What stories does your business write?
By James Dickey. Filed in General |
As business leaders we have to understand that our business is writing a story every day, in every interaction with the customer. Is your business writing the story you want?
In the last year my family has had two starkly different experiences with local retailers. The most recent was yesterday, and as I recounted the story to a friend of mine, I realized that all of our businesses are constantly writing stories. Stories that our customers will tell, one way or another. Write a meaningful enough story for a customer and she’ll write it large – on Facebook, Twitter, ePinions, Amazon reviews and more – and that’s both a fantastic opportunity and a warning for those who aren’t thinking about how the story reads.
Story 1:
For those who have never experienced it, Braum’s ice cream is great. They own their own cows on their own farms and ship it in their own trucks to their own stores. I’ve been a fan since my teens, and my wife and I grew to value their milk enough to make an extra trip out of our way to get it. Great story, right? That’s exactly how I used to tell it and it was. Here’s how it ends now:
It’s in the middle of last summer, which in Texas means the temperature is north of 100 degrees fahrenheit. I’m going to visit a friend, which means the closest Braum’s Ice Cream and Dairy Store is only a mile out of my way instead of several miles out, so I stop by and buy two gallons (enough to last us a week or so).
Well, I don’t get home for hours and the heat has had its way with the milk. The next day my wife goes back to Braum’s – several miles each way past several grocery stores – and explains what happens. They flatly refuse to do anything other than let her buy two more gallons of milk. She thanks them, leaves, stops at one of our many grocery stores closer to home and buys two gallons of milk.
We’ve never been to a Braum’s since, but whenever the subject comes up it always makes for a good story, so we share our “2 gallon” experience. Sure, it wasn’t their fault we didn’t go straight home with their milk and they didn’t owe us the $7 or whatever it was. What they missed, though, was the opportunity for us to share a fantastic story instead of one where we felt they failed to meet us even part way or in any way recognize that we were loyal, life-long customers.
Story 2:
On the other hand, there was yesterday. We have company coming for dinner and my wife is making her fabulous ribs. We have two guests, so true to form she buys 10 racks of ribs. Somehow only 9 of them make it into the refrigerator and the other spends 24 hours in the car. I take it back to our neighborhood Kroger, explain what happens, and they cheerfully offer to exchange it with our choice of other rack of ribs. They’re not even sweating whether or not there’s a price difference, and they know full well it wasn’t their fault the ribs spent the night in our car. Of course I pick the smallest rack and refuse their ridiculously generous offer to refund me the difference in price between the one I brought back and the one I picked out. That too is a story I’ll be sharing for years, and one that’ll make it easy to favor Kroger over the slightly closer, newer other grocery store in our neighborhood.
What kind of stories are your people making it possible for your customers to share? Are they the stories that help your business grow, or are you saving a few dollars and killing your golden geese, forgoing years of hundreds of dollars of revenue per year?
