Most of the simple effective lessons that I incorporate in my trainings are based on my seminal work, The Neon Signs Of Service. One of my favorite topics, that requires learning and re-learning because it is so difficult to master, is called “Being Right Is The Booby Prize.” This exercise involves becoming aware of the times when we would rather be right instead of serving a customer’s needs or doing what it takes to be happy. Being right is an enormous human imperative that often clouds our perspective on a situation. I often find myself remembering this simple but definitely not easy lesson. It rears its head constantly, and when I am present enough to notice what is really happening, I can apply this wisdom and head off problems.

I recently found myself insisting on being right while coordinating a family event that involved communicating via e-mail with family members scattered throughout the United States. My whole family is on e-mail except for my sister Audee. Her choice not to be on e-mail found me reacting with strong annoyance. So strong was my annoyance with her that I decided she relinquished any possibility to offer input on choices I was making. In other words, she lost her right to vote.

Over time, I watched myself get more and more angry and started to listen to my own rants about Audee. I convinced myself that she was being selfish and rude by making us communicate with her differently and that she should just get in the human race and live in the same century as the rest of us. You get the drift. That was when the Neon Sign, “Being Right Is The Booby Prize,” began to flash in my head. I realized immediately that all my concerns were about me being right and she being wrong. It didn’t matter who was right or wrong. She is my precious, generous, kind and loving sister who by the way just doesn’t do e-mail. My attitude had the potential to damage our relationship. Instead of continuing down the “being right” path, I picked up the phone and told her what I was thinking, how I was feeling and asked her what she thought I should do. She immediately said, “You have my permission to be my proxy.” We laughed and the whole thing was immediately over.

Can you think of a time where you had to be right and it caused problems for you? Please share your examples with me. I actually do this exercise in my classes. I help people to see where they blew it because they had to be right and help them to see how they might handle situations differently in the future.

Interested in learning more about the Neon Signs of Service? Contact Holly directly or see videos of Holly in action.

Perhaps the financial success of Wal-Mart can be traced back to the humble roots of Sam Walton himself and the foundation that he laid for his business. When I was visiting Bentonville, Arkansas this past January, I visited the original Wal-Mart and a company museum. They gave away a brochure entitled “Sam Walton’s Rules for Building a Business.” The rules have been translated into many languages and I believe they are powerful enough to repeat on my humble blog.

Sam Walton’s 10 Rules for Building a Successful Business:

Rule 1: Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do the best you can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you – like a fever.

Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat then as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.

Rule 3: Motivate your partners. Money and ownership aren’t enough. Set high goals, encourage competition and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous pay offs.

Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for him or her. We like to hear it often and especially when we have done something we’re really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free – and worth a fortune.

Rule 6: Celebrate your success. Find some honor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you.

Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front line – the ones who actually talk to the customer – are the ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know. To be able to push responsibility down in your organization, and force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.

Rule 8: Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes – and don’t make excuses – apologize. Stand behind everything you do. “Satisfaction Guaranteed” will make all the difference.

Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you are too inefficient.

Rule 10: Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. 


Thank you Sam for the wisdom. May we all do as well as you?

Looking for a customer service expert or concierge trainer? Contact Holly directly or see videos of Holly in action.

I like to post blogs that are personal and thoughtful in nature as well as business oriented. This one is very personal. I share it to remind us to savor the moment and Carpe diem.

Six years ago, I decided to stop dying my hair and to allow it to grow out naturally. I knew I would need help and was more than a little frustrated since my hairdresser of 18 years had moved to Spain. One Saturday afternoon, I trudged all around Marin County (north of San Francisco) trying to see if any of the hair salons would take me as a walk-in customer. All the receptionists looked at me like I was crazy; it was a busy Saturday and no one had any time for a new customer.

Disappointed, I started to drive home but before I could get there, my car literally turned into a parking lot. It was as if the car was driving itself. I parked in front of a small salon behind the neighborhood Safeway. My interest was immediately piqued when I saw a mermaid clock and mermaid table at the entrance t the salon. All the hairdressers were working on clients, so I sheepishly (well for me anyway), asked if anyone could cut my hair. The lady at the desk glanced over to a young woman sitting on a couch reading a People Magazine. I assumed she was waiting to get her hair done. It turned out she was the owner’s niece and was just hanging out. The lady at the desk called out to her and said, “Hey Wendy, do you want to take this?” The young woman looked me up and down with amusement and said, “Sure.” (She was amused because I was literally wearing a bib due to the fact I was sick of spilling coffee on my clothes when driving and had forgotten to take it off when I got out of the car). Then the woman at the desk, who turned out to be Wendy’s aunt, looked at me and said, “Are you a very lucky person!” I said actually I was quite blessed and she said, “I thought so, because she is a really good hairdresser.”

Wendy and I connected immediately. She gave me a spiky haircut and I was so excited I ran home and got her a gift (one of my husband Bill’s photography books because she had connections to the people who own the Inn next to our property in Gualala). I brought it back to the beauty shop with a note saying, “ In my family, the day you find a great hairdresser is cause for celebration.”

We had the sweetest relationship these past six years. I believed she was literally brought to me in a magical way and I always called her ‘The Wendy,’ (like in Peter Pan). She was sitting on that couch the day we met because she had just moved back to California from Hawaii. I was her first client and she wasn’t even sure she was going to start practicing her craft again.

It turned out that she decided to have a baby instead of building a practice. I was one of her only clients and she did my hair at her Mom’s house just a few blocks from mine. It wasn’t the salon at the Ritz. Instead, she washed my hair in the kitchen sink and cut it in the backyard. Her precious little boy, stocky and built like a bruiser, was always running around and charming us with his big smile. (He was so cute that you wanted to eat him with a spoon). Wendy adored him. I loved Wendy and she loved me. What I gave up in fancy I received tenfold in talent and care. I would share my keynotes and travels and she would share stories about her family. Every time we met she gave me a hug and said, “Oh Holly, you are so beautiful.” I felt beautiful around Wendy. We had a special bond. She brought me through the letting my hair go grey, then the deciding to dye it again and letting it grow out again, as well as the in-between period of wearing wigs. We always laughed and talked about the meaning of life.

Today I received this e-mail from her Mother:

“Oh Holly, I hate to send this. Wendy had a bad cold for 4 days,
then suddenly her heart stopped and she died.”

I am very sad. I will miss her and once again I am reminded of how precious every day is.

Kilauea Volcano

The trip was elemental. The pool was clothing optional, it rained every day and Madame Pele’s energy was omnipresent. She even zapped my computer so I was forced to disconnect and relax. When I returned to California, I brought my laptop to two technicians at the Apple Genius Bar. Both were stumped as to what went wrong and said it was possessed. But I digress…

The purpose of this blog post is to talk about the retreat center itself, Kalani Oceanside Retreat Village (www.kalani.com). While Kalani was not exactly my usual style, it does have a fascinating mission.

Not exactly the Four Seasons

Kalani is managed by a group of approximately 150 volunteers; not only do they volunteer their time, they also pay to do it. Kalani of course has a small full-time staff but for the most part is run by volunteers that stay anywhere between three weeks to several years. Each volunteer pays a fee that includes room and board and each provides 30 hours of service a week. One can be assigned to the kitchen or gardens or work as a plumber or housekeeper. It really got me thinking because the biggest expense in any business is personnel, using a volunteer army of helpers sure cuts down on expenses and is an outrageously clever way to run a business. The only downside is the need for constant training. On the other hand, many kinds of businesses have high turnover rates requiring an ongoing commitment to training.

The net result of the stunning volunteer-centric employee base was a very positive experience for guests. Everyone was happy to be there, they chose to be there, they felt grateful to be a part of Kalani and the guests could feel it. Everyone smiled, everyone was helpful and everyone was pleasant. It felt like the staff was channeling the seven dwarves and whistling while they worked. I asked myself, “If this kind of experience was the result of people volunteering to work, what would it be like if we all looked at our jobs as volunteer work?” Which brought me to my next thought…

Our jobs, especially as customer service professionals, are all volunteer work in the truest sense of the word. No one is forcing us to do what we do. We chose to do it. As I have told many employees that serve high-net-worth individuals and become frustrated by the experience, “No one kidnapped you off the street and forced you to take care of the super rich and indulge their every need. You volunteered to do it. Do it with joy or don’t do it.” What would be different if we all understood that?

All of us that work in customer service can benefit from regular doses of inspiration that reminds us of the higher purpose of our work, which is one of the reasons why I have developed the Spirit In Service training program. It shows managers and employees how we benefit personally from the service we provide, that we are always at choice and our experiences both for our customers and ourselves and is in direct proportion to that understanding.

Looking for a customer service expert or concierge trainer? Contact Holly directly or see videos of Holly in action.

One of the things that excited me about the book was a clever exercise Craig developed that uses Haiku to teach his stellar service methods. He defines Haiku as three-line poems of seventeen syllables following the 5-7-5 syllable format for each line.

Craig challenges his students to write Haiku in order to learn to communicate effectively, keeping in mind the many complexities involved in customer communications. Craig believes that reading Haiku can be comforting and writing them can be therapeutic. He encourages people to write them individually and as teams to express personal or departmental issues in a creative way

Here are a few examples.

Learning to say No.
My self-respect is rising
Now, I’m in the know

Yes, yes you nodded
I thought you agreed with me
You simply heard me.

Send me yours and I’ll share them with Craig. Here is my Haiku. It’s about what is on my mind this month.

New project on rise
Excited to share with friends
Stay tuned for new thoughts.

As Craig stated in his book, customer service is a complicated business, which is why I have developed the Magic of SILK™ presentation. It shows managers and employees the essential elements needed to deliver service as reliable, strong, exquisite and flexible as silk. Three takeaways from the program are innovative thinking, understanding the essence of your personal signature and your personal responsibility to leave a legacy.

Looking for a customer service expert or concierge trainer? Contact Holly directly or see videos of Holly in action.

A woman I met recently said in a matter of fact way, “What’s the big deal? You’re just going to get old and die.” Truer words have never been spoken! I can’t get upset with someone for speaking the truth. In fact her comment had a big impact on me and provided me with some perspective. Being so matter of fact takes away the pressure to think that everything is so important. It allows me to focus on what I truly value right now—being in the moment, love, friendship, good work, making a contribution to another person’s well being, spreading joy and staying grateful.

I keep asking the question and occasionally I get answers. I met a woman at the gym the other day and she commented about my sparkly glasses and hot pink coat. I thanked her and told her they made people smile. She said “That’s what its all about!” I laughed and told her I’d been pondering that question for weeks and appreciated her wisdom. I could tell she was about ten years older than me and asked her what topics she was discussing with her girlfriends. She said, “I’m talking about the same things you’re talking about—staying in the present moment, not being afraid, knowing you’re not in control, grabbing joy wherever you can, sharing love and friendship, doing meaningful work, and taking good care of yourself by eating well and exercising.” Then she said, “The difference is at my age you HAVE to do these things as there really is very little time for anything else. It all becomes more urgent.”

Last week, I was waiting at a hostess stand in a San Francisco restaurant and asked for a table outside by the water. She smiled and said, “One just opened up. Timing is what it’s all about.” I giggled as I walked behind her to be seated.

Maybe the children’s song had it right: “You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around. That’s what it all about!” But not before you put your WHOLE self in.

Looking for a customer service expert or concierge trainer? Contact Holly directly or see videos of Holly in action.

What? I am rarely speechless, but I was so dumbfounded by this clueless and rude response that all I could do was stare at this young woman as she added, “Things have become technologically driven, and I haven’t looked at a map since middle school.”

As we drove away, I asked myself if I was being overly sensitive, or was this situation utterly outrageous? Am I entitled to directions only when armed with a smart phone or a GPS (which by the way, I was in possession of)? Can I expect to be treated with dignity by service providers when asking for directions the old-fashioned way?

My first thought was that she was apparently unaware—or ignoring completely—the cardinal rule of providing service: It’s not about you. Secondly, is it not a crucial part of any service job to understand and cater to one’s customer base? In the case of this central California Inn, it was not exactly a “hip” demographic, as far as I could tell. The only bright side, I guess, is that she didn’t add insult to injury with a condescending “Ma’am” to reinforce her incredulity as to just how silly people like us manage to muddle through life without technology-enabled objects, tattered relics of papyrus in hand.

We all need to get regular sources of inspiration in our jobs as service providers, which is why I have developed my Spirit in Service customer training program. It shows managers and employees how to be inspired from the inside out with best practices regarding attitude, the importance of language and finding the humor and joy in your everyday activities.

Looking for a customer service expert or concierge trainer? Contact Holly directly or see videos of Holly in action.

My husband Bill, an extraordinary professional photographer (www.aptonphoto.com), asked me to help him title some of his photos for an upcoming exhibition. While it could have turned out to be just one more item on my to-do list, it became a magically memorable moment.

Working collaboratively to name his photos was in and of itself a service moment. The real value of our exchange was the ability to stop in the middle of the task, take a breath, grin from ear to ear, and truly notice how exquisite the experience was for the both of us.

I found myself looking at Bill and declaring out loud, “I love this moment!” With the simple act of pausing and appreciating what was happening, I was able to count the many blessings that this ordinary moment was offering. It was an opportunity to intermingle our creativity, while celebrating the fact that after 28 years together we were still giggling and appreciating each other’s artistry, friendship and love. We were present in the moment, engaged in quality work, supportive and happy. We were grateful to recognize all that we have while we have it.

Every day, in every moment, life changes. How lucky was I to remember to stop and be grateful, breathing it all in instead of rushing through the process and checking it off as yet another “duty” performed.

What are you stopping to notice in your life today? Can you freeze frame a moment and create an indelible memory? You may be surprised at how many blessings there are once you stop and start to count them, which is why I have developed my Spirit in Service customer training program. It shows managers and employees how to be inspired from the inside out with best practices like being in touch with your personal sources of emotional gratification and finding the humor and joy in your everyday activities.

Looking for a customer service expert or concierge trainer? Contact Holly directly or see videos of Holly in action.

>>> Check out Bill Apton’s photo gallery, www.aptonphoto.com
 

During the interview, Max told me about the incentive program his manager developed that turned doing the job into a game, and a competitive game at that. Employees can get points for doing a good job as well as taking initiative on predetermined goals. The manager is the only one giving points and must witness the employee performing the task. Sweeping the floor when the restaurant is slow garners two points. A personal Yelp review is worth three points and an extra $25. If customers compliment you to the manager, that is worth 3 points. There are also extra points at the end of the month based on manager discretion (a flaw in the too-subjective category).

The manager also engages “mystery shoppers.” If the server suggests all the things the mystery shopper is looking for (a lot of upselling), that is worth 10 points. At the end of the month, the first-prize winner receives $100 while the second and third place winners receive $25 gas cards. These are good prizes and one of the reasons why the game is so successful.

Often incentive programs don’t really motivate employees because the prize, such as lunch with the manager, isn’t what people really want. I felt the game was flawed in many ways as it was subjective, had no peer-to-peer opportunities, and was based primarily on upselling.

Even though the prizes were good and the idea solid, I still had my concerns and asked Max more specifically about them.

Q: Do employees harass customers to write reviews on Yelp and compliment them to their manager?

A: Max assured me that wasn’t the case. (Interesting…I recall doing something similar in the hotel biz, handing out comment cards and asking guests to fill them out).

Q: How do employees who are competitive in nature compete with each other?

A: He told me it was friendly competition. When one person wins one month, the others are determined to beat them the next month, so they go out and give unparalleled service.

Q: How do employees who are not competitive in nature respond to the “game?”

A: Max said 6 out of the 15 employees are “really into it,” which means 6 people are giving their all and doing a better job than they would be doing without the game.

I wish we didn’t have to play games or offer incentives to do a good job, but the reality is they can make a difference. Incentive programs alone are not enough, which is why I have developed my Spirit in Service customer training program. It shows managers and employees how to be inspired from the inside out with best practices like being in touch with your personal sources of emotional gratification, letting go of being right and finding the humor and joy in your everyday activities.

If creating a game can inspire a group of young people at a burger joint, what can you create to keep your team on their toes?

Looking for a customer service expert or concierge trainer? Contact Holly directly or see videos of Holly in action. If you would like to learn more about customer service trainings, click here.