles look like a c...