“You Make Me Want to be a Better Customer…”
I rarely make sports or military analogies. My “historical references” are almost always pop-culture related. I’m much more familiar with pop culture than sports or the military.
There’s movie from the late ’90s named “As Good as It Gets” with Jack Nicholson and Hellen Hunt. First of all, if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a stream. (That was funny for me to type — the phrase used to be “It’s worth a rent” 😂).
Without spoiling it for you, in the movie Jack plays Melvin, a guy with, let’s just say, some issues, and he falls for Carol, the waitress in the only restaurant he’ll go to, played by Helen Hunt. She’s leery about it, but at one point they are at a restaurant and he’s kinda blowing it. She says “Pay me a compliment.” And he goes through a monologue about his history and doctors and then says, as the compliment: “I started taking my pills.” And when she asks why that’s a compliment to her, he responds: “You make me want to be a better man.”
You can see the clip here:
There are a few versions of this clip on the web and I went for the slightly longer version because it explains the look on her face before the targeted line is delivered. I’m familiar with that look — my brain connects things in strange ways sometimes to arrive at a conclusion with a different perspective. There’s a lot of discussion around whether art imitates life or the other way around.
I’ve seen the movie more than once, and after the second time I got to thinking about her reaction to the compliment, and customers’ reactions to the final deliverable.
In my career as a consultant, in both design work and management coaching/consulting, there is often turmoil in the process. The path to innovation is riddled with obstacles, and changing a company culture and the way management sees the company and perceives progress and achievement is often a battle. But, in the final deliverable, are the spoils.
And many times, the customer is forever converted.
I’ve said before in this series that I try to learn things from every experience. I once worked with a guy for a very short time who said to me: “I don’t like happy customers… I won’t settle for anything less than wild enthusiasm.”
That enthusiasm comes when there is an emotional connection between the customer and the supplier. It’s not love, it’s trust — deep trust, and it doesn’t come easy, but nothing good ever does. As my son was growing up, I always told him “Trust is an account that only allows small deposits but allows large withdrawals. Ok, that’s simple advice to a kid. In reality, sometimes you get the opportunity to make a big deposit in their trust bank.
A customer can sense when you are more invested in their success than your own. And that can make a huge deposit in that trust bank. The irony is that you benefit as well.
Carol likely would have been happy with “That dress sets off your hair beautifully” or “Your smile is one of the few things that can warm my heart” — especially coming from a curmudgeon like Melvin. But the fact that he was willing to change because his feelings for her were so strong made her want the relationship to move forward. He wanted to show up differently for her.
What does this look like in business? I’ll give you three examples — two are former customers, and one is me.
When I ran my engineering design company in the Boston area, one of our customers was a company called EuroPro — you know them as Shark/Ninja. At the time it was run by two guys who really knew what they were doing, and it was growing like crazy and dominating any segment they set their sights on.
We were doing a lot of embedded systems design (the computer control circuits inside the products making them function), prototyping, and a lot of quality control work with them. They were growing so fast, they were constantly annexing office space in their building, and people were traversing hallways with coded door locks moving from department to department.
One day I was talking to Mark, the COO, and he asked me if we could take on more work, and what he could do to enable that. In that conversation I told him that because I was working with so many departments, sometimes I was waiting at a locked door for 20 minutes because no one was at their desk and I couldn’t reach anyone to let me in. He just said “Good to know.” (I then tailgated him through the next locked door. 😉)
In under an hour, his assistant found me and handed me a badge and said “Mark asked me to give you this, it works on almost every door in the building, including the entrance.” That would have been great by itself, but there’s more to the story. They were working on a new blender with some fun features, and I had designed the control circuit for them. I got a call from a marketing manager on a Friday afternoon saying “We’re pitching to Bed Bath & Beyond on Monday morning at 8 am, and we need some changes to the firmware.”
I was walking out the door to an event-full weekend, and the only opportunity I had was to write and test the code on Saturday afternoon and load it into the demo machine around 11pm on Sunday. I told her that and asked if we could make that work. She said “yes, the badge you have gives you 24/7 access.”
So, at 11:00 at night I’m walking into a dark building by the side entrance, wandering through the offices of this almost billion-dollar business, finding my way to her cube, disassembling, reprogramming reassembling, and testing new code. I left a note on her desk with my cell number saying it was done and to call if she needed anything. I left at 1am and went home.
I called her the next morning at 10am to see how the meeting went. I asked if she tested it before going into the conference room. She said “No, we trust you implicitly here.”
They wanted to be that better customer — they showed up differently because I showed up differently.
I was doing some work with a Swedish software company a few years back on a one-year contract. I’d go there a few times a year and was working directly for the CEO. About two months before the contract was over he said to me: “I want to extend your contract for another year — I have so much that you can help us with.” Of course, I was grateful. He said “I’d like you here more often as well, and I want you to have full access to both of our USA offices.
In that contract meeting he said to me “Let me tell you one of the reasons I’m extending your contract.” “We are going to go through a big transition over the next 12 months. I’m sure you don’t remember this, but when you were here a couple of months ago, you did something special.” I couldn’t think of anything out of the ordinary of things I normally do.
“You came to my office to say goodnight, and then walked down the hall to the stairs.” I always say good morning and good night; it’s just something that gives me great pleasure, and the way I grew up.
“As you walked down the hallway, you glanced into the conference room and put down your backpack, took off your hat and coat, walked in, and proceeded to clean up some pizza boxes that were on the table. You threw them away, then put your stuff back on and went to your hotel.”
“That’s the exact culture I want to grow here as we transform ourselves to the next stage: everyone helping where they can, even if it’s not their job. You had no reason to do that — you aren’t even a permanent employee, but you acted as if it was your company and anything that was wrong was a reflection on you. That’s the attitude I want to foster here, and you can help me transform this company.”
I hadn’t even given it a second thought. But I had all access — to anything. They wanted to be that better customer — they showed up differently because I showed up differently.
Now on to me. 😎 I’m always trying to learn new things and improve the business, and I recently worked with a branding specialist/coach who really knew her stuff. She was organized, she was methodical, and she was also creative and enthusiastic. That is, as they say, “table stakes.” More than that, she was supportive and motivational, and while she and her team certainly had a process, it was not cookie cutter.
When parts of it were not working for me, they did some rearranging; they got creative; they kept the goal in mind. And they knew I had a crazy schedule and “inspiration” can’t be scheduled, but I’d get gentle reminders about my homework getting done for the next weekly session.
To be honest and open, I had known Bijal, the founder and owner of the company, for a couple of years. We had met at a mastermind group and while we weren’t social friends at the time, we did some hanging at events, and I knew she was good at this branding stuff. And she talked about branding the same way I did. There are other people from that group that I have used, and some will use, for other things, as I continue to transform this business. You never know where you’re going to meet someone.
My stuff, as busy as my week can get sometimes, was always done for our Tuesday meeting with her and her team. It wasn’t just that I knew it had to be done, and I knew I needed it, and it would help me through this transformation. It sounds weird, but I wanted her to be proud of me — I had made an emotional commitment to myself, her, and her team, and I believed in my mind and my heart that this was important.
We’re done with that part, going through the program material. I was, and still am, amazed at what they were able to pull out of me, shape, and assemble. The result is truly a reflection of me and what I want this business to be. Is it because they are good? Yes, but it’s also because of how I showed up — and honestly, I wouldn’t have shown up that way if they hadn’t created an environment that made me want to. I wanted to be that better customer — I showed up differently because they showed up differently.
What are you doing to make your customers want to “be a better customer”? Let me know in the comments.
