I have a Macbook Pro and I love using my Apple computer. I’ve had it for 4 years
now and I’ve enjoyed getting back to thinking of viruses as things that attack
the human body and worms found in the ground and Trojans that are found in the
history books. It’s been good for me.
However, last year I had a problem with my Mac. I shut it down and when I opened
it up again, it just wouldn’t come on. I took it to the service centre here and they
told me that there was a major problem with it and would cost Rs. 70,000/- to fix.
I looked at them and told them to shut it and return it to me.
I was traveling to the US in the next 15 days and decided to take it with me. I
walked into the Mac store in Omaha. There, you can set up an appointment to meet
a ‘genius’ as they call their technicians who help you. I sat down with this genius and
told him what had happened. He said that he would look at it. Then he said, “Well,
we can fix this. You are out of warranty but we have a couple of options.” I asked
him what my options were. He said, “One, we fix whatever needs to be fixed and you
pay for it. If it’s a $5 deal, you pay $5. If it’s a $600 deal, you pay $600.” I asked
him what other options were there. He replied, “Whatever we fix, you pay $330. If
it’s $5, you pay $330; if it’s $600, you pay $330.” I thought that was a better deal
and so agreed.
He was writing down different details of my laptop on his own computer. I casually
asked him, “Tell me, what happened to the Mac? Why did it stop?” He said, “We
don’t really know but once we run diagnostics and open it up, I will be better able
to tell you.” Then I told him, “I’ve had this laptop for about 4 years and have been
extremely happy with it. But I’ve taken a lot of flak from my PC friends including
my daughter who lives at home. She laughed at me saying, ‘What happened to your
Mac? For the amount you paid, you could have bought 4 PC’s.’ I’m just curious as to
what happened.” He told me that he used a Macbook Pro himself and was sorry that
this happened, but would get it fixed. He filled out all the details that he needed
and gave me a paper and said, “Sign here and we’ll get started.”
When I looked at the place where I had to sign, it read ‘Total amount: 000.’ I
looked at him and said, “What’s going on?” He smiled and asked, “You have a problem signing that?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied, “but you haven’t charged!’
He said, “Well, we like our Mac customers to leave our store with a smile on their faces. We are not charging you.” They went even beyond. I was leaving Omaha in 2 days and I requested them to ship it to my son who was in Kentucky. They did that. When I got to Kentucky, it was already there. I opened it up – working perfectly. They had also given me a new battery which was another $140 deal. I’ve been a fan of Apple and Mac ever since.
When I read about Steve Jobs resigning and all that, I came across this article
by Adrian Slywotzky. He has just written a book ‘Demand: Creating what People
Love Before they know they want it’, to be released in October. He had this article
entitled, ‘Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth’. He says, “All that we see when we deal
with Apple: the inspiration, the wonderful customer experience, etc. we look at
Steve Jobs and his personality, his achievements, his vision; it’s the man who has
got all the attention. But it’s more than just inspiration. In Apple, they’ve got the
ratio between inspiration and perspiration down right. When you really look into
Apple, they produce 10 pixel-perfect prototypes for each feature. They compete,
and they are winnowed down to three, then one, resulting in a highly evolved winner.
Because Apple knows that ‘the more you have to compete inside the company,
the less you have to compete outside.’”
He goes on to say, “This back-breaking labor that goes into assuring a perfect
customer experience, hundreds of times a day, at 300 stores around the world and
countless conversations on the phone, don’t just happen. There’s an explanation for
the glitter. Under Job’s leadership, Apple has done 10 times the amount of relevant
homework of most companies: internal competitions, supply chain training, endless
deal-making, endless recruiting, training and generating and sustaining employee
excitement that you just can’t fake.”
And if you walk into an Apple store, you can sense that excitement. It’s so
contagious! It’s so beautiful when you have this kind of experience. When you walk
in and are treated with such good customer relationship; you have people who are
happy to see you, eager to help.
The same thing happened with Southwest Airline. They too have become a model in
the last couple of years. They’ve built good customer relations into their attitude.
In fact, Peter Merholz, writing in an article in Harvard Business Review, says this
in ‘Becoming a Customer Experience-Driven Business’. He says, “Southwest is the
only airline to rank in the top 25 in Forrester Research’s Customer Experience
Index of 2008. For them, customer experience is an organizational mindset. It’s not
something a business buys; it’s something a business becomes.”
I remember early days when Southwest was just coming in and thinking – how strange they were! You’d walk to a gate agent and be met by agents in shorts and t-shirts, wonderful smiles, great attitudes. I remember on one flight, as we were getting ready for take-off, the captain came on the PA system and said, “You know, friends, one of our stewardess’ is celebrating her birthday today.” He began to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ over the PA system. After he finished, everyone sat there shocked. And he started to sing again. Finally the stewardess, who’s birthday it was, came on and said, “Hey guys, if you really want him to stop, just clap.” And everybody started clapping and the captain stopped singing. That was the kind of enthusiasm and joy of traveling that they put into Southwest experience. And the key was in their philosophy.
Susan Campbell writes in TMC News, ‘How Southwest Airlines Became a Model for
Customer Loyalty’. She says, “The difference was in their philosophy. The company
truly believes it is in the customer service business and it just happens to fly
airplanes. This is believed so strongly that Southwest qualifies a customer service
candidate for employment based on attitude, not experience. The company believes
that you can teach a person how to deliver quality service, but the attitude must be
brought to the job.”
We know that, don’t we? Today the old adage still stands, “You hire for attitude
and train for skills.” But they have managed to put it into their DNA. They train
each of their employees to give excellent customer service, to treat customers as
friends and family, to do things for customers as if they were family members. And
that makes all the difference in dealing with a company that really enjoys you and
the business you bring. A company that looks at you as if you were doing them a
favor, even though they are in the business of customer service.
As I read this and thought about the service industry, I thought that sometimes
we need to just be able to change our own attitude in the workplace that we are
in. Maybe it’s time we look at the company we are in, the kind of attitude that we
bring to the workplace. Because what comes out on the outside, always starts on
the inside. And the inside is in the office spaces, in the times (the 9-5 or the 9-10)
that you work, while bringing to it your attitude or what you bring to the company.
Maybe today is just a reality check for attitude. I know it is for me. As I worked
on this, I thought that I need to change my attitude as well. Do I really bring
enthusiasm, a love for what I am doing to the people who are around me, so that
they also enjoy the experience? And if I am not doing that, maybe it’s time that I
started.
You’ve heard the golden rule that comes out of our Bible (Luke 6:13). “Treat others
the same way you want them to treat you.” How true! We would love to have that customer experience. Maybe it’s time that we actually build it into the things that
we do.
Just a thought for you to ponder and act on!
God Bless Us All.
now and I’ve enjoyed getting back to thinking of viruses as things that attack
the human body and worms found in the ground and Trojans that are found in the
history books. It’s been good for me.
However, last year I had a problem with my Mac. I shut it down and when I opened
it up again, it just wouldn’t come on. I took it to the service centre here and they
told me that there was a major problem with it and would cost Rs. 70,000/- to fix.
I looked at them and told them to shut it and return it to me.
I was traveling to the US in the next 15 days and decided to take it with me. I
walked into the Mac store in Omaha. There, you can set up an appointment to meet
a ‘genius’ as they call their technicians who help you. I sat down with this genius and
told him what had happened. He said that he would look at it. Then he said, “Well,
we can fix this. You are out of warranty but we have a couple of options.” I asked
him what my options were. He said, “One, we fix whatever needs to be fixed and you
pay for it. If it’s a $5 deal, you pay $5. If it’s a $600 deal, you pay $600.” I asked
him what other options were there. He replied, “Whatever we fix, you pay $330. If
it’s $5, you pay $330; if it’s $600, you pay $330.” I thought that was a better deal
and so agreed.
He was writing down different details of my laptop on his own computer. I casually
asked him, “Tell me, what happened to the Mac? Why did it stop?” He said, “We
don’t really know but once we run diagnostics and open it up, I will be better able
to tell you.” Then I told him, “I’ve had this laptop for about 4 years and have been
extremely happy with it. But I’ve taken a lot of flak from my PC friends including
my daughter who lives at home. She laughed at me saying, ‘What happened to your
Mac? For the amount you paid, you could have bought 4 PC’s.’ I’m just curious as to
what happened.” He told me that he used a Macbook Pro himself and was sorry that
this happened, but would get it fixed. He filled out all the details that he needed
and gave me a paper and said, “Sign here and we’ll get started.”
When I looked at the place where I had to sign, it read ‘Total amount: 000.’ I
looked at him and said, “What’s going on?” He smiled and asked, “You have a problem signing that?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied, “but you haven’t charged!’
He said, “Well, we like our Mac customers to leave our store with a smile on their faces. We are not charging you.” They went even beyond. I was leaving Omaha in 2 days and I requested them to ship it to my son who was in Kentucky. They did that. When I got to Kentucky, it was already there. I opened it up – working perfectly. They had also given me a new battery which was another $140 deal. I’ve been a fan of Apple and Mac ever since.
When I read about Steve Jobs resigning and all that, I came across this article
by Adrian Slywotzky. He has just written a book ‘Demand: Creating what People
Love Before they know they want it’, to be released in October. He had this article
entitled, ‘Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth’. He says, “All that we see when we deal
with Apple: the inspiration, the wonderful customer experience, etc. we look at
Steve Jobs and his personality, his achievements, his vision; it’s the man who has
got all the attention. But it’s more than just inspiration. In Apple, they’ve got the
ratio between inspiration and perspiration down right. When you really look into
Apple, they produce 10 pixel-perfect prototypes for each feature. They compete,
and they are winnowed down to three, then one, resulting in a highly evolved winner.
Because Apple knows that ‘the more you have to compete inside the company,
the less you have to compete outside.’”
He goes on to say, “This back-breaking labor that goes into assuring a perfect
customer experience, hundreds of times a day, at 300 stores around the world and
countless conversations on the phone, don’t just happen. There’s an explanation for
the glitter. Under Job’s leadership, Apple has done 10 times the amount of relevant
homework of most companies: internal competitions, supply chain training, endless
deal-making, endless recruiting, training and generating and sustaining employee
excitement that you just can’t fake.”
And if you walk into an Apple store, you can sense that excitement. It’s so
contagious! It’s so beautiful when you have this kind of experience. When you walk
in and are treated with such good customer relationship; you have people who are
happy to see you, eager to help.
The same thing happened with Southwest Airline. They too have become a model in
the last couple of years. They’ve built good customer relations into their attitude.
In fact, Peter Merholz, writing in an article in Harvard Business Review, says this
in ‘Becoming a Customer Experience-Driven Business’. He says, “Southwest is the
only airline to rank in the top 25 in Forrester Research’s Customer Experience
Index of 2008. For them, customer experience is an organizational mindset. It’s not
something a business buys; it’s something a business becomes.”
I remember early days when Southwest was just coming in and thinking – how strange they were! You’d walk to a gate agent and be met by agents in shorts and t-shirts, wonderful smiles, great attitudes. I remember on one flight, as we were getting ready for take-off, the captain came on the PA system and said, “You know, friends, one of our stewardess’ is celebrating her birthday today.” He began to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ over the PA system. After he finished, everyone sat there shocked. And he started to sing again. Finally the stewardess, who’s birthday it was, came on and said, “Hey guys, if you really want him to stop, just clap.” And everybody started clapping and the captain stopped singing. That was the kind of enthusiasm and joy of traveling that they put into Southwest experience. And the key was in their philosophy.
Susan Campbell writes in TMC News, ‘How Southwest Airlines Became a Model for
Customer Loyalty’. She says, “The difference was in their philosophy. The company
truly believes it is in the customer service business and it just happens to fly
airplanes. This is believed so strongly that Southwest qualifies a customer service
candidate for employment based on attitude, not experience. The company believes
that you can teach a person how to deliver quality service, but the attitude must be
brought to the job.”
We know that, don’t we? Today the old adage still stands, “You hire for attitude
and train for skills.” But they have managed to put it into their DNA. They train
each of their employees to give excellent customer service, to treat customers as
friends and family, to do things for customers as if they were family members. And
that makes all the difference in dealing with a company that really enjoys you and
the business you bring. A company that looks at you as if you were doing them a
favor, even though they are in the business of customer service.
As I read this and thought about the service industry, I thought that sometimes
we need to just be able to change our own attitude in the workplace that we are
in. Maybe it’s time we look at the company we are in, the kind of attitude that we
bring to the workplace. Because what comes out on the outside, always starts on
the inside. And the inside is in the office spaces, in the times (the 9-5 or the 9-10)
that you work, while bringing to it your attitude or what you bring to the company.
Maybe today is just a reality check for attitude. I know it is for me. As I worked
on this, I thought that I need to change my attitude as well. Do I really bring
enthusiasm, a love for what I am doing to the people who are around me, so that
they also enjoy the experience? And if I am not doing that, maybe it’s time that I
started.
You’ve heard the golden rule that comes out of our Bible (Luke 6:13). “Treat others
the same way you want them to treat you.” How true! We would love to have that customer experience. Maybe it’s time that we actually build it into the things that
we do.
Just a thought for you to ponder and act on!
God Bless Us All.
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