Customer Service: So much more than a pretty face

To your left is the international symbol for customer service: Smiling, good-looking person with telephone headset.

Now, slap yourself or slam your hand in the car door or whatever it takes, and come back to reality.

When customers say, “I just really like talking to a real person,” they’re not saying, “Wow, I really like those nice people at XYZ, Inc.”

What they’re really saying (and some will come right out and say it) is that they like talking to a real person who knows what the heck they’re talking about and works with them diligently through resolution of their problem.

It’s also helpful when the person treats the customer as if their beef, issue or difficulty is credible and important. Now that you’ve heard the Spoon’s experience, here are some facts:

• Most people have no trouble walking out of a store if they’re receiving bad service; even if the store has exactly what they’re looking for.*
• Most people are less likely to visit other locations if they have a bad experience at a particular store.*
• Most people want proactive solutions to problems before they happen, but only a few are willing to pay for them.*

As marketers, we must continue to extend the marketing conduit from the top of the value chain-procurement-to the front of the chain-sales and customer service. Marketing is as much customer service’s business as customer service is ours. We must demand, even more loudly than our customers, that complaints are handled expeditiously and problems are anticipated. At the same time, marketing must hear the customers voice when sales and customer service raise concerns of their own.

Is it any coincidence that great brands like L.L. Bean, Lexus, Trader Joe’s, Starbuck’s, Publix, Southwest Airlines, Apple and Chick-Fil-A are perennially found on the lists of customer service champions like this year’s BusinessWeek list?

We think not.

*YankelovichMONITOR

Parting Shot: Food Marketing

One more thing:

Did you know that “food marketing” is a dirty phrase? Same goes if you search for “food marketing blog.”

Yep. It’s true. Just Google it, and you’ll see.

Easily more than half of the first several pages of search results are about the horrors of junk food marketing and food marketing that is harmful to people, mostly children.

Maybe we should discuss this and do a little better job as a collective industry. Wouldn’t it be a better world if http://www.marketingspoonful.com were at the top of the list, rather than Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity?

Attention, manufacturers and distributors: How to sell to restaurateurs

Starting Monday, we will feature excerpts from our interview with Janet Rine, owner of Caffe Moderne.

Our discussion centers on what it takes to earn the trust of an independent owner/operator.

Whether you sell meat, beverages, spices or mixes, you won’t want to miss it.

For now, we leave you for the weekend with a quote from Danny Meyer, the brains behind wildly successful restaurants like Eleven Madison Park and Union Square Cafe. From his book, Setting the Table:

“Be the best you can be within a reasonably tight product focus. That will help you to improve yourself and help your customers to know how and when to buy your product.”

If you don’t take care of customers, you will get “weeded”

And no, “weeding” in this case doesn’t have anything to do with gardening or the Black Crowes.

In this case, according to Yankelovich MONITOR, it means being “blackballed” for superficiality in favor of substance and accountability.

In today’s world of myriad choices, it’s easier than ever for consumers to walk away from brands, restaurants and retailers that they don’t see as honest. After all, why exert the energy and spend the time when you can walk to the other side of the mall or click to another window and get something better.

It’s remarkable how the wisdom of a cousin in grocery retailing and a five-figure subscription to a consumer trend monitor can overlap. Here’s how Cousin Ron and Yankelovich recommend you improve customer service in order to delight and retain customers:

1. Hire great people. Restaurants, retailers and manufacturers are all guilty of placing too little emphasis on hiring, training and retaining talented and passionate brand ambassadors. Trust us, your more successful peers and competitors do this. No excuses, now. Fix it.
2. Remove the word “no” from your vocabulary. You have two choices. Make it happen or be willing to risk the customer moving on to something better.
3. Don’t wait for them to ask you. If there’s even a slight chance a question might arise, publish an answer to it on your Web site and prepare your people to be able to answer it.
4. Show caring through customization. Every neighborhood is different. Every market segment is unique. That’s why they’re called neighborhoods and segments-because they’re full of neighbors and segs who want something a little different. Wherever possible and profitable (especially long term), give it to them. It shows you care, and it builds loyalty.

Have a profitable, customer-focused, consumer-friendly day.

The Spoon is now on Facebook

We couldn’t stay away. The Spoon is now live on Facebook. Join the Marketing Spoonful Blog Network by visiting:

http://apps.new.facebook.com/blognetworks/blogpage.php?blogid=13906.

C’mon, be a fan!

In honor of Michael Phelps: A new way to think about counting calories

Today, let’s talk about a different way to think about calorie intake or “share of stomach.”

In one of our first posts, we addressed the problem of obesity in this country, trying to add a dose of sanity to counter the notion that the food industry is solely to blame for it. We pointed out that the decisions people make about diet and exercise, along with genetics, also factor into the equation. But basically, it’s calories in, calories out.

If you’ve been following the Olympics this week, you might have heard that 14-time gold-medal-winning swimmer Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories a day to keep his engine going.

Phelps also swam about five miles a day during the Olympics. If that sounds like a lot of exercise, that’s because it is. To put it another way, conventional wisdom is that swimming five miles is like running 20 miles. Imagine running 140 miles in a week.

Unlike Phelps, most of us need far fewer than 12,000 calories to keep our motors running. In fact, the United States Department of Agriculture and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization say the average American consumes about 4,000 calories a day.

That’s still a fair amount of calories to count. And the reasons for consuming those calories are numerous and diverse:

• To satisfy hunger
• To experience flavors and textures
• To soothe emotional wounds
• To celebrate achievement

We talk a lot in our business about share of stomach. Usually, we’re talking about our share versus our competitors. We ought to be trying to learn what types of emotions and activities are responsible for what percentage of our target consumers’ caloric intake.

Make sure you’re taking a detailed account of WHY your customers are buying and consuming your brands.

At every point possible in the buying process, take advantage or opportunities to ask questions. Put questions on coupons. Offer discounts for answering questions. Put surveys on cash register receipts.

This next part will seem a little foreign to some people. Rather than asking about satsifaction with the product, ask your consumer about themselves. Ask them why they made the purchase when and where they did. People would much rather talk about themselves than you.

It’s a natural thing to ask, and the answers will tell you the language, tone of voice and venues in which to best communicate to your targets when they’re making their food choice.

To a master food marketer be, learn the Jedi way you must.

Every few times a millenium, something really special comes along and changes the galaxy for the better.

A super-sharp guy from our company and a friend of his sat down to watch Star Wars Episodes 1 through 6 and started thinking: Wouldn’t it be cool to apply the Jedi way of thinking to what we do in advertising?

The answer: Yes. Yes it would be cool.

So they did, and we want to share it with you. Just go to the American Copywriter blog by clicking the link on the right or just click here.

Enjoy Clone Wars this weekend. And may the force be with you.

Hu Hot is Pretty Much All That as Americans Expand Their Tastes

We tried a great little restaurant last night in the Little Apple (that’s Manhattan, KANSAS, if you’re keeping score at home). Bottom line: Tasty and fun but slightly overpriced.

Hu Hot is the latest iteration of the Mongolian grill for the American masses. Greater numbers of people seem ready to embrace the concept of putting your food in a bowl and carrying it to someone so he can cook it for you while you stand there and wait for it. There have been others before it, but Hu Hot might have the timing right.

The Spoon’s most important observation about the concept is that it delivers intense flavor, an exotic menu and an interactive experience in a relatively small physical footprint. This location was tucked away in the front corner of a shopping mall, and it was not roomy inside. Two servers, two cooks and one go-fer in the back had a crowd of 60 diners easily covered.

To give you an idea of the overall experience of eating at Hu Hot, we’d tell you that the food was fresh and hot. The flavors were true to their respective Asian heritage of Thai, Sechuan and Japanese. It was a bit more down to earth than P.F. Chang’s, like they’re not trying to impress anyone.

A bowl of rice and your choice of soup or salad accompanied the meal.

As far as preparation, stuff that was supposed to be gingery was gingery, and stuff that was supposed to be crispy was crispy. But there were some twists, such as just enough chili in the fried spring roll to sting your lips a bit. Tasty.

When it came time for throwing sauce on the stuff in the bowl, we chose pork and pad thai noodles with a few veggies. While traditional Mongolian grills have stuff like “garlic water” and “sa cha,” Hu Hot allows you to play around with combining flavors like Black Thai Peanut, Yellow Belly Curry and Feed the Hordes Hoisin to create crazy-tasty fusion.

Make your own or try it The Spoon Way: 3 ladles Black Thai Peanut, 1 ladle Feed the Hordes Hoisin, 1 ladle sweet red chili, 1 ladle ginger. A very nice Thai-style complement to pork pad thai.

The actual cooking was like any other Mongolian grill, if you’ve seen it. Two guys with spatulas turn your stuff over and over on a large round grill until it’s done.

Try the appetizer sampler to share with your family or group. The most compelling item is the potsticker that’s fried Rangoon-style.

For dessert, the 5-layer chocolate cake, called Choco Khan, will rock you.

Shopping and Mood are Strongly Correlated

We were surfing MSNBC to get the latest US medal count when we came across this little dandy:

“Shopping in a lousy mood will cost you.”

You’ve heard how hungry shoppers spend more? Well, a study shows the SADDER you are, the more you spend. Check it out here.

The good news for food marketers is that shopping can actually LIFT your mood.

Can’t you just see a whole new line of weekly supermarket promotions?

Perk up your disposition with outrageous deals on asparagus and T-bones.

Give your mood a lift with this week’s stock-up sale on meat.

Feeling blue? Our two-for-one blueberry special will fix you right up!

It may seem trite, but this study adds to the credibility of our conventional wisdom that there is a strong relationship between the visceral feelings and the act of buying something.

People are less likely to SEARCH for a solution than to REACH for the nearest solution to their discomfort. We happen to be selling one of their favorites: FOOD.

Traditionally, we’ve focused almost completely on price. What if circulars were more about promising feelings than discounts?

Obviously, it’s something that will require a delicate balance in the current economic climate, but it bears repeating:

Emotion sells and emotion spurs purchase.

Homework Assignment: Experience Your Product

This weekend, pick your most favorite store and your least favorite store.

Shop for regular items as you would normally.

Take note of the one thing you love and the one thing you absolutely despise about the respective stores.

Think about how the one thing endears you to your favorite store while the other’s negative quality keeps you from shopping there. Get to the visceral emotion you feel as a result.

Now that you’ve experienced both euphoria and frustration, think critically about your own product. What is it that can alternately exhilarate and frustrate consumers about your product.

Is it hard to open?

Is it too sweet?

Is it just the right portion?

Is it easy to pour?

Make a list of the pros and cons of your product. Get crazy and list even the things that seem like completely unreasonable objections. This is an inexpensive way to identify weaknesses and threats after putting yourself in the frame of mind of a judgmental, fickle consumer.

Have some fun this weekend.