dispatches from the new world of work

Service (EXPERIENCE!) Excellence Found!

There is Excellence outside the NFL. And Service Excellence in 2005! Three TP Awards: Susan & I, part-time Bostonians these days, shopped Saturday at Whole Foods Market/Boston. WOW! Food ... AWESOME. Presentation ... AWESOME. Staff Attitude & Knowledge ... AWESOME. "Last Impression" (help with bags in an urban setting) ... AWESOME. Talk about "Experience Marketing" ... "Dream Merchants" ... "Lovemark"! These guys top Starbucks by a mile in my book!

Next up: Apple Store CambridgeSide Galleria. What a show! The "product," of course, is ... AWESOME. The ambience is ... AWESOME. The Staff Attentiveness & EXPERTISE & Teaching Skill are ... AWESOME. And on the Experience Front, Apple runs a blizzard of Cool Activities. (Last Saturday, for instance: 9-10am, "Getting Started Workshop;" 1-130pm, "iLife '04 Presentation;" 3-330pm, "iPod & iTunes Presentation;" 5-530pm, "GarageBand Presentation." On weekday evenings there are often advanced presentations.)

Finally, another nod to my 2004MVP, Commerce Bank; my colleague Ilene Fischer hung out at a Commerce call center last week ... trust me, it ain't your father's call center! Staffers are not measured on length of calls—they're encouraged to spend all the time they need with Clients. There are no voice messages or menus—all Clients are directly handled by Human Beings all-the-time ... and yet the response time is an average of 16 seconds, half that of the industry. All this lavish service, and they manage to grow almost 50 percent a year ... organically! (Oh yes, and their use of "WOW!" makes me look like a little leaguer!)

I'm VERY VERY BIG (as you know) on the DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE between "service" and "experience." These 3 exemplars are Grand Testimony to that ... DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE!!

Tom Peters posted this on 01/17/05.

Comments

There is a Whole Foods about a mile from my home here in NJ, literally across the river from Manhattan. My wife and I were shopping there during MLB playoff time and I was sporting my well-worn Boston Red Sox t-shirt following a workout. Among hordes of Yankees' fans, a Whole Foods employee tapped me on the shoulder and, without a word, brandished a Red Sox pin he had been wearing. The only words here uttered: "Go Sawx. And, here you go, here's a $5 coupon. Go Sawx!" (I'm not sure I would have received the same love from those at the giant Whole Foods at AOL/Time Warner Center in Manhattan... but I, no doubt, have received the same AWESOME service).

Posted by Lee H. Igel at January 17, 2005 3:04 PM

When you say dramatic difference I think most of the people think of "dramatic" as a difference in degree, as sinonimous of radical or extreme. I think dramatic should also mean "a human experience structured as a drama, a meaningful narrative".

Every occasion as a scene. Relationships as scripts. And digression as the spirit of action.

Digression is often undervalued by the idea of progression. I suspect most of the great achievements in science, business and culture came from digressive minds, rather than progressives.

Posted by felix gerena at January 17, 2005 4:28 PM

love my local whole foods. best everything, food wise. however, my local store has serious growing pains. already narrow aisles now have "islands" of fruit juice, crackers, whatever, making it nearly impossible to traverse the store with a grocery cart. and just before yesterday's Patriots game? fuhgeddaboutit! worse than manhattan's rush hour. i understand the store needs to generate so much per square foot, but shopping experience at this location is plummeting.

Posted by Erik at January 17, 2005 7:43 PM

I waited in line, again, at Starbucks. Love the coffee, hate the line. As innovative as the company is, I cannot understand why they still embrace their order-taking/order-fulfillment process.

In an effort to be efficient, the bartender hollers for your order before youâ€™ve reached the register. Okay, itâ€™s 7 am and I donâ€™t really feel like yelling back my coffee order over the din of Ray Charles and the espresso machineâ€™s hissing steam - Iâ€™m barely awake.

I lean towards the bartender and give my order. I get up to the register and give my order again, and that person calls out my order to the bartender who yells back, â€œGot it!â€

Itâ€™s like Saturday Night Liveâ€™s "Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger" skit all over again.

I know Starbucks is now automating some stores with a new order-taking display, much like McDonaldâ€™s has, but I still hate the line. Itâ€™s too long and itâ€™s too slow.

I know... itâ€™s only coffee. Iâ€™ll get over it.)

Posted by Jeff Pasquale at January 17, 2005 8:57 PM

Whole Foods also buys locally - so it is an AWESOME WAY to support many in the local community.

Posted by John at January 18, 2005 10:28 AM