Stephen Schober of Metal Supermarkets & FlannelJax’s: “5 Ways To Create a Wow! Customer Experience”

You have to know what it means. You need to have a clear idea of what your customer experience objectives are. You need to know what is important to your customers. Ask them what they care about and then really listen to their answers. This will take research and time. But, as you begin to clearly understand what customers really want, you can develop a customer promise around that and then the training and support materials to deliver on that promise every time.

As part of my series about the five things a business should do to create a Wow! customer experience, I had the pleasure of interviewing Stephen Schober, President and CEO of two franchise networks: Metal Supermarkets and FlannelJax’s.

Stephen has more than 30 years of multi-national, multi-location corporate and franchise business experience. He maintains that the strength of a business rests in its ability to retain customers through the consistent provision of an amazing customer experience.

Metal Supermarkets provides cut-to-size industrial metals to manufacturers, machinists, maintenance and repair, tool and die shops, hospitals, hotels, universities, schools, homeowners, artists and hobbyists in the US, Canada and the UK. At FlannelJax’s, an axe throwing entertainment venue, guests receive a premium experience hosted by a dedicated, highly-trained “Lumberjack” lane coach to guide groups through their selection of games and to ensure everyone is having an epic time. For both brands, a fixation on an excellent customer experience is a key differentiator.

Stephen is a great resource for describing the importance of customer service and why it helps both Metal Supermarkets and FlannelJax’s stand out.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I am a quintessential MBA who had several years’ experience in banking, financial analysis, and mergers and acquisitions before I was fortunate to get into what I consider to be real business — operations and leadership. I left the banking world and worked my way up to being President and COO for a multi-brand, multi-national family-owned automotive glass replacement business. From there, I was headhunted to be President and CEO of Metal Supermarkets, a multi-location and multi-national metal distribution business. Metal Supermarkets has both franchised and corporate-owned locations and is a B2B, blue-collar, fundamental and essential business. We understand tangible products and services, and we deal with customers that value straight-up and straight-forward service. They want the right metal, on time, cut right and at a fair price.

After over a decade of working with the Metal Supermarkets team, we decided to use our franchising and operational skills and experience to launch a second brand. Typically, when a brand begins franchising, it is because the owner or leadership has developed and operated a successful model that they then realize is ‘franchisable.’ We decided to flip that process and come out of the gate with a new franchise concept. But, we had to decide what industry and which product or service we wanted to offer. Our Vice President at Metal Supermarkets, Andrew Arminen, had thrown axes at a local venue, and while his experience as a customer was lacking in several areas, particularly customer experience and safety, he saw the potential in the business. After some extensive research, we settled on this experiential business that we believed would attract both social and business customers. From there, the first FlannelJax’s location was born: A premium axe throwing venue perfect for both social outings and corporate events.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

When I was a young banker, another new recruit and I were instructed to go to a local hotel to repossess a photo-copier. We eventually located the machine in an office at the top of a long flight of stairs. We did our best to get it down the stairs, but neither of us had been to the gym recently. The good news is I did learn four important facts: Photo-copiers are both heavy and bulky; they do not gracefully bounce down stairs; moving them is best left to the professionals; and, most importantly, proper and logical planning as well as anticipating challenges is a good idea.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

I don’t want to give the name, as this person was very flawed and unpleasant. He was the owner of one-half of an International Joint Venture I managed before joining Metal Supermarkets. I guess this validates a point I’ve always believed — you can, and should, learn from anyone. An expression he used frequently was “It’s your life; you can do what you want.” Now, this may sound empowering and enlightened in print, but that wasn’t how he meant it at all. What he meant was “It’s your life; you can do whatever you want. But you need to accept the consequences of your decisions.” He often employed this phrase in an attempt to intimidate us from exercising some of our rights under the joint venture agreement. But I still find the phrase helpful to focus my mind to properly consider the consequences of decisions on almost anything. Cheating on your expense account, being rude to your spouse, over-charging a naïve customer, not changing the oil in your car, even robbing a bank — hey, you can do all those things — it is up to you! But the repercussions of these decisions could be significant and often against your own long-term best interest. We all make mistakes and we all make illogical decisions, but his words do often come to my mind when I’m mulling over a decision. Stop and think!

Thank you for that. Let’s now pivot to the main focus of our interview. This might be intuitive, but I think it’s helpful to specifically articulate it. In your words, can you share a few reasons why great customer service and a great customer experience is essential for success in business?

1. Consumers are more sophisticated, discerning and demanding with respect to customer experience than they’ve ever been. I don’t mean they have unreasonable expectations or unrealistic demands for ‘instant gratification.’ Instead, I suggest all of us have been exposed to both good and bad customer experiences and better understand what acceptable service is and how it varies between providers. Because of this, I believe people are more willing to consider and pay a premium for a good customer experience, as long as the actual product or service meets their needs.
2. Customer experience is more essential for businesses to succeed in today’s world. It used to be that the primary source for customer service and reputation information was word of mouth. That just isn’t the case anymore — and the reach of “word of mouth” has changed. So much information about most businesses’ service levels is fully available and transparent on the web with a quick search. Both seller and product reviews are available at a touch of a finger. Many businesses feel compelled to provide them right on their own websites and other online properties. They know that this validation helps to build trust and close sales, but also because they really don’t want customers to leave their webpage to do further research — the customer may not return! And so many of us are actively seeking out and are influenced by these reviews. Bad companies cannot hide any longer while good companies can really shine.
3. The quality of many, many products are superior to what they used to be. For example, cars last much longer than they used to. And the factory warranty is far longer as well. Hotels are infinitely better than when I first started traveling for business. Despite our whining, internet quality, communication products, clothing, many appliances and so on are significantly better than they used to be. So, the product itself, in terms of performance and quality, is more often good and, I suggest, frequently considered to be a ‘given.’ So, this allows or, perhaps better said, encourages the customer to consider and place more value on the entire experience.
4. For our axe throwing business, FlannelJax’s, the entire offering is an experience; there is no physical product. And, if you will, this experience is driven by employee-guided customer service and a focus on the customer’s experience. Our lumberjacks — the dedicated lane coaches who guide and coach each group at FlannelJax’s –have to always be on their game. Ninety percent of customer feedback we receive for FlannelJax’s are actually testimonials on the performance of, and the relationship with, the lumberjack. The experience is really about how well and successfully the lumberjack interacted and led the event. We believe throwing axes with friends, family or colleagues is fun, but the lumberjack is what makes the difference in creating ‘raving fans’ who will return and refer others. In a service business, it’s the people. You can have the best axe throwing facility, but without the right people, you won’t be successful.
5. In a product-based business, like Metal Supermarkets, you have the quality of the product and the service to consider. It’s a more complicated mix. In a service-based business, a poor experience can doom you. But even if you have the best product, customer service is a challenge. Perhaps if customers know the product really is the best, they will put up with poor or mediocre service. But there’s no guarantee. So, wouldn’t it be a good strategy to excel at both? Perhaps, but not for sure. In some cases, the pricing model and product positioning can put pressure on service levels. Not every company can or should position itself as a premium product, premium service and premium price. That is not rational business thinking — segmentation is sensible to differentiate competitors. As an example, it could well be rational to focus efforts to offer a premium product that supports a premium price but supporting this with just ‘reasonable’ service levels.

We have all had times either in a store, or online, when we’ve had a very poor experience as a customer or user. If the importance of a good customer experience is so intuitive, and apparent, where is the disconnect? How is it that so many companies do not make this a priority?

Well, with tongue in cheek I point at myself. As I mentioned, I’m the classic MBA who spent many years working on the quantifiable side of the business. I was educated and mentored to focus on financial and statistical — hard — measures and results such as physical product characteristics, units sold, revenues, expenses, hard business risks and so on. These can usually be quantifiably and precisely measured and reported. But customer experience? To some companies and people, yuk! Customer satisfaction or experience — that’s squishy and hard to measure! And sometimes customers are wrong or their feedback is just uncomfortable to accept or deal with. Companies are people, and people can be defensive and illogical! I suggest that for far too long, companies managed customer feedback in a non-productive manner (or didn’t request it). They would resolve issues after they came up but not proactively think about planning and managing the customer experience nor understanding its importance. And, of course, we do need those ‘hard numbers’ but business leaders — like me — need to understand that customer loyalty and satisfaction fundamentally support customer growth and retention. Doing so requires a broader mindset and approach and, to complicate things further, it is not a short-term exercise.

Customer delight requires a concerted and changed approach to thinking about the business and what and how things are done. It also necessitates acceptance that customer feedback and satisfaction will not be precise on an individual basis, but with broad and robust feedback, can be reliable and meaningful. Over a reasonable time period and with a sufficient volume of feedback, the customer is not wrong. They will tell you how you are delivering on your customer promise and where your shortcomings are.

It is processes, training and people. As I look at our FlannelJax’s business, I wonder if some of our competitors just don’t make the effort to hire the right people. I would hazard that they expect axe throwing itself will earn and retain the customer’s loyalty. Give them a target, teach them how to throw and move on! We made a decision to go above and beyond axe throwing by considering the entire experience. We refuse to compromise on the quality of the person that we hire as our lumberjacks and we have core values, training programs and feedback systems to ensure they provide a premium experience. We want to be measurably superior to competitors. That’s not to say our competitors are wrong, we’ve simply chosen a different business strategy.

Do you think that more competition helps force companies to improve the customer experience they offer? Are there other external pressures that can force a company to improve the customer experience?

Well, the ‘cheerleader’ answer is “Yes, of course, competition forces companies to improve the customer experience.” But I actually don’t think that is always true, and it is not a fulsome answer in many other cases. As I discussed earlier, different companies should position themselves differently. There are many aspects of a company’s value proposition that customers consider, so there are other options a company can take rather than improve customer service, price or product quality.

And even with service, you could put convenience and efficiency ahead of say, customer support and product training. Good service means different things to different people, and it can also vary significantly between different products and services. Perhaps a company chooses to sell their products and services for less, so people’s expectations of the service level are lower. It may determine to focus efforts on product line depth or quality or warranty while positioning itself as lower on the customer service spectrum. Or, it may add new products or services to its portfolios instead of improving customer service directly.

I argue considering these approaches and positioning is completely correct and logical.

Can you share with us a story from your experience about a customer who was “Wowed” by the experience you provided? Did that Wow! experience have any long term ripple effects? Can you share the story?

We use the Net Promoter Score (NPS) system for both Metal Supermarkets and FlannelJax’s. Metal Supermarkets has accumulated tens of thousands of reviews over the years, but my favorite customer response is when a customer parrots back our brand promise. If it is our goal as a business to provide or promise the customer “x, y and z,” and then a customer writes “Thank you! You delivered x, y and z,” that is the best feedback. We have delivered exactly what we promised. So here is an example of that:

“Friendly, professional, accurate service and materials. Very fair pricing.”

“Metal Supermarkets has a large inventory of products and have super fast service and competitive prices always extremely satisfied with their products and services.”

For FlannelJax’s, a great response is two-fold. “We loved the experience,” (and often the lumberjack) and, “we will be back.” Here is an example of that:

“Incredibly well managed with safety and employees. The employee handling the lanes our group was using had just the right amount of involvement when noticing frustration on performance while also letting throwers do their own thing.”

Our hardworking franchisees and their staff are delivering on these brand promises across both systems. We make the same promises in multiple locations and we see the same type of reviews consistently. That is when you know that as an organization, the message is understood and respected. Everyone loves the “You went out of your way to save my bacon” review. But to us, the more important review is the one that reflects our brand promise and reaffirms the value of our business model. The “Wow,” review is amazing, but it’s the “You did what you’re supposed to do on a consistent basis,” that shows we’ve successfully delivered the superior experience and service that we aim to.

Ok, here is the main question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a founder or CEO should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience. Please share a story or an example for each.

1. You have to know what it means. You need to have a clear idea of what your customer experience objectives are. You need to know what is important to your customers. Ask them what they care about and then really listen to their answers. This will take research and time. But, as you begin to clearly understand what customers really want, you can develop a customer promise around that and then the training and support materials to deliver on that promise every time.
   -Your intuition may be good, but it isn’t good enough. Metal Supermarkets is a 35-year-old brand but we still commission annual customer surveys by a third-party professional market research firm to review and confirm how we stack up against the competition and to find out what our customers care about. We want to know how customers make decisions and what they value. Then we can confirm if that is in line with our brand promise or if we must shift to meet changing needs. We also employ the Net Promoter Score system and, we seek and receive feedback from thousands of customers each year.
2. You have to mean it. This means consistency and communication. At Metal Supermarkets, we have a whole training and support program built around our “8 Guiding Principles of World Class Customer Service.” These guiding principles are not aspirational or fluffy. They are clear statements as to what we need to do on a daily basis from both a relationship and operational perspective to give customers what they want. Each guiding principle is supportive of our brand promise and is designed to help generate business for our franchised and corporate locations across four countries.
3. You have to measure it. I mentioned the Net Promoter Score system we use. We have worked with a third-party vendor in this respect for eight years now, sending out well over 400,000 requests for feedback and have over 80,000 responses. This provides us with a rich databank of both what is important to our customers, and what they think of us on a store-by-store basis. Our provider also measures ‘keywords’ used by customers in their response so we can evaluate these for both positive and negative connotations. This helps us to get the pulse of the business and stay on top of our performance.
4. You have to share it. We share customer feedback — good and bad — with our corporate staff and franchisees constantly. We correlate sales growth with customer satisfaction and ensure that everyone knows how these results move in tandem. If you want buy-in, you have to give it high visibility and talk about it a lot! And we share it publicly. This helps hold franchisees and staff accountable, knowing that it’s their business that could suffer if they aren’t committed to ‘wowing’ customers.
5. You have to institutionalize it. Right from the beginning, we set the stage for what is important for business growth and success. And it isn’t how many pounds of metal we sell or how many axe throwing lanes we fill. KPIs like these are all important and relevant, but at a more fundamental level we think the precursor to business success is simple: How many new customers do we attract and how well we do at keeping these customers coming back over and over again? By focusing on these last two criteria, we have built two businesses that consistently deliver on our brand promise to earn and keep customers.

Are there a few things that can be done so that when a customer or client has a Wow! experience, they inspire others to reach out to you as well?

I think this is a tough one to achieve. In my experience with our current brands, and also in my prior experience in the glass business, it is relatively unusual for a customer to reach out to the head office other than through a specific customer feedback request. I do see notes in our locations on a reasonably regular basis but not enough that I could suggest it is a scalable way to build your business.

We send customer feedback requests to FlannelJax’s customers after every visit. While our Metal Supermarkets customers, many of whom purchase frequently, receive a request for feedback not more than once every six months. Since we share customer feedback on our websites, I expect this encourages others to respond to the customer feedback requests.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Well, for clarity I don’t believe I am a person of great influence. I often think of Rodney King’s quote “Can we all get along?” To achieve the most amount of good to the most amount of people, I would simply suggest that everyone works to be patient, understanding, consider other people’s view and work to get along better.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can keep up to date on my work through my LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenschober/.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!