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On a trip away from Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor took time to talk to us at tompeters.com. He and Erik had a great conversation about his latest book, A Christmas Blizzard, and many other topics, including a note from Julie Christie. We know you'll enjoy reading his Cool Friends interview. View our Archives for past interviews.

Comments

Steve,

Good post. 'Clientele'ing is a very common retail industry term. There are many applications built around this very concept, specifically referred to as Clienteling applications.

Here are a couple of examples:
1)http://www.epicor.com/Products/Pages/Clientele.aspx
2)http://www.retaligent.com/esp.html

There may be different names for this type of application, but all are designed to bring customer information into the hands of the sales associate, for a more meaningful engagement with the customer.

Posted by Rick Boretsky at October 13, 2009 10:47 AM

I would be thrilled if the sales clerk stopped texting long enough to greet me. Anything beyond that would be too much for me to contemplate.

Posted by David Porter at October 13, 2009 10:52 AM

"It's relationships, stupid."

Or so should our motto be today, but not just in retail. There are always ways to clientele in B2B endeavors as well.

Posted by SKI at October 13, 2009 12:18 PM

Focusing on "clienteling" makes a job more rewarding, too. Back when I worked at Apple Retail, "surprising and delighting" customers was the goal, which made for a fun environment. I think it's possible for many retailers to develop this sense of community among their employees if they make it sincere.

Posted by Amanda Cullen at October 13, 2009 12:36 PM

Totally with the points here - in the UK we probably have more of a problem then in the US with this stuff.

A probably useless plea - but I will make it anyway. Please Please Please can we stop creating verbs like this - it's so naff, irritating and unnecessary.

Posted by PaulH at October 13, 2009 2:02 PM

good points but the balancing is really important too, some stores really overdo this, ex. staples

Posted by mehmet aydin at October 13, 2009 2:31 PM

I agree with both Steve and Mehmet. I think that sometimes people in retail stores don't do a good job reading their customers. I know that I often don't care to talk to anyone when I walk in a store... I just want to browse. And I also hate when you are approached by multiple people. I think great "clienteling" means that you find out when the customer wants to engage.

At the same time, I think you can always engage with them at some point during the visit... maybe at check-out.

Posted by Caroline Ceisel at October 13, 2009 3:38 PM

Steve - Interesting bit of live anecdotal research that probably means nothing but I’ll share it anyway. In my work over the last 6 weeks I’ve travelled on 42 train journeys up, down and across England. I reckon I will have met around 35 different ticket collectors (you don’t always get your tickets checked). I remember only one of them. This guy appeared in our carriage and announced – just like all the other collectors ‘Tickets please.’ But from then on it was a virtuoso one man show. As he came down the aisle to check our tickets he smiled broadly and had a wise crack for most of us. He was happy. He was an entertainer. He was enjoying his work. The eyes of fellow passengers which are normally buried in their book, newspaper or the screen of their lap top made contact with fellow passengers … and whisper it ….. most of the passengers were actually smiling. This was unusual!! And he was not ‘over the top’ – ‘cos that’s just as bad as the miserable one’s. I agree with Caroline – finding the right balance for the personal interaction is a gift not a skill.

I also agree with Paul – I suspect we have a longer way to go in the UK than you folks on the left side of the pond … but there is hope.

Posted by Trevor Gay at October 13, 2009 4:16 PM

No doubt that this applies to B2B. Retail is one, of many examples, but one we all relate to. Last week I did an interview on We relationships with Ben Merens on Wisconsin Public Radio http://wpr.org/merens/ and we noticed that virtually every caller wanted to talk about retail examples, most likely because they are so familiar. We worked in B2B examples, which work well.

PaulH - I promise this verb will not end up, if I can help it, in the OED, but, hey, it's fun and instructive! (How about if we agree to support voluntarily use, but not to "incentivize" anyone to use it?) Everyone I've mentioned "to clientele" to has immediately "got it."

Mehmet - my take is that you can overdo gratuitous, obsequious, affected fake fawning over customers, that, if you are in-tune with your customer and what he/she is open to, you are always better off erring on the side of relationship-building, even with an irate customer. What do you think?

Posted by Steve Yastrow at October 13, 2009 4:28 PM

I wrote an article titled, "The Power Goodbye." I discusses how we spend a lot of energy on the Hello, and way too little emphasis on the Goodbye. Clientele is doing the Goodbye really well.

Posted by Rodney Johnson at October 13, 2009 4:50 PM

Steve, I love the "clienteling" idea. Though it begs the question, how do you measure how much, or in what way, "the customer's relationship with the store is better when she leaves than it was when she came in."

It is my firm belief that if you can't measure something, you don't really know what it is. And, if you don't know what it is, then you surely can't train your sales staff to do it.

Posted by Peter Adams at October 13, 2009 5:55 PM

As consumers of service or "sellers" of information on how to provide service, "clienteling" probably has a nice ring to it. Like every other concept however, execution is a much different issue. What are the barriers to being able to effectively "clientel" in one's own organization? I would say they are probably the same when one was talking about building "relationships" with those we now should be "clienteling"? Or "WOWING" our customers, or branding ourselves as "customer centric" organizations. You can spin it, label it, or tweak it in a thousand ways, but original thought has long been lacking in leadership and business practices over the past decades, since the days of Drucker, Juran, and Deming. If you want to learn and understand the barriers to doing anything, ask the folks who build the product or provide the service. Most of these barriers will be linked to factors that management, not the frontline team, controls. Try "clienteling" with these folks. Then take a look at several of Deming's 14 points...

Deming's Point #7. Institute leadership "Adopt and institute leadership aimed at helping people do a better job. The responsibility of managers and supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality. Improvement of quality will automatically improve productivity. Management must ensure that immediate action is taken on reports of inherited defects, maintenance requirements, poor tools, fuzzy operational definitions, and all conditions detrimental to quality."

Deming's #8...Drive out fear. "Encourage effective two way communication and other means to drive out fear throughout the organization so that everybody may work effectively and more productively for the company."

Deming's #10...Eliminate exhortations. "Eliminate the use of slogans, posters and exhortations for the work force, demanding Zero Defects and new levels of productivity, without providing methods. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships; the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system, and thus lie beyond the power of the work force."

Deming's #11...Eliminate arbitrary numerical targets. "Eliminate work standards that prescribe quotas for the work force and numerical goals for people in management. Substitute aids and helpful leadership in order to achieve continual improvement of quality and productivity."

Deming's #14...Top management commitment and action. "Clearly define top management's permanent commitment to ever improving quality and productivity, and their obligation to implement all of these principles. Indeed, it is not enough that top management commit themselves for life to quality and productivity. They must know what it is that they are committed to—that is, what they must do. Create a structure in top management that will push every day on the preceding 13 Points, and take action in order to accomplish the transformation. Support is not enough: action is required!"

Seems as if everything else has been tried except the above...how about trying to improve the leadership and management part of the process? Credibly. Consistently. Continuously. You lose what when you eliminate the real barriers to excellence?

Posted by Dave Wheeler at October 13, 2009 10:28 PM

Here in Latin America most specifically in Brazil, there are too this short of real good clienteling, but unlikely USA and UK we are more of a hot land, so these types take not much longer to show up, in all professions. Here in capital i like the idea of clienteling for the government people, since i went from public worker to business owner. It is working out fine.

Posted by Fausto at October 14, 2009 7:56 AM

Thanks for a good laugh David. I'll add the phone that rings while I'm being waited on - why does it have priority over me as a customer they are already "clienteling"?

Posted by Bruce at October 14, 2009 8:52 AM

I have been thinking a lot about why this stuff doesn't stick in business - why we keep going back to the same debate about snr management only getting "numbers" based stuff. I found Peter's comments about measuring interesting too.

It struck me that underlying this businesses have no vocabulary for emotional connection (and I don't mean more words like Clientele). The accountancy profession has a clear vocabulary. The terms are clear (at least to another accountant!) they mean something.

Business shies away from both the idea and vocabulary of emotion - how do we change that?

Posted by PaulH at October 14, 2009 11:43 AM

It seems like clienteling would be second nature to humans because it's reaching out and being friendly and helpful to other human beings. Sadly, that's not the case. Clienteling takes a lot of effort, but the end results are worth it.

Posted by Elizabeth at October 14, 2009 12:19 PM

PaulH, on the question of having the "vocabulary of emotional connection" ...

It's a great question. I decided to start using vocabulary related to emotional connection in my work, such as "encounter," "being engaged in the moment," "honoring someone as a full human being," "genuine dialogue," "inviting someone into the moment with you," etc. I do many workshops for executives who fall into the middle-aged, mid-western, male, football-before-Shakespeare demographic, and I am happy to report that they are VERY willing to embrace, discuss and use these concepts.

So ... let's not shy away from "vocabulary of emotional connection."

Posted by Steve Yastrow at October 14, 2009 9:48 PM

Paul H and Steve,
My cousin Jack Mitchell has a phrase for it: "Hug Your Customers" (And a book by the same title.)
John

Posted by Shakespeare's Debtor at October 15, 2009 12:30 AM

Shakespeare - I've met Jack, and he definitely gets it!

Steve

Posted by Steve Yastrow at October 15, 2009 5:56 PM