The Midnight Hour

In my years of patroning retail and service businesses I’ve noticed many upsetting trends that can be cured with some basic leadership and financial sense. If you plan to make a livelihood from my dollars then you’ll need to adhere to most of the following tenets:

Be open for business when your customers are not.

If you rely on people to walk into your business and spend money then you’d better have your doors open when customers are available to walk in, not the same hours that they’re behind a desk or out on the job. If you’re not a walk-in based business or you mostly deal with other businesses then it’s not an issue, especially in the age of online ordering. This is crucial for restaurants and retail stores. Movie theaters and auto parts stores generally have this one nailed.
Have a website.

With a few keystrokes I should be able to find your business’s webpage with Google and learn the following:

• location (preferably linked to Google maps)
• operating hours (see #1)
• company policies
• mailing address
• contact information (with a real phone number, not just an email address)

Restaurants that publish nutritional information get extra kudos for being honest, even if the information is unsettling.

Reallocate resources in real time to meet unexpected demand.

Often at Best Buy the line for “Geek Squad” customer service is several people long and each customer requires a significant amount of time (5-20 minutes). At the same time I will often observe that there is no line for regular customer service and 3-4 customer service reps are simply passing time. Queuing theory is much more complex than the few factors I’ve described, but I can’t believe that Best Buy is running its system optimally. Management should reallocate customer service reps whenever demand is far greater in a single area. If there is a training issue at play (normal CSRs can’t do “Geek Squad” work) then conduct the necessary training and add some flexibility to your cadre.

Empower and train employees to make simple decisions that make customers happy.

My wife and I were in Starbucks a few weeks ago and she wanted to purchase a biscotti with our beverages. The biscotti’s price was not marked and the register would not scan it. After about 90 unsuccessful seconds of trying to scan the biscotti, it appeared the cashier was about to concede that we just couldn’t purchase it. Thankfully, a colleague showed her how to enter the item manually. Give the biscotti away. Charge me a flat $1 for it. Charge me $2 for it. Whatever you do, don’t make me wait 90 seconds and consider telling me I can’t buy the item at all. The $0.70 Starbucks made on the biscotti wasn’t worth the potential future business lost had this happened to an easily agitated customer.

Ensure you understand the business model you’re copying.

Chipotle is a successful semi-fast-food franchise popular in the southwest that makes customized burritos from fresh, high-quality ingredients and has a very simple menu. Recently a business called “Build Your Own Burrito” opened in a local mall, trying to bring the successful southern California concept to north Alabama. BYOB closed after only a few months. They used highly processed, low-quality ingredients and had a menu as complex as any local restaurant. BYOB thought they were successfully copying Chipotle’s business model with customized burritos. In fact, they had totally missed what drives consumers to Chipotle and gives Chipotle its competitive advantage.

Distribute news about your business and its products to those who want to receive it.

The best way to do this is a blog, but if the business owner isn’t so inclined then an email or even a snail mail distribution list will do. This is on a volunteer basis, of course—no spam. For vendors of niche products this information is the most effective advertising they can purchase. It’s highly targeted and virtually free. I want to know when my local cigar retailer receives his annual shipment of Punch Rare Corojos, because they’re only available for a limited time each year. I want to know when my local gourmet beer establishment changes its draft selection. If you deal in hobbies, and especially if a culture exists around the products you sell, this information is like crack to consumers. Send it out and watch them walk in your door.

If you promote electronic correspondence as a means of customer service, then it had better be responsive.

In short, don’t tell me to email you with questions if you only check your business email once a week. If the only source of customer service on your website is email or electronic forms, then treat my request with the same urgency as if I had called. Modern consumers know the capabilities of electronic communication. You’re not fooling anyone if you promote it and then respond sluggishly.

Know the selling points of your product.

A few months ago I was purchasing some firewood from a gentleman near my home for use on a camping trip. While debating the price of the wood I informed him of what I had paid for some firewood at a local grocery store the previous day. He replied “Well, if you think you can get a better price there then I’d encourage you to go for it.” Lucky for him the convenience of procuring the wood right then and there outweighed my disdain for his attitude. If his price was non-negotiable, then that’s his prerogative. However, if he can’t budge on price then he should take my counteroffer as a chance to tell me why I should buy from him. “This wood is from a _____ tree. It’s been aged _____ years. It will burn a long time and produce good coals.” That’s what he should have said…not “please don’t buy this from me,” which is essentially what he told me.

Just because it worked once doesn’t mean it will work again.

The most popular Mexican restaurant in our area of almost 500,000 people recently built a huge new location just across the street from its old location. It then moved across the street, and continues to fill its new location to capacity. The old space was then put up for lease, and guess what moved in: another Mexican restaurant. I suppose the owner’s thought is “Look how well _____ Mexican restaurant did at this location!” My thought is that he’s chosen a tough road by deciding to compete toe to toe with the most popular Mexican restaurant in the area, which just opened a newer, larger, and nicer location across the street from him, while he has no brand recognition whatsoever. Time will tell which of us is correct.