Category Archives: Helpful Hints

May 13, 2014 · 8:42 am

The Letter

Today’s TunesDay post is about the lost art of letter writing. I’ll explain why in a second but the song that came to mind immediately is The Box Tops‘ song “The Letter.” Of course, I much prefer the version from the Mad Dogs And Englishmen tour performed by the inimitable (unless you’re John Belushi) Joe Cocker:

I’m a little unhappy with the video since it’s had a chunk of the song edited out but have you ever seen such joy among both audience and performers?  Anyway, back to the subject at hand – letters.  When was the last time you wrote one or received one?  For me the answer is yesterday.  After my post on the fantastic customer service experience I got from the Design A Shirt folks I received a handwritten note from someone there.  Apparently one of you passed the post on to them and she was just writing to express her appreciation.  There’s a great business – and personal point in that.

It wasn’t an email.  She had taken the time to write – by hand – a heartfelt note.  Short, to the point, and very meaningful. While I was trying to thank them in a very public way (and make a business point), she felt compelled to thank me for doing so.  That action – repaying someone’s gift or kindness with a personal expression of thanks – is something we’ve tried to teach our kids and I know from the notes I get from nieces and others that some other folks try to do the same.  Why don’t we do it more often in business?

Maybe we ought to recruit people with beautiful handwriting to act as a Chief Gratitude Officer, responsible for sending out expressions of thanks to customers.  Many businesses send emails but I can’t ever recall a personal, handwritten note.  It’s funny – many of my friends (and I) have mediocre handwriting even though we had to endure penmanship classes in school.   My handwriting is fine if I take my time but who does?  Who can?  My folks both have beautiful handwriting.  My kids’ generation – less so.  Yet another thing that technology is killing off?

We don’t say thank you often enough in business.  It’s an opportunity for us all.  Because it’s so rare, the effect of doing so is incredible.  How are you going to make that a regular part of your business life?

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May 9, 2014 · 8:46 am

Another Way

Like many people these days, I eschew carbs, or at least simple carbs.

Shrimp & grits, Commander's Palace restaurant,...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Those are the ones generally found in white foods – pasta, potatoes, and rice, for example. I also avoid corn since it packs a carbohydrate punch. Which brings us to our Foodie Friday Fun this week.

One of my favorite dishes is shrimp and grits. For the non-Southerners among you, grits are ground hominy which is corn treated with alkali. They may be the official food of Georgia but they’re definitely not on my diet.  The dish was one of the things I truly missed when I changed my diet.  The combination of the cheese-infused grits and spiced shrimp, bacon, peppers and shallots is high on my list of great dishes.  But since there was no way to make the dish without a forbidden food, all I could savor were the memories.

A dear friend, knowing of my gastronomic dismay, sent along a recipe called “low-carb shrimp and grits.”  Mentally, I dismissed it immediately, think it an oxymoron.  However, there were no grits in the dish.  Instead, equal amounts of boiling water and almond flour are mixed together with a pinch of salt, simmered until thick, and enriched with cheese.  The end result were far better than I had anticipated, almost indistinguishable from the corn-based version.  Which leads to our business thought today.

Too often we forget that there is usually another way.  When our solution to a problem doesn’t work, we neglect to get outside of our own narrow thinking to formulate others.  We make decisions in a vacuum, failing to gather and organize the information that relates to the questions at hand.  I knew there were many types of nut flours (did you know, for example, macadamia nut flour makes great vegan icing in lieu of buttercream?) but didn’t even consider them as a possible course of action.

We need to get data, to organize information, and to be creative, brainstorming every weird solution to surface another way to solve the problem if the way we see in the moment just won’t work.  The results just might be as delicious as what you wanted in the first place.

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May 7, 2014 · 8:42 am

Service Done Right

I go on an annual golf trip – no shock given that golf is a frequent topic here on the screed. This year’s takes place in a few weeks and part of our group’s tradition (it’s our twentieth trip!) is that each guy brings “free stuff” for every other guy. Of course, it’s never free to the giver, but that’s part of the charm, I guess.

Over the years I’ve made a variety of commemorative T-shirts for the group as my gift and I’ll be doing that again this year (sorry if I ruined the surprise for any of my group that visits here). I designed them and sent the file off with my order to Design-A-Shirt, the company I’ve used several times before. What happened next is customer service at its finest.

First, when they began working on the order, they sent out proof sheets to show me how they had cleaned up what I sent them and to get an approval to proceed.  This is the first step in very smart customer service.  After all, why take the chance on an unhappy customer (bad) or on having to redo an order (worse, and a killer of margins)?  This was NOT a form email.  It came from a person and I responded to a personal mailbox as I approved what they were doing.

To this point, I’d call this above average, smart customer communication.  Here is where it gets extraordinary.  I got this note yesterday:

Hello Keith,

I wanted to follow up on the order you placed with us to provide you with a production photo of your design printed on fabric. Please see the attached photo for reference. We are concerned about the text… as it’s a bit hard to read. To fix that we would either have to move the “ball” up to make the font larger, or use a different, thinner font that would be more legible. Please advise!

Wow.  They printed the approved design on T-shirt fabric and had a human give it the once over.  That same human took the time to write me a personal note and to ask for guidance.  I should remind you that this is for 13 shirts and the total cost was around $150, far from a big order.  Even so, they made me feel as if I was ordering 13 dozen.  Giving equal attention to every customer is part of doing it right.  Not surprisingly, late last night I got an email that the order had shipped and will be here at the end of the week – several days ahead of when it was promised.

Think I’ll be back?  You bet.  More importantly, by using them as an example of perfect customer communication and service – that which goes above and beyond the customer’s expectations – I’m hoping you’ll both learn from them and given them consideration if you need to make a shirt or two.  I know I talk often in this space about how excellent customer service costs less than you think and retaining a customer is always easier than finding a new one.  Hopefully this real word example resonates.  Does it?

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