The Pareto Principle states that for most outcomes 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes.
In business, you will find that 20% of your customers provide you with 80% of your income, and consequently you will also find that 80% of your time is spent deriving only 20% of your income.
Using the Pareto Principle, it makes sense to spend more time working with those 20% of your customers who provide you 80% of your income, and spend more time trying to find customers who match that same profile of those 20%.
Sadly, amongst the 80%, there are always customers who are not willing to spend and pay you what you are truly worth for the value that you bring to the market place.
These people will be:
Customers who love what you do but genuinely can’t afford to pay you what you charge.
Customers who know what you charge and understand the value that you bring to the marketplace, but don’t want to ever pay that much.
Customers who believe that your fees are to high, no matter what, and will never pay you for what you do, because they don’t value the skill and expertise that you bring to the table.
So what should a business owner do?
Here’s what a business owner SHOULD NOT do.
You should NEVER try to be everything to everybody with your customers.
If you do try to be everything to everybody, what you will find is this:
You will find that there will ALWAYS BEsome customers who you will never please, no matter what you do.
You will find that while you are trying to please EVERY customer, you will offend some customers who really do want the skills and services that you provide, but want you to deliver those skills and services to them in more comfortable surroundings than the hurly-burly environment that you are operating in.
Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister, said this:
“If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.”
It’s true.
Show me someone who’s aim it is to please everyone, and I’ll show you a loser.
To be successful in business, you will always have to break a few eggs.
I received a newsletter this morning…
I received a newsletter this morning from Dan Kennedy who wrote that he never conducted customer satisfaction surveys of his audience, because the only opinions he was interested in was the opinions of those people who purchased his products.
Kennedy wrote that in those surveys, most people being asked weren’t qualified to evaluate him, and he did not care what they thought.
It’s food for thought…
Are you game?
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Last week I wrote about a dining experience that Jayne and I had recently endured that had delivered a number of memorably BELOW AVERAGE moments throughout our evening.
And the truth of the matter was that if the staff at the restaurant had enacted some form of SERVICE RECOVERY PROCESS then and there on the night, I wouldn’t have written the same article last week, and I most likely wouldn’t be writing this article for you today.
However, on the night, no service recovery systems or processes were detected.
The following day…
Interestingly, the following day, Jayne received an email from the restaurant which she shared with me:
“Dear Jayne,
It was a pleasure to have you dine with us yesterday!
We hope you enjoyed your time with us as much as we enjoyed seeing you. If there is anything we can adjust prior to your next reservation, please let us know.
And to make sure you will be extremely well looked after, please use this dedicated reservation page: [Ben’s reservation link]
We can’t wait to see you again.
Ben , Restaurant Manager”
I replied to Ben’s email:
“Hi Ben
I’m replying to your email. I dined with Jayne on Friday night.
I’m not sure whether you have been alerted to our disappointment with our visit last Friday, or whether this email from you is simply a generic follow up?
For what it’s worth, there were a number of things that we felt could have been handled better.
Regards
David Moffet”
My email bounced.
Ben’s email was a generic email, sent from an email address that responded with a NO-REPLY for any emails addressed there.
Meaning that Ben’s email was indeed a generic email.
I put my thinking cap on and clicked on the link in Ben’s email, which took me to a generic booking page.
The booking page did have one interesting addition:
So I forwarded the above email from me back to Ben using that “bookings@” email address, with the following cover:
“Hi Ben
It appears the email you sent below was a generic one…. The reply bounced.
Just making sure you received my email reply
Regards
David Moffet”
And this email from me did not bounce…
What’s my point?
Because Ben had written to me with the comment:
“We hope you enjoyed your time with us ….”
Followed by:
“If there is anything we can adjust prior to your next reservation, please let us know.”
I thought it would be helpful for Ben to be made aware of some of the shortfalls that Jayne and I had experienced during our dining experience at his restaurant.
Although I did subsequently write publicly about my poor experience after visiting the restaurant , I did not name the restaurant in that article, as I felt that it would be better if the restaurant be given the opportunity to make adjustments.
However…
However, sending out self-promoting emails veiled beneath some small offer of possible humility, won’t pass the pub test.
The computer generated email from Ben left no opportunity for diners and guests to offer suggestions for improvement.
And that’s unprofessional.
I don’t know how many if any dissatisfied diners would follow through with letting the restaurant know about their poor experiences, but being offered an olive branch that immediately turned into an ambush wanting more bookings and more business was to me a bit beyond the pale.
I’m not sure…
I wasn’t sure whether I would hear from Ben…
But he has emailed. And I have replied. I’ll let you know what happens….
I do know that I’m going to be telling a number of people about our poor experiences at his restaurant.
Bad news does travel quickly.
Your service recovery processes need to travel more quickly…
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
As adults, before playing follow the leader, we need to make sure of a few things.
Firstly, we need to be sure that the leader we are following is going to take us in the direction that we want to go and lead us closer to our desired destination.
There is no point in following someone who will take us to a destination that is further away from where we are trying to go to, and there is absolutely no point in following someone who leads us on a wild goose chase that takes us off course from our desired route.
Secondly, when choosing who to follow, we need to be sure that we are following the right person.
Our destination is a journey, and it is a journey to be shared.
There is no point in following someone who talks the talk but conceals the fact that they have never walked the walk.
And it is very disappointing to find out that the truth and what we’ve been led to believe are not one and the same.
Lastly, when we choose to follow someone who promises to deliver us to a specific place or a specific result, we need to be sure that the journey that they take us on will be a journey that matches in with our own expectations and values and ethics.
The method of transportation should be congruent with our values.
For example, most people seek to increase their wealth. However, stealing and robbing and killing to become wealthy are not acceptable behaviours.
Most people want to move from A to B. From where they are now, to where they want to go. However, stealing a car to get you from A to B is not acceptable behaviour.
Exploitation of others to make gain is immoral and unethical.
Taking without also giving and giving back is also immoral.
Evaluate your choices, and when making your choices, choose wisely.
And choose ethically.
There is always a tried and true path to success.
The path to success may not always be an easy road to travel, but every path to success does leave clues, and can be followed.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Last week Jayne and I ventured out to a restaurant near where we are living. It’s a revamped restaurant attached to a hotel accommodation, so they are keen to provide a great dining experience and establish themselves as a serious contender in the marketplace for tourists as well as for locals dining out.
Here’s what happened on our visit….
The restaurant was located within easy walking distance from where we are currently staying, so Jayne and I decided to leave the car at home and walk to the restaurant.
When we arrived ten minutes early for our sitting we were pleasantly greeted, and then surprisingly shown straight to our table, rather than being offered “a drink in our bar”.
Once at the table, we were not seated by our greeter, nor was there an offer to take our coats and scarves [it was about four degrees Celsius outside]. In fact, we were left STANDING beside the table… which was a little on the awkward side as we had to remove our coats, scarves and beanies ourselves.
Nobody from the restaurant offered a solution as to where we should HANG our coats, so Jayne left hers draped over the back of her chair, while I draped my longer coat over the back of a chair at an adjoining [vacated] table.
Our waiter brought us our menus, along with a wine list, and a drinks list, which contained a very comprehensive selection of Australian gins as well as overseas made gins.
The waiter returned a few minutes later and asked us whether we would like to order a drink before dinner.
We did have a question as to one particular gin that they had on their list. We were familiar with that gin company, but the menu did not clearly specify which particular style of gin from that company that was being offered. The waiter went away to seek clarification for us, before returning to take our pre-dinner drinks order.
After he had taken our drinks order, he asked whether we were also ready to order our food.
We replied that we had chosen our food, and we placed our order with the waiter for our starters, and our main courses, as well as for a bottle of wine to enjoy with our food.
When we told the waiter what we were wanting to eat, we also gave him specific instructions that we wanted the food brought out AFTER we had finished our pre-dinner drinks, and not while we were still consuming our pre-dinner drinks.
Sadly, the restaurant failed to act on this very simple request, and our hot starters arrived before Jayne and I had even enjoyed one half of our pre-dinner drinks [and by the way, the pre-dinner drinks were delivered as requested, with a bottle of tonic water on the side, but with no swizzle sticks].
And our wine, which should also have been served before any food arrived, had not been brought to the table.
We called our waiter over to let him know to take the starters away, and to inform him that we were not happy at having our starters on the table going cold while we were trying to enjoy our pre-dinner drinks around them.
The waiter responded by telling us that he had to go and ask his manager about this. A good two minutes later the waiter returned to our table to then take the starters away and to tell us that the starters were going to be kept warm for us.
By this time, the ambiance that Jayne and I were hoping to enjoy with our pre-dinner drinks had evaporated.
Another waitress came over to ask us how our evening was going, and spent some time chatting with us…. also letting us know that the waiter who had been serving us was working in that restaurant for the first time….
Just after she left us, our wine arrived, but the small wine glasses that we had been given [and which other diners were also using] were not suitable for the big, bold cabernet sauvignon that we had chosen.
So we called the waitress back over, and asked if there were any red wine glasses of a more appropriate size. She disappeared and then quickly re-emerged with two larger, finer glasses, but with a caveat to be careful with these thin stemmed glasses, as a regular diner had already broken three of them during previous visits.
The wine was very good.
Fast forward to the end of the evening…
At the end of our meal, Jayne and I ordered two desserts, that for some reason seemed to take an eon to be delivered.
The table where we dined was located right beside the very open-plan kitchen and it appeared to us that the only thing going on in the kitchen at this time was end of night clean up.
So much so, because we overheard our waiter when he came over to the kitchen counter to ask the kitchen staff about where our desserts were… [because of our proximity to this open plan kitchen we were privy to a number of conversations in the kitchen about the timing of the delivery of our meals that night….]
This experience raised a number of interesting points that are relevant to all businesses….
Firstly, in your business, are your protocols aligned so that clients’ needs and customers’ expectations regarding timing and delivery are being met and exceeded?
Because in any business, respect of customers’ time is of primary importance.
Customers will take their business elsewhere if they feel they are being taken for granted, ignored, or disrespected. Whether those feelings are conveyed to the customer intentionally or not, they are real feelings for the customer, and customers should never be made to feel that way.
Secondly, protocols need to be in place for all situations that can arise, so that the customers’ needs, however small, are met and not ignored.
Thirdly, when a customer raises a concern, the staff must be empowered to act quickly to make things right. The staff must understand SERVICE RECOVERY, and what it actually is and needs to be for any situation, and they must see that every action of service recovery is SUCCESSFULLY achieved every time that any service recovery is needed to be implemented.
The definition of successful service recovery is that although the customer may be angry and disappointed that a service defect has occurred, the fact that the defect did occur is quickly forgotten because the customer is left feeling in awe following the service recovery process they have just experienced.
“Hoping” that your customers will not notice, or will not speak up about, or will not feel disappointment with your business’s service failures, is not the answer.
When a service defect occurs in any business, it is always best for that business to declare the defect immediately, and solve it right then and there in such a way that the defect is quickly forgotten by the customer, because the service recovery process is so truly memorable.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Last weekend I attended a special members-only opportunity to watch the Penrith Panthers go through their training drills.
The Penrith Panthers Rugby League team are currently NRL competition leaders and there’s a serious distance between them and the second placed team.
This training session was very interesting because seven regular players from the Panthers were absent due to representative commitments. This had me wondering beforehand what exactly I was going to be seeing….
The session was on the Saturday morning and ran for just over one hour.
During this session, the team ran through and performed a number of drills and activities that simulated game conditions and roles for the players.
The training was structured and purposeful.
Everything was done for a reason that reflected actual game situations and conditions.
The head coach delegated the whole training to his coaching staff to organise and run, choosing to observe the efforts of the players from a distance.
The team players were systematic and precise with their movements and their responsibilities. Every player took ownership of the role that each of them was expected to perform.
And the replacement players filling in for their missing representative colleagues fitted seamlessly into the team, allowing the side to perform AS ONE, as if they had been working and playing together for a considerably long time.
[And just as a matter of interest, at the completion of the training session, all the players individually “walked the boundary fence” signing autographs and taking photos with the fans, for as long as it took… It was a great gesture of appreciation from the players to the fans who had give up their Saturday mornings to come and watch the team training.]
How’s your business going?
In your business, do you do training events regularly that simulate actual work situations, or do you simply wing it, on real live customers?
Is your training of staff and team members structured and purposeful, so that roles and movements become second nature and expected, rather than having results and outcomes that are hoped for with fingers crossed?
Hope is not a good strategy.
Winging it is not a good strategy.
It is said that practice makes perfect.
But it is precise and purposeful practice that really produces perfect, predictable performance.
Poor practice, and no practice, produce very poor and inferior performances.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
