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Last night I checked into the Marriott University Park in Tucson, Arizona. This is the fourth time in the last six months that I’ve stayed here. It’s nice, centrally located, has a great work-out facility and a decent restaurant. It’s not the cheapest hotel in town but I’m a Marriott Rewards member and a bit of a princess.
I checked in at 7:00pm and was starving. Dropped my stuff of in my room and headed to the bar (um, they serve food in there, I promise). As I was enjoying my book and a nice glass of wine (food was coming) I looked up and noticed my favorite employee coming over to greet me. He shook my hand, asked when I arrived, and welcomed me back.
This guy is amazing. The first time I stayed here I got in late. He checked me in. I was tired and a little grouchy. He made me laugh.The second time I stayed here my client came to pick me up for dinner. I was supposed to meet her at the front entrance so she didn’t have to park her car. I was running a little late. He met me at the elevator and escorted me to her car. It was hilarious. My client was quite impressed.
The last time I was here I received the gift of a bottle of wine. You can no longer bring wine on a plane so I presented him with it. A token of my appreciation.
Sadly I don’t think the Marriott has a culture of THIS level of service. I think this man’s mama raised him right. I don’t think this older gentleman is sweet on me - I’ve watched him give this amazing service to everyone he comes in contact with. His management of the “moments of truth” has solidified my loyalty to Marriott. It gives me hope that the company DOES care and that I might get this at another property. I will definitely always stay at the University Park Marriott every time I’m in town.
There are 233 rooms and 17 suites on 9 floors. I’m sure he meets TONS of people and has that uncanny ability to remember and care about his guests. I sure hope the Marriott values him.
Loyalty pays. What does your company do to grow it, measure it, reward it and protect it?
PS — I want to give a “shout out” to Larry at GHCU in Seattle. He’s a teller at their Northgate Branch. I’m not even a member of this credit union (use their shared branching services) and yet I am willing to wait in line (as are other members) just to have the opportunity to be served by Larry.
Thanks Larry, for remembering me.
I had a great day today. In the morning I got to speak to 112 employees of CPM Federal Credit Union. The CEO, George Lockwood is amazing. He made a video spoof of the Twilight Zone (their theme for the day), and let’s just say he showed up at the conference in his pajamas.
I spoke on branding (of course) but with a different twist. If brand is your reputation — then WE all have a brand. And the sum of our personal brands make up the culture of the credit union.
Good stuff. I love my job.
Then I went to the zoo (it was right across the street).
I made this little video on my MAC for you. Because I can. I love my MAC.
(Happy Birthday Kevin - my brother-in-law).
D
So far this month I’ve traveled from New York City to San Francisco to St. George, Utah.
In the Big Apple, I stayed at the Essex House on Central Park South (made famous by Saturday Night Live — all musical guests stayed there). I paid $450.00 a night. My room had a view of another building. The wallpaper in the bathroom was coming loose, there were no coffee pots in the rooms because they wanted you to order coffee from room service at $29.00 a pot. I had a $16.00 glass of wine in their lobby bar and when I asked for a glass of water (hydration is key) was offered sparkling or still (bottled). I said, “I’ll take my chances with tap water.” “We don’t SERVE tap water” the waitress replied. Oh, I thought, I hope there’s a warning label on the faucet in my bathroom because I may get all tired and careless from this glass of wine and accidentally use it.
In San Francisco I stayed at the Omni Hotel. The group rate (I was speaking for a client) was $250.00 a night. The “net savvy” rate is $299.00. The room was nice. A view of another building, but not bad. Very nice service.
Then I flew to St. George, Utah. I’m staying at the Courtyard by Marriott. At $109.00 a night I have to say it’s been the nicest experience so far. The moment of truth for any hotel stay for me is the first impression of the room.
Off the elevator, check the room number, down the hallway, 405, 404, 403, 402, there it is room 401. Key goes in. Key works. Turn the door knob, feel for the light switch, catch a whiff of the room (good - non-smoking) and there it was. The most unexpected but carefully thought out surprise. The only light that came on from the switch by the door was to illuminate this beautiful zen-like arrangement of pussy willows. I found myself pausing and just taking it in. How peaceful. Simple. Elegant. For $109.00 in southern Utah.
Who knew? Sometimes it’s the little things.
And the water is good too.
(Side note: You should read NPS in NYC first to fully enjoy this post)
Cultural anthropology is basically the holistic study of humanity. I like to think of it as cause and effect. You know the old saying, when a butterfly flaps its wings in South America a Republican gets elected in Florida, or something like that. As a Culture Consultant I try to help people see that all of their actions have consequences. All of their measures emphasize what they manage. Moments of truth need to be measured and managed as thoroughly as the bottom line.
My research:
Yesterday I made a deposit to my account at the credit union. Yes, I’m a branch groupie. The hardest thing to do at my credit union is to give them money. Can’t make them in most ATMs anymore, don’t trust the mail, the night drop slot — yeah, right. Direct deposit? I’m self-employed. I’m the errand runner. Post office, dry cleaners, credit union. In that order yesterday. As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, the folks at the post office are getting to know me. They smile, they thank me, it’s all pretty nice. The dry cleaners have me set up on an account so I can just drop my clothes off in a cool bag that they provide, they hand me the clean ones and debit my account after I’ve gone.
My last errand. A simple deposit to savings at my credit union. I’ve been in there only three times. Each time I’ve had to come into close proximity to this one teller. She’s an older lady and she’s not friendly. Hell, she’s mean. She’s clearly been there a long time because when there’s a question the other tellers need an answer to, they go to her. She does the dramatic sigh, slight roll of the eyes and then snips a response.
When I opened my account two months ago I received their new member welcome packet. The marketing department has chosen a red carpet as the symbol on this piece. I have it right here on my desk.
Today I tripped over the carpet. It was late afternoon (after the lunch rush, before the after work crowd) and I was the only one in the branch. As I was walking through the maze of teller ropes to get to the “cheese” she looked up at me, no expression, and quickly looked down again. The tuck-and-roll I call it. As I reached the end of the ropes and did as the sign instructed “Wait here for next available teller” I looked straight ahead at her window. She was still in it. She was apparently running a tape on her checks, her NEXT WINDOW sign was NOT present and yet now she was determined to ignore me. I tried to invoke my super powers to bore holes in her head and guilt her into helping me when I was startled by a friendly voice of a young man at the farthest window saying, “I can help you down here…”
He made up for her rudeness. We chatted politely. I made him laugh. You see, I AM a nice customer. I like to bond. She apparently has no time for it.
Cultural Anthropologists know not to blame this teller entirely for being mean. Some of the blame should go to the management of the credit union, some to the board of directors. Clearly there is not a culture of service in this organization. I believe the teller that offered to shield me from the mean one is the result of his “mama raising him right.” Not a cultural or strategic condition. Every memo, measure, management meeting and mannerism by the upper management is creating the ripples in the organization that the front-line responds to. If the only measure is the bottom line - that becomes the filter for the organization’s culture. If you are in the “service” business, you need to start measuring “it” and managing “it.”
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the purest form of measurement for your culture. Period. It asks the most basic of questions AFTER a customer has EXPERIENCED your culture. Would I recommend “it” to a friend or family member? In the case of this entire organization and its 50 plus years of existence based on my three minutes of interaction at a very expensive and beautifully decorated branch I can say NO WAY. But you know what, I’ll probably keep my account there. It’s a real pain to move a checking account these days. In the industry we call it “stickiness.” It’s kind of sick when you think about it — like the old days of the phone company. We’re AT&T, we don’t have to care.
We’ve got your checking account. We don’t have to care. Their tag-line should be “We Bank on Inertia.”
If this credit union adopts the NPS I would be classified as a profitable detractor. They are making some money off of me, but they cannot count on me to grow future business for them. Without NPS data, you are measuring my profit (a snapshot in time) but with net promoter you have to admit that it’s not sustainable.
I like to think of NPS as a wake up call to all service providers. I may give you my business, today, but not my love. But if you care to listen, I’ll tell you how you can get it.
If you don’t recognize either of these acronyms and you are in the customer service business (the majority of American companies) you need to read this posting and then email the link to everyone you know.
I just attended the 2 day inaugural Net Promoter Score (NPS) conference in New York City (NYC).
Sitting in the room were 250 people from companies as big as Disney, as innovative as GE, and as way freaking tattoo-worthy cool as Apple. Some of these people flew from far off places like New Zealand (the farthest we decided) and Germany and India to hear the author of The Ultimate Question, Fred Reichheld answer their questions about how to measure brand.
As I’ve said before on this blog, I believe that brand is your reputation. If you have a bad one, all the marketing in the world cannot help you. If you have a good one, do you know how to protect it? How to measure it?
The Net Promoter Score is a measurement tool that was 20 plus years in the making. On the surface it seems quite easy, in fact a lot of organizations THINK they are getting an NPS because they are asking the Ultimate Question:
“How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or family member?”
0 = never and 10 = very likely.
The company with the highest recorded NPS in the land is USAA at about 82% (the scores can fluctuate slightly from month to month). That means that 82% of the customers who responded to the Net Promoter Score survey after “experiencing” USAA said they were very likely (scored it between 8-10) to recommend the company.
Mr. Reichheld is quick to remind the audience that NPS is a discipline, not just the survey. NPS is to Customer Relationship Management what Six Sigma is to Total Quality Management. That’s how big this thing is.
George Hoffheimer of the Filene Research Institute presented his findings from a research project they did in 2006. They enlisted 17 credit unions and sent 50,000 surveys getting a 13% response rate. Of those that responded the credit union with the lowest NPS was 19% and the highest was 79%. The CU industry average came out to 54.3%.
That’s pretty good. In fact, credit unions have outscored banks in customer service for decades. But the credit union movement as a whole is not growing for the first time in their almost 75 year history. How can that be if they are so loved?
Some of the answers can be found in the follow-up-open-ended-ongoing-focus-group-super-valuable question after the Ultimate One:
“Why did you answer the way you did?”
Key drivers to the credit union Net Promoter Score are, in order: reputation, customer service, overall product and service quality. Those that had the fewest open-ended responses: the ownership structure and marketing.
If brand is your reputation, let’s look at how the credit union reputation has evolved.
When the credit union world began, it was built on a true common bond. The stories are amazing. School teachers pooling resources in a shoe box to help other school teachers, Edward Filene himself loaning farmers in Indiana $20 to start their own financial cooperative. Loggers in the Northwest pooling their money to help get families out of the “company house” and into one of their own. And the list goes on….
There was no marketing. The credit unions grew entirely through word-of-mouth. There was very little delinquency, because they had the “shame factor.” You truly were borrowing money from your co-workers (or friends and family) and if you didn’t repay, they knew it. These credit unions had no competition. They provided a service that no other bank would provide.
This is the core of “loyalty economics.” Targeting an audience with a common bond and serving them in a way that makes the competition irrelevant. When you are able to do that (Apple) you can also charge more for your product. BUT, you have to stay LOYAL to that target or you’ll lose them.
Today, Hoffheimer admits, there is very little true “common bond.” Most credit unions have adopted some kind of community charter. This creates a field of membership that is a territory — not necessarily a target. Segmentation is the key to profitability. Differentiation in the banking industry is becoming harder and harder. To the consumer, banking is an errand. Most people have no emotional connection anymore to their financial services provider. In fact, the banking industry has one of the lowest NPS’s in the land.
I predict that NPS will become a component of the CAMEL rating for credit unions in the very near future. Do you know what your NPS is?
Next post — Cultural Anthopology……stay tuned!!
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