Creating a Customer First Culture

Our team at the RCC SBDC recently composed this as a response to a question from a Grants Pass Chamber of Commerce member for their newsletter.

Your customers are what make your business and any opportunity your competitors have to exceed your service standards puts your business at risk.   To create a "customer first culture," my first suggestion is to not view customer service training as an event, but more of a process where you communicate with your team on a regular basis regarding how they can consistently exceed customer expectations.

Before addressing any customer improvement, you should begin with the end in mind.  Are you sure that your customers’ expectations align with your ideas of outstanding customer service?  Do you have a defined customer and employee feedback loop to assess what your customers want from your business?

If you were to ask your customers why they purchase from your business rather than a competitor, what would they say?  To find this out, I suggest going beyond the standard practice of sending out customer response cards or surveys.  More useful data can be attained by creating forums or exit interviews where you ask more open ended questions so your customers can give some indications on their expectations for value.  Often you will find that when they choose their own words, rather than checking off predetermined responses, you will get their emotional language in regards to what they find important about your business.  Some questions to ask include:

• "Would you recommend this business to a friend? Why or why not?"
• "What could we do for you that would allow us to become your preferred provider?
• "What can we do to make it easier to do business with us?"
• "Have we ever exceeded your expectations? If so, how?"
• "Have you ever heard complaints about our business?  What did we do wrong?"
• "Do you consider our business to be socially conscious?  Why or why not?
• “What did you think about our response time to your needs?”
• “Was our business user friendly?  How could we improve?”

Listen carefully to their responses and fine tune your message based on the descriptors that your customers use when talking about your business. What is the unique value proposition that you offer to your customers?  Consider using their words, if possible.  A good unique value proposition resonates with your customers when you emotionally connect with their sensibilities and expectations for your business.  

Southwest Airlines weaves an emotional connection with their customers into their culture.  They state on their website, “We like to think of ourselves as a Customer Service company that happens to fly airplanes (on schedule, with personality and perks along the way). How may we help you today?”  For a more local example, I am inspired by Dutch Bros. and the customer following they have developed by communicating their attitude with their customers.  On their website they state, “Here at Dutch Bros., we're all about being positive and lovin' life. That's why when we came across the ‘Optimist's Creed’ we decided to adopt it as our own and call it the Dutch Creed. We strive to pass the good vibes on to our employees and customers through leadership within our company, and customer service.” 

Once that message is defined, work on communicating and explaining the “Why” in why customers do business with your company to your team.  Communication is most effective when you, your team and your customers share the same emotional language and attitude.  Again I suggest using a feedback loop where there is communication between management and staff regarding customer interactions.    Pay attention to all areas of customer contact including telephone, website, e-mail, social media and face to face interactions.  Does it match up with customers’ expectations?  It is amazing how little details can set the tone of an interaction.   Sometimes a smile and a simple question such as genuine, “Hi, how are you today?” will set the tone for a positive customer experience.   Attention to attitude, colors, background sounds and tone of a voice can create an ambience that makes your customer service contact more memorable.

Another important component of delivering excellence in customer service is empowering your employees to go the extra mile for the customer.  Whenever you catch a team member delivering excellence in customer care, try to make those examples visible to the rest of the staff.   As the business owner, it’s up to you to be the cheerleader for your team.  Take the time to tell stories and make it a “big deal” with the staff.  Recognize your team for their efforts and consider rewarding them for going the extra mile with your customers.  Have you given your employees the authority to deal with customer challenges?  Can your employees give refunds, provide discounts or offer complimentary products/services to make good on a challenging customer service situation?  There is an old saying, “Doing the right things is more important than doing things right.”   Obviously, profitability and productivity need to be maintained, but empowering your employees to do the right things for your customers is an important component of creating a “customer first” culture.  It’s not about doing any 1 big thing, it’s about doing 1000 little things right, consistently, every day.

Ultimately, it is up to you to lead the team and set the tone daily in regard to the spirit of your team.  Your employees expect to be led and you as the leader will ultimately dictate your culture.  Creating a fun and exciting work environment every day is key to having a business where employees look forward to coming to work and view it as one of the “best parts of their day.”

Developing this type of culture takes time, but your commitment towards developing exceptional service in your organization will undoubtedly yield results.  Consider the advice from Kevin Stirtz, who wrote, “Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.”

Business vs. Busyness

Being successful in business is based on a very simple premise.  You need to have more income than expenses.   

While the concept is simple, that does not mean that the execution of starting and operating a successful business is an easy undertaking.  Each day brings multiple possibilities of challenges.  How can your business increase sales?  Is your business experiencing an ongoing creep of new expenses?  Are new competitors entering an already saturated marketplace?

Running a business requires the owner to fill a variety of management roles, usually requiring multitasking on a daily basis.  Often, our clients tell us that there isn't enough time in a day to do the things that need to be done to be successful.  Still, there is a difference between running a business and just being busy.   

Being self-employed requires a certain amount of leadership and discipline.  Measuring how many hours you work at your own business is not nearly as important as tracking the productivity and operating results.  Answering the question, "Is this the best use of my time?" during a busy day can often help guide a better prioritization of your actions. 

On a daily basis, you should be aware of the productivity of your efforts, and if applicable, your employees.  Each business transaction brings an opportunity for analysis and the more successful business owners possess an awareness of what I like to refer to as the "profitability of the moment." They maintain an active thought process of evaluating transactions and manage towards better performance.   

Effective business managers have the ability to focus their attention on the areas where they can influence more profitable performance.  They delegate "busy" tasks whenever possible so they can focus on business development activities.  They are quicker to adapt to changes in the marketplace, make process improvements and bring new innovations to their product/service lines based on observations of consumer behavior.

In the words of Ramana Maharshi, "There is neither past nor future. There is only the present. Yesterday was the present to you when you experienced it, and tomorrow will be also the present when you experience it. Therefore, experience takes place only in the present, and beyond experience nothing exists."

The past provides historical perspective and the future the opportunity to realize goals.  Still, we can only take actions in the present that will lead to greater success.  Be mindful of what you can do in the moment to improve your business rather than getting tied up in the "busyness" of the day.

Remember the Person

It is now ten years later.  Time stops for nothing and quite a bit has happened over the past 10 years in each of our lives.  Still, the magnitude of what happened in the past has left us with plenty of reasons to remember this particular date every year.

We talk about terror and we talk about what has changed.  For many, this was a true act of terrorism and there is no doubt that fear has integrated into our society and some things will never be the same.  Yet I refuse to call this terrorism.  It was nothing but an act of cowardly murder carried out by a group of delusional swine.

There is no suppressing the anger I feel, but anger does nothing to soothe the pain or change what has happened.  I wish I knew what we could do to keep things like this happening, but unfortunately, there is no way we can completely scrub the filth out of some elements of our society.

Like many others, I would like this world to be more peaceful.  It is hard enough to survive sheltering ourselves from natural elements and keeping our bodies healthy through the passage of time.  The fact that our lives may also threatened by others that do not possess an ounce of humanity in their souls is something that is unfathomable, but unfortunately a part of our environment.

As tragic is that is, we have not stopped living our lives. Collectively as a nation, we have not cowered and we are not consumed by fear.  Still, we still remember what happened ten years ago.

A component of human consciousness is our ability to reflect upon the past.  We have the control in our minds to relive the events of what has happened before.  It is real easy to be consumed by the horror, sadness and anger of remembering what happened ten years ago.  The stories are told over and over in our media.  Yet too much focus is about large buildings that collapsed.  That is not what made the day a tragedy. 

So I personally choose to focus on the remembrance of one person.  I think of Vic Saracini, who was someone that I did not know very well; but he was someone who I had the pleasure to meet at my former place of business.  He was a kind person who talked to me on occasion about his career and how much he loved his family.  He was a special person whose life was ended prematurely ten years ago.

How could anyone purposely end his life?  If only they had known how special he was.

The tragedy of what has happened ten years ago results from the loss of his life and the lives of many others.  It is not day to live in terror or to think about buildings being destroyed.  Today is a day I choose to mourn the loss of Vic Saracini.  My thoughts are with his family and friends.

Go West Young Man!

I've recently accepted a new position at the Rogue Community College Small Business Development Center in Grants Pass, Oregon.  It is a long move from Plattsburgh, NY and challenging transition; but I am excited about joining a great new team and a progressive organization that is committed to providing support to small business owners at any stage of their development.

Join me from time to time, send comments and give me some suggestions for future post topics. 

Adopt a Family Business

 I wrote this article for Strictly Business magazine - 

Adopt a Family Business

I have to admit, it has my entrepreneurial spirit has been fired up again and I have been thinking about my next "family business."   What, when and where are questions that still need be answered, but I have a few draft plans in the works - stay tuned!!!

Show Some Love

My office keeps a Facebook Page.  We would love for you to "like" us, but more importantly, I recently posted a YouTube video that I would like you to watch, called "The Break Up."   This humorous little skit speaks volumes about marketing and the power that social media can play in your efforts.


It is not my goal in this post is not to talk about how to use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or other social media sites to market your business.  There are plenty of social media wonks out there with blogs and articles on how to effectively utilized these tools.  Dr. Jonathan Slater, a colleague at SUNY Plattsburgh, keeps this Google Bookmark that he continually updates with fresh articles about social media.


The intention of my post today is to help you think about the foundation of your marketing strategy.  Whenever I discuss marketing strategy, I remind people that developing a message is not about sharing what you have; rather it is your ability to communicate what you have for the customer.  As that YouTube video demonstrates, the consumer doesn't want a one way conversation. They want the opportunity to share and be involved in the dialog.   Consumers want the producers to understand their wants and needs.


I can't stress enough the importance of emotion when it comes to purchasing decisions.  We don't buy things because we need that particular item or service; we buy things because of emotions that convince us we want these things.  Those who think low price is the only thing consumers care about are outright wrong.  Don't believe me?  Try to think about every financial transaction you made last month.  Were there other lower cost options?  If you really think about, the answer would be yes (choosing not to buy is a lower cost option); and if I asked you to justify why you purchase the things you do, my guess is there would be some emotional reasons that would be part of your answer.


As you develop your marketing strategy, my suggestion is that you start by thinking about why your customers would love to do business with you.  Come up with all the reasons why you are more special then your competitors.  To help you along, think about the 4 P's of marketing:

• Product/service (perceived quality and friendliness)
• Place (ease of possession)
• Promotion (familiarity/trust)
• Price (value)

Once you come up with some reasons why you are better, work on crafting your emotional message.  What can you do to make your customers feel better about your business?  There is nothing wrong with embellishing, as that as how you can develop a better emotional response; but you also want to be honest and sincere.


Most importantly, you want to monitor feedback and listen to your customers.  Are they understanding your message?  Are they telling you that they want something different?


This is where social media can really add value.  Not too long ago, it would take significant market research efforts to find out what your customers think about your products or services.  Now with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and YouTube, you have the power to quickly learn what your customers are saying about your business.


The business/consumer relationship, like any lasting relationship, should be based on communication and mutual benefits.  It is much easier to build a bond with someone if you show them you care.  Take that to the next level by showing your customers that you really listen...if you really want to stand out against the competition, use powerful emotional language and show some love. 

How Do I Get a Government Grant for My Business?

I decided to have some fun today.  This is a question that I get asked quite often at work, so I created this little video:

Business Plan To Get a Government Grant