There’s no need to download anything! Just click on the icon below, listen and then DO something!

Links:

Are You An IDIOT?

An End To Poor ‘Robotic’ Service…. Delivered By A Robot!

Want Customer Loyalty? It’s All In The Smile!

If you’re new to 3D Thoughts and you’d like to hear past episodes and to sign up for a little reminder when they’re out, just click here.

Don’t forget, so you never miss one again (and so you can listen when and where you want!), then subscribe via iTunes here.

Bookmarks:

59% of UK consumers say that a smile with a warm greeting is the most common reason why they feel loyal to a small business! That’s according to a new report carried out by The Small Business Research Centre at Kingston University for Barclays Bank.

It might seem obvious stuff, but interestingly, only about half of the country’s small businesses are actually doing it! Only 54% said that that they made a practice of doing it!

The research found that the 3 key factors in securing customer loyalty were…

• A warm greeting and a smile – 59%
• Brilliant customer service – 36%
• Remembering their usual order – 22%

Interestingly, 60% of customers said that they would be prepared to pay more for a product from a small business that delivered this rather than a large corporate enterprise. However, I would argue that this stuff works for large companies too – it just might be harder to make it happen!

It’s clearly all about the personalised customer experience that exceeds customer expectations – that means creating customer delight. Crucially, it’s about building systems and processes in to help do this consistently -  That’s about creating devoted customers – those who have high expectations of you and consistently get a great experience (‘great’ defined by them, by the way!).

If you would like some ideas on how you could actually do this stuff, you might like to download Customer Delight As Competitive Advantage, our latest 44 page FREE ebook that gives you ideas, tips and tools to help you make this stuff work – simply click on the icon to print it off or download it straight to your Kindle or iPad!

In the meantime, keep smiling!

Bookmarks:

Recognised as leaders in their field (they were the first chain of sushi restaurants in the UK), they’ve now come up with an innovative approach to delivering a swift, smooth and personalised customer experience done in a genuinely unique way. Your food is flown to you at your table by a flying tray –  it’s the iTray!

The iTray, which can travel at speeds of up to 25mph is controlled by the Yo! Sushi staff who can guide it via remote control to your table using an iPad and the two ‘onboard’ cameras on the tray! This nippy little device which is being trialled at their flagship Portland Street restaurant in London certainly ‘delivers’ a unique personalised customer experience!

It’s a great example of ‘Demonstrating’ their Dramatic Difference – a key element of which is innovation.

“We’re all about innovation and delivering a whole concept in an unusual and exciting way,” said Robin Rowland, chief executive of YO! Sushi. “The iTray … is a way for us to explain how exciting food can be.”

See the video below to see how they do it!

Bookmarks:

Don’t forget, so you never miss one again (and so you can listen when and where you want!), then subscribe via iTunes here.

Links:

Amy’s Ice Creams Customer Experience – Now That’s Cool!

Social Media At Work – Skiving Or Thriving?

Proof That Your Loyal Customers Forgive, Rebuy And Recommend!

Bookmarks:

Their survey of 10,000 employees worldwide has revealed that…

• 46% of people believe that access to social media tools has increased their productivity
• 37% believe they could be significantly more productive if their managers were more supportive in using social media
• 34% believe that their managers underestimate the benefits of social media.

Interestingly, the survey revealed that more than 30% of companies don’t allow it in the workplace and restrict its use.

It’s an interesting one. I can’t help thinking that as long as people aren’t spending too much time watching YouTube videos of cats and telling everyone what they had for breakfast, then ’appropriate’ use could help improve and develop….

• Engagement with customers and network contacts
• Improved intelligence on market trends and customer opinions and views
• Collaboration and communication with colleagues
• Sourcing suppliers, support and resources
• Idea generation, sharing and development

So yes, using social media appropriately can help – go on, get your people using it to help maximise relationships, collaboration, communication and innovation in your business (why not share this with them?)

What’s ‘appropriate’? Well, I think taking guidance from Hubspot and their social media policy (in fact, all their policies!) is a good start. It’s….

‘Use Good Judgement’!

You can read more about them here and their UBER culture here.

Bookmarks:

Well, there’s some evidence from Bruce Temkin of Customer Experience Matters that it certainly does! His organisation examined NPS scores for companies across 19 industries based on feedback from 10,000 U.S. consumers and more than 95,000 pieces of feedback from consumers about those companies. His research found that:

• Promoters are almost six times as likely to forgive! They asked consumers about their likelihood to forgive a company if it delivered a bad experience and found that 64% of promoters are likely to forgive compared with 11% of detractors.
• Promoters are more than five times as likely to repurchase! 81% of promoters are likely to repurchase additional products and service compared with 16% of detractors.
• Promoters are more than twice as likely as detractors to actually recommend. 64% of promoters have recommended the company compared with 24% of detractors.

What are you doing to create loyalty and what are you doing to measure whether your efforts are paying off?  Yes, it’s about creating remarkable customer experiences that makes them want to come back – that’s customer delight. It’s also about measuring whether you’re doing it right - Net Promoter Score is a great way of doing that!

For those that don’t know about it (check out the details here) it’s a simple question that finds out how likely customers are to recommend you to friends a colleagues. Those that rate you 9 or 10 (out of 10) are your Active Promoters (people who rave about you!) and those that rate you 0-6 are your ‘Detractors’ (the one’s who aren’t so keen!). Your Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the % of Active Promoters – % of Detractors.

It’s powerful because it doesn’t take into account the 7′s and 8′s (the ‘Passives’  – those who think you’re ok!) and can be (and should be) used as Key Performance Indicator that drives (and rewards) performance. You can also use it to benchmark your business against others and to measure improvements in performance. In the UK, Apple have an NPS of 67, First Direct has a NPS of 61 (and, if you’re interested, Andy Hanselman Consulting has an NPS of 64!)

So, go on, get working on creating customer delight, exceeding your customer expectations and building loyalty with your customers. Crucially, get measuring that you’re actually doing that!

Bookmarks:

Here’s an example of a business that has built this completely in to the way it looks after its customers. Amy’s Ice Creams is an incredibly successful chain of 15 ice cream parlours across Texas that ‘wows’ its customers via extraordinary tricks with, yes, you’ve guessed it – ice cream! How cool is that?

Amy’s Ice Creams‘ employees do ‘tricks’ with the ice cream as they prepare it for you. This could include throwing ice cream scoops under their legs, behind their backs, and over their colleagues! Some stores are known for throwing ice cream across the street, where either the recipient or another employee catches it (hopefully!). Oh, and they’re dog friendly!

Amy Simmons, who set the business up in 1984, looks for creative people to do these amazing things – How do they find them? Well, they have a fairly unique application process. Forget filling in forms – their process involves a white paper bag!

Applicants are encouraged to be creative with the bag as their application for a job. They have included decorated bags, short stories and videos placed in the bag. Some applications have included only portions of the bag, puppets made from the bag, or the remains of a bag (ashes). The end product does not need to resemble the original bag. The only requirements are to write a name and contact information somewhere on the application! Now, THAT is Dramatically and Demonstrably Different!

To reinforce their Dramatic Difference, they are holding their annual ’cream slingin’, high flying, ice cream tossing, spade juggling extravaganza.- the 9th Ice Cream Trick Olympics! ‘Expert’ ice cream servers will be performing tricks with scoops of ice cream, and a huge crowd is expected in Texas. Events include Decathlon where employees do ten different tricks as fast as they can; Best Team Trick, where pairs of employees work together to complete a multi-level trick; and Best Solo Trick, where individual employees try to outdo each other with complicated tricks^]

But it’s not just the events that differentiate this business, it’s what it does day to day that makes it a 3D business (in fact, it’s number #25 in our search for 100 3D Examples)

(This idea is number #25 in our 3D Challenge search for 100 ideas!)

(3D Characteristic #3 Create Delighted And Devoted Customers #5 Build An UBER Culture!)

Bookmarks:

Don’t forget, so you never miss one again (and so you can listen when and where you want!), then subscribe via iTunes here.

Links:

The Top 10 Businesses When It Comes To Employee Happiness!

How The ‘Blissful’ Businesses Keep Their Employees Happy!

Home Of Service!

Are You ‘Completely Happy’? It’s A Tough Question!

Delivering Happiness – The Book!

Bookmarks:

A new report by ORC International suggests that less than half of respondents feel that innovation and creativity are highly valued in their workplace, and employees in the UK are less likely to feel that they would be recognised for coming up with new and innovative ways of working.

The UK’s biggest decline, compared to 2012, was around employee involvement when it comes to generating ideas and making suggestions. There are clearly blockages in how businesses are going about enagaging their employees when it comes to innovation.

So, how do innovative businesses ‘tap in’ to their employees ideas? Well, our experience suggests it’s all about…

- Leadership! Winning businesses ensure that innovation is an integral part of the way they do business! They have a clear vision and this is driven by the leaders – they create time to think and work strategically, they get ‘innovation’ on the agenda and they encourage and support their people to do the same!

- Systems and Processes! They establish simple processes to generate ideas and suggestions from customers, their people and their support networks. They might not all create ’20% time’ like Google who ensure that all their employees spend at least 20% of their time on non core activities, but they establish simple processes that ensure that ideas are generated, and suggestions for improvement are made. See here how Tim Cook of Apple does it! and here to read about   ‘I Like…. I Wish…. I Wonder…..’ a simple ‘process’ employed at Pulse.

- Creating The Climate! This is about engaging people to get involved and contribute. It’s also about allowing, encouraging, even pushing people to ‘fish in different ponds’ – that means creating time to get out of the ‘day to day’, out of their own teams and departments and their ‘comfort zones’! It’s also about ‘championing their champions’ – rewarding and recognising those that get involved and contribute! Click here to see how winning leaders do this!

- Taking Action! Winners take action, not notes! In innovation driven businesses, time, effort and resources are put into making things happen and this is monitored and measured – it is certainly not left to chance!

So, how does your business measure up?

Are you above average?

Well, to find out you can….

DOWNLOAD OUR ‘APROACH TO INNOVATION ASSESSMENT’ TOOLKIT!

to find out!

Why not get your team to do the same, create a bit of time to discuss the findings, and then crucially…. DO SOMETHING!
 

Bookmarks:

(Actually, apparently it’s only $500 of ‘real money’ – the rest is fake, but it still certainly got people talking!)

The box is made from their security glass and it’s a really powerful demonstration of its strength and resiliance. Telling people ‘Come on, have a go and smash it’ certainly beats just talking about it in a standard advert on a poster or in a brochure.

What do you do / could you do to actually ’Demonstrate’ what you and / or your products and services actually do?

Go on, get thinking! Try and ‘smash it’!

Bookmarks: