Competing in Non-Competitive Environments -- Looking for and Solving Client Problems

Years ago, I secretly taped conversations with customer service personnel in retail and service businesses (legal in the state I taped in). The purpose was to get “juicy” examples of good and bad customer service encounters and I played them in my seminars.

After a particularly rude encounter with a bank teller (my own bank) I played the tape for the bank president. The result was getting hired to do customer service training at the bank at my full fee.

Another situation where I identified a problem before the client knew he had one began with an observation I made at a dinner theater. Because I was already involved in helping market the theater, I spent a lot of time there on weekend nights. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) 

I noticed night after night that the cookies offered as a complimentary dessert were left basically untouched by most customers. Meanwhile, a few patrons paid a little extra in advance to get spumoni instead and it was always eaten. I also noticed the long faces on the customers who realized they were getting cookies instead of the tasty ice cream.

I took it upon myself to ask the chef how much more it would cost to serve everyone spumoni instead of the cookies. He explained that the cookies were baked fresh everyday and therefore cost twice as much as the spumoni.

I took this information to the theater owner who hadn’t noticed what I had and had no idea what his comparative costs were. On my recommendation, backed by good data, he immediately began serving spumoni to everyone. The result was a 21% increase in satisfaction measured on surveys, a reduction of thousands of dollars in food costs, AND I was hired to sit in the audience and look for more ways to improve customer satisfaction.