Sprinkles

Creating Awesome Experiences Through Innovative Service

Chip R. Bell

• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781626341760
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Customer Relations
• Index: Business

What makes a great cookie or cupcake special? Sprinkles!! Elevate your service from value-added to value-unique with Sprinkles, by bestselling author Chip R. Bell. This amazing little book is full of compelling stories, breathtaking insights, and super-cool techniques that will provide you with the perfect recipe for how to attract and retain the loyalty of today’s picky, fickle, and vocal customers.

CHAPTER ONE

EVERYTHING GOES BETTER WITH SPRINKLES

 

“I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream.”
—Heywood Broun

 

It was late Thursday afternoon when I checked into the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta. After a tough week on the road, this was clearly an elegant venue for my last stop. My dress pants needed pressing for my Friday morning keynote, so I dialed the hotel housekeeping department. I was told someone would be right up to get my pants.

Moments later, a tiny Asian women in her mid-fifties knocked on my door. Taking my pants she informed me she would have them back to me in less than an hour. Forty-five minutes later, she was back.

“Thank you for giving me the honor of pressing your beautiful pants,” she said with an excited smile on her face. “This is the nicest pair of pants I think I have ever pressed.” I wondered about the source of her gracious style and passionate attitude. What made Nuriya Mohsen so guest-centric?

“Here is my business card,” she politely said. “Call me anytime and I will take care of your laundry needs.” Her card revealed her job title: “Laundry/Valet.”

It was at that point she added sprinkles to my already great service. “And, on behalf of the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead, I would like to present you with this package of stays for your dress shirt collars.” Now, think about it. How many hotel laundry employees on the planet have their own business card plus a special surprise gift to present to guests?

Unlike elegant icing or fancy cake decoration, sprinkles are not complex or arduous. They are super easy, random performances available to all of us all of the time. As a performance, they should be sprinkled on with deliberate abandon, much like a fairy with a wand. When the person in the vehicle in front of us pays our toll in the tollbooth, we tell people. When a departing customer gives our child their unused tickets as we arrive at the county fair-ground, we tell people. As customers, we are thankful for random acts of kindness. And, when those acts are totally unexpected, we are also talkative.

With three granddaughters aged six, eight, and ten, we keep a very large supply of sprinkles. You might say we are sprinkles experts! We have multi-colored sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles, and heart-shaped sprinkles. There are sprinkles that look like colored dots and ones that look like tiny tubes. Sprinkles typically live their very short life on top of a cupcake or a cookie. But, if you see the world through our granddaughters’ eyes, they belong on just about everything in life. Sprinkles adorn, enrich, enliven, and excite. Sprinkles make ice cream look like it was prepared by a clown, not a cook. They make pancakes seem prepared by a gourmet chef, not by a granddaddy!

What would your customer’s service experience be like if it was sprinkled? Checkout clerks would shake your hand, not just say “hello.” The newspaper delivery person would leave a thoughtful note tucked in your newspaper. Pizza delivery boxes would have funny faces inside waiting to greet you when the box was opened. The bank teller would give you an extra thousand in play money just to make you laugh. The reception area would look like the interior decorator got extra leeway. And, there would be fresh flowers in the middle of the boardroom table, not just water pitchers. Operators would have a humor in their voice, and flight attendants would offer you pink lemonade, not just soft drinks or water.

“I figured if I was going to make the world a better place, I’d do it with cookies,” said Stranger Than Fiction character Ana Pascal. It is a powerful concept for innovative service. “Sprinkles” is code for any heartstring-plucking surprise that takes service from great to awesome. Paraphrasing famed restaurateur Danny Meyer, great service happens to you; innovative service happens for you.

When the only FirstBank & Trust ATM in the rural town of Tahoka, Texas, went down, customers were unhappy. They were forced to use the only other ATM in the area at a convenience store where fees were considerably higher. And, when it took several weeks to get the ATM operative, unhappy customers were accustomed to going to the convenience store for their cash. FirstBank & Trust marketing executive Andy Hartman found a way to lure customers back to the bank’s ATM—“sprinkles.” He ran an ad in the local paper that told customers not to think it was a mechanical glitch if they received a fifty dollar bill instead of a twenty dollar bill when they used the bank’s ATM. Word spread as customers told neighbors when they hit the ATM jackpot!

How can you deliver gourmet service with surprise? What if you treated every customer like today was his or her birthday? What would your service be like if it came with balloons, candy kisses, a chocolate coin, a funny one-liner, or popcorn? A hospital in Milwaukee asked new patients their favorite flower during admission. They then arranged for a single stem of that favorite flower be placed in a bud vase on the patient’s bedstand. What would a spunky eight-year-old suggest you do? If the service experience you deliver became a super hero, how would it change? What would you do differently if you wanted your service experience to win the Cracker Jack Award for amazement?

THE SECRET SAUCE—AMAZEMENT

“I want a cookie” is a favorite request of most toddlers. Permissive parents give in; disciplined parents say something akin to “After you eat all your lunch!” Grandparents say, “How ’bout I get you two!” The cookie request in some ways becomes code for who can influence whom.

When a child hits five or six years old, this simple cookie request changes to the more theatrical “I need a cookie.” Most parents spot the ploy and parry the child’s request with something like “How about you need an apple instead.” Most grandparents spot the ploy and couldn’t care less!

Customers have always wanted customer delight. It was the sizzle that went with the steak; the cherry that went on top. We pointed to ways that Nordstrom was different than Sears, Disney World was different than Six Flags, or Amazon was different than Borders. But, customers have changed. Today, they need a cookie so to speak. They assume they will get a quality outcome or product at a fair price. And, they assume they will get good service. Without these features, they take their business elsewhere, leaving bad tweets, snarky YouTube videos, and poor reviews littered along their exit path.

The secret to differentiation today is amazement. And, everything a service provider can do to unexpectedly take customers’ breath away moves them closer to ensnaring customers’ hearts and completely ruining their appetite for any competitor.

CHAPTER TWO

MAKE PASSION THE SPICE OF SERVICE

“Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate.”
—Sandra Boynton

I walked into the restaurant off the lobby of the Park Inn west of Harrisburg, PA. From the back of the restaurant I heard, “Good morning, how would you like your coffee?” When I said black, the voice warmly responded, “Take any table you like, and I’ll have your coffee there before you can sit down!”

My day was off to a captivating start, like a colorful merry-go-round!

“I’m Sandy. Do I get the awesome pleasure of serving you today?” she asked as she laid my menu beside the cup of coffee she had already poured. The breakfast was perfect and served quickly. Periodically, Sandy checked to make sure all was well. There was no chitchat as I focused on my morning paper, just attentiveness … and lots of smiles aimed point-blank at my table. I finished, folded up my newspaper, and requested my check. It had been a joy to be served by someone noticeably passionate about customers. And then, it happened!

Sandy brought my check along with a go cup of black coffee! “This is great!” I exclaimed. “You have no idea how much I needed a coffee to go today.” Sandy smiled, winked, and responded, “It’s our gift to you!”

Folks, it does not get any better than that! I left her a tip almost as big as my breakfast tab and went straight to the manager on duty to compliment her over-the-top, high-spirited service. “I’m so delighted,” he said, “but, I will tell you, we get comments about Sandy almost every day. In fact, we have guests who tell us they drive way out of their way just to get a shot of Sandy in the morning!”

Feisty service is as mischievous as April Fo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• The Recipe for Innovative Service
• Be My Guest!
• The Appetizer: Serve with Innovation
• Chapter One: Everything Goes Better with Sprinkles
• Chapter Two: Make Passion the Spice of Service
• Chapter Three: Always Add an Extra Helping
• Chapter Four: Put a Cherry on Top of Great Service
• Chapter Five: Give the Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread
• Chapter Six: Customers Enjoy Borrowing a Cup of Sugar
• Chapter Seven: Let Your Customers “Lick the Beaters”
• Chapter Eight: Be as Easy as a TV Dinner
• Chapter Nine: Be the Icing on Your Customer’s Cake
• The Dessert: From Your Service Kitchen to Your Customer’s Plate
• About the Author