Picture this: a customer walks into your store needing a specific product. You don’t have it, but the store down the road does.
What do you do?
If you’re Nordstrom, you tell your customer to go shop for a few minutes and when they return the product awaits them on the counter.
Seems like a maneuver only a major retailer could pull off, right?
Wrong.
In today’s episode, Quinn and special co-host, Yo Adrienne, discuss customer service experiences that were over the top. In the Nordstrom example, we learn that the sales attendant, upon learning they were out of the product, goes down the street, purchases the bag at retail cost and then returns to have it available for his customer. Nordstrom didn’t earn any profit off of the purchase, but arguably, they earned something bigger: customer loyalty.
Listen in as Quinn and Adrienne discuss small ways retailers can deliver exceptional service, that cost them and other businesses alike no money, but reap big rewards in customer experience.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Mark Quinn
Are you looking for awesome ideas to create word of mouth marketing, like the kind of marketing with massive return on investment. We have some ideas for you and it’s all in 60 seconds.
Adrienne Woods
Hello, Mr. Quinn.
Mark Quinn
Are you doing Adrienne?
Adrienne Woods
I’m good. I missed you this week. well timed events and you weren’t there.
Mark Quinn
I missed you guys. I can’t believe that I didn’t get to go to primetime. I love that event. So man, I saw the pictures and the updates. By the way if you’re watching this right now, you need to know that Mr. Kinsley is not with us because he had some stuff yet to do just conflicts. It schedules and not only that, but I’ve never got to do a show with you, Adrian. So for me, this is awesome.
Adrienne Woods
We David Kinsley is out. Really Quinn was just jealous that I get to be on a show with Kinsley every week. And so he kicked Kinsley off. And here I am,
Mark Quinn
because we’re doing your marketing thing over there. And I don’t ever get to do a show with you. So it’s only fair, Adrienne. Anyway, I love it. So thank you for jumping on. Hey, what’s that?
Adrienne Woods
So thank you for the invitation.
Mark Quinn
or so of course. So I saw that dinner this week. And this is what this show is going to be about. So I’m at dinner this week with a guy named Gary Buxton, Gary is with TSI TempurPedic. And so we’re having this great dinner conversation and it comes up about places we love to eat. And we talked about ill Molina this place in Las Vegas, it’s an Italian place a great place in Manhattan, they got a store in Florida to I think, put just incredible service every time you go. It’s like the waiter, they just absolutely attack your table with service. There’s food on it that you never ordered before you ever even get the napkin into that kind of place. Right. And so we were talking about that which led into a conversation Adrian about other retail or service experience that that just wowed the heck out of us. And Gary told me a story that I want to share here about an experience he had with his wife at Nordstrom. And so they went in to buy a briefcase backpack for him for to me and he had like a trip. He had the like beyond like in just a couple of days. And so he didn’t have time to really wait for it. And his wife loves to shop there. So she’s a big fan. He’s like, oh, I’ll just go to the TV store. She’s like, No, no, no, we got to go into Nordstrom. So they go into Nordstrom and they look in there to me shop and they didn’t have what he was looking for. And and so the guy at Nordstrom, he’s like, Okay, Mr. buckston, like, you know, what are you looking for? Can you give a picture? So the guy so Gary like, shows him the picture of this briefcase he’s looking for. And so the guy is like, you know what, why don’t you guys go shop give me like 15 minutes. And let me see if I can figure something out. So they go away. They do some shopping. I’m sure it’s shoes, right. His wife probably wanted women shoes. Is that what Nords totally no. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The women’s shoes. So anyway, so they come back after a half hour shopping. And here’s the backpack sitting on the counter. And he said, Here you go, Mr. buckston. We found that we got the backpack for you. And you know, I hope it’s the one you wanted. And Gary’s like it’s exactly the one that I wanted. But how did you do that? You said you didn’t have stock on it. And the guy said well, there’s a to me store like down the street. So we went down the street I got the thing you wanted so you didn’t have to go do it. And here you go. So you know to me is all nap priced right? So you don’t you can’t like sell it cheaper. So the guy just basically sold it to Gary at a pass through cost, but he just helped him take that Aaron off of his list and had it there for him at the end and it just absolutely blew Gary away and made him such a raving fan of Nordstrom and there’s so many Nordstrom stories out there. But anyway, so that just inspired me and this whole conversation just was one story after another of different things we had all experience. So have you ever had someone Adrian like wow you to the degree where when it got done you just like everyone he talked to you for like the next couple of weeks he like told them the story.
Adrienne Woods
I mean, I’m sure there are numerous ones that I was telling you kind of before we started recording. So I went to primetime this weekend, and I flew delta. And let me just say, In my prior life, I used to fly a lot. And I had status on another airline, also known as American. And I mean, I was platinum, right. So like I got met at the gate with golf carts and all of the things. So I know what to expect from an airliner and I hated Delta, like I had just never had a good experience with them. I will not fly through Denver because of Delta. Like I think Denver is not a great airport either. So when I ended up on a Delta flight, I was like, it’ll be fine, like as long as you get there, but I wasn’t my expectations were so low because of just prior experiences. And that’s the problem. Like when you have one or two or multiple instances with a business or in my case, an airline, you just have this very low expectation for them. When it blew me away the level of customer service that I received from Delta, and I know a lot of people are thinking, of course, it’s Delta, like I love Delta. I did not love Delta before this event, okay. But we get on the plane, everything is great. And like in the middle of the flight, you have a gentleman and I wish I had gotten his name, I ended up emailing Dale to just part of this to tell them like I was just blown away by this. He’s a flight attendant, and he’s coming down to main cabin economy, whereas peasant sit, right? And he’s just like, Thank you, you know, Mr. Williams, for being a sky member. Thank you, Miss Davis for doing this. We appreciate you flying with us. I mean, three or four people back there that were Delta sky members that were just flying in economy, but he made a specific effort to go and find them during this flight and to tell them, thank you for selecting delta and flying with them. And it’s the little things Quinn like, that’s just not a big thing. It didn’t take he didn’t have anything else to do other than pass out snacks. But he took the time. And he took the effort. And it made an impression on me just as a former small business owner, and now just kind of in this space, and like it took him no extra time. And that meant something to me. And I’m not even a SkyMiles member.
Mark Quinn
So okay, so let’s stay in the airline theme. I have two other questions. And I’m sure it made you feel incredibly good and change your opinion of delta at the same time, right. And
Adrienne Woods
currently, and then multiple instances this weekend. But that was just the first one that I was like, I’m blown away. And that took, you know, effort.
Mark Quinn
Wow. So okay, another airline. Again, Gary Buxton told this story. So he was on the United flight. And the pilot, I can’t recall if it was before the flight after the flight, I hope not during the flight because he needs to be flying the planning, but they do have another pilot up there. But so the pilot comes into first class. And Gary was just right, right behind you misconcept grade because he flies a lot there. But anyway, so he’s observing this essentially. So the pilot comes out of first class. And he’s thinking every single person sitting up there, and he’s got everyone’s name and if they have status with the airline, so I don’t know if you can see this. Can you see that?
Adrienne Woods
Yeah. So thank you for flying with United.
Mark Quinn
Yes. Yes, he wrote notes on all these business cards. And he had Mr. Buxton on there. And like, he was the craziest thing. So he literally wrote a little note on his business card, and he said, Listen, if there’s anything that I could do for you, he said, my email is on the card. He said, just send me a note. He said, But you know, we want to know if we can improve our service or whatever, or just send me a note and say, Hi. So he sent that’s it. He did that to every single person in the cabin. I was planning a trip back and I’m an American Flyer to but because I’m going back and forth to Houston, there’s a direct flight. And I got them and they cancelled my flight. And I talked to a person on the phone and they re booked me and into a flight I didn’t want because they didn’t have anything else available. And the flight that I did want that was full. You know, the person that ended the phone knew that I was kind of bummed about not being able to get it. And so I was frustrated. And they could tell I was frustrated. But I said, Listen, this has nothing to do with you. I don’t need to misunderstand. Like, my frustration is not with you. I’m just you know, the situation. He’s like, now I understand. Thank you for saying that. So we hung up the phone and all was fine. 10 minutes late at the same person calls me back and he said, there’s a flight leaving in an hour. It’s direct. You want me to put you on it. But they called me back. And that never happened. So they blew me away. Right. And so the point of this conversation for us is, what are the things that have happened to you in your life if you’re listening to this show that have wowed you? Right and maybe it didn’t take much time or effort or even money, but it’s just something that they did that was a little bit extra. That was so big that now here we sit on this podcast telling 1000s of people these same stories, and it’s got a major it had a major impact on us, but it gets us excited for their brain
Adrienne Woods
Absolutely. So I have ordered I’m very excited about this, this actually brings it back to, you know, our industry. So I’m getting a table delivered today, a table that I ordered back in March. So rewind a little bit last. my dining room table. So last July, I go to order that I go to look at tables. And of course, everywhere I go is like, oh, it’s gonna be November and I’m like, I can’t wait till November. Like I gotta have this like today. Fast forward to March, I still hadn’t bought the table. So clearly, I could have waited till July. And I ended up going to the store that I actually really wanted to buy from, but the table was about $800 More than I had budgeted for that, you know, my husband, he was like, if that’s what you want, just like go ahead and get it. I mean, he’s a good man, we’ve, we’ve worked through this in the last 14 years of our marriage. Anyway, I have just been, I guess, again, it was one of these where my expectations were so low that every little thing they have done, I have been surprised by but I don’t feel like this is like the average, I do feel like this is exceptional service. So I finally ordered the table back in March, April ish. And they’re like, it’s gonna be here this, it’ll be ready the second week of July. It’s a handmade table, I’m getting it hand scraped so that when my kids like dig their pencils into it, it looks like it’s already supposed to be there. Because it’s got all these knots in it anyway, right? You’ve had little kids, you would understand this. I’m still in that pace of life. But I digress. So the first day that so I think I ordered it on like a Tuesday or Wednesday on Friday, I get an automated alert, you’re basically table has gone into the warehouse for production. And every three weeks I have gotten an automated, it’s just automated, but somebody had to push the buttons and make it automated, right? Because somebody it’s like it’s still in production. We are carving it this week, we are sanding it down. We are cutting it every three weeks. So we get to the first part of July. And I’m like, I just made sure that my table is still set for delivery the second week of July, I wasn’t going to be here. Literally the day that I was going to email them I get a response from their sales manager, maybe their manager, I don’t know. And she says to me, she’s like, Hey, I know that we had scheduled this for the second week of July. We are actually about three weeks behind in production. I just wanted to let you know it’s probably going to be first or second week of August. Great, thank you so much responded same day. So I had called up there and I said hey, can you just give me a better timeline. And I hadn’t seen an email at this point, even though they had sent it and she was like, Yes, I sent you an email. Sure enough, she had it was my fault. Literally every week since then, I have gotten an email from them just saying, Hey, we’re still scheduled for the second week of August. Hey, just wanted to let you know. And then up to delivery day today, last week, they said, Hey, we are going to deliver it on Friday. If you’ll confirm that Friday is a good day, we will get it scheduled for a time, two days ago, they told me it was going to be between 12 and two, I’ve already gotten an email this morning that it’s loaded on the truck and the conversion time is still 12 to do. Like that takes some work, right. But clearly, this company has got a system in place where communication is their top priority. And I think that’s the key. Sometimes you have to be exceptional at something in order to make an impact on people, even if it’s just one thing. And for them, it’s communication, I’m sure the table will be beautiful. But I will recommend everybody locally to go to them if they need a table or another piece of furniture made. Because they just been so responsive. Even when they were delayed. I wasn’t upset about it because they were so intentional about communicating.
Mark Quinn
You know, it’s, it’s, it’s the little things, it’s such a cliche, but it’s so true. It’s the little things you do for the people in your life, the handwritten note the, you know, the text in a random moment in time, tell your kids something that’s important to you or that you love them or, you know, a thank you card that’s hand written like all those little things. So, you know, as we kind of, like think through this and tie it back to the category and in your case on the furniture side, right? It was communication and, and it sends the message number one, it probably cuts down in a big way on any kind of cancellations they get. So I love that number two years, and you’re talking about how great they are. But number three, it makes you feel like you’re important, right? There’s evidence of the fact that you’re important. And so as you’re listening to this, like what are the things you could do inside of your business? Like at the beginning of the process of when you’re talking to them about blinds? I mean, what the end? Or how can you inspire your people to think creatively around how can you really wow and delight people? How can you empower the people dealing with your customers so give them a budget of $100 a month to do something really cool for your top you know your top customers, send them a thing of flowers, buying something on Amazon that you know that they love because it’s one of their favourite things. So there’s so many cool things you can do. It doesn’t cost a lot of money, Adrian But the cool part of it is that word of mouth marketing, which is so much more valuable to any business than any paid marketing that you can do. You can generate it you just have to create the call Witcher inspire your people in live that show the evidence that you care about the people that you’re selling stuff to, even in your own company. Like you could do this stuff with them just to make them feel valued. But there’s a lot of different cool things you can do to really surprise and delight. And so that was
Adrienne Woods
well, and I will. No, and I think that’s a great point. And I will take it even a step further. So a couple years ago, one of my like, New Year’s resolutions, if you will, was to speak the good like, that was the term that I adopted. Because I feel like all of the time, all we ever get are complaints, like, what do they say nine out of 10 people that have great service are not the people that are going to come back. And like say anything, if they had great service, it’s only going to be the one person that had a problem that’s going to come back. And a lot of times, they’re the one that’s gonna go on social media, and they’re gonna blast you. And nobody’s paying attention to the nine other people that had a really great experience, because they’re not saying anything that’s just a byproduct of the society in which we live. And so a couple of years ago, I started being very intentional about when I have a good experience with a brand or a company or just in general, I want to speak the good and speak that out to people. And which is why I followed up with Delta. I will say they also did a great job like following up a day after my flight, Hey, how was your flight? What can we do? How could we improve, but I was going to go ahead and do that anyway, because I wanted to make sure that delta knew, hey, I had two or three instances over the course of my flight that really just stood out to me as exceptional customer service. And so I would challenge people, even in our industry, and in the category when you see something speak the good Do to others as you would have them do to you. We were at prime time and I told Mark, I said, Hey, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m just gonna go up to retailers and say, give me your best marketing advice in 30 seconds. If you haven’t seen that episode, it went live yesterday morning, go check it out. It’s advice from from actual retailers from primetime. But I would say you go leave Google reviews on companies that you feel like have done a good job, do what you would like people to do and follow up with them and ask for a review. All I would say I interviewed probably two dozen people, at least six or seven of them. So let’s say a good 25% of the people that I interviewed, all said Google reviews are our best marketing. They were like we are emphatic about going out and getting those Google reviews, following up with people that don’t leave us a five star review and hoping to change that. And so that’s what I would tell people is do do to them what you would like to do to them to you.
Mark Quinn
Yeah, I think that’s a great advice. And when you do run across that great experience, be sure to let them know as a matter of fact, I was just thinking, my daughter is at University of Arkansas and I called their apartment, like the new apartment that she’s moving into in them on the front office were really great and helped us get into the unit faster because they had to do some painting to it. And they’ve really worked hard to get them in faster. I had six of Gabby’s sorority sisters live it was actually pretty fun. We had some great dinner so awesome memories but so I’m gonna
Adrienne Woods
What’s your the sorority dad?
Mark Quinn
Zach, I was the cook in the clean and the Martin too. But it was a it was a blast. So this show inspired me on a call them and make sure they know how much I appreciate the fact that they helped get this into that apartment earlier. But anyway, Adrian, thank you so much for being on this show. I appreciate it. Love the stories. If you’re listening to this be inspired, you know, employees leave shitty bosses. Don’t be a shitty boss. Do the do the small things for your people do the small things for your family, do the small things for your customers and make them feel you and make them feel your gratitude and your appreciation for them. I promise you it will make huge differences in every aspect of your life. So thanks for listening to this one. Hey, if you if you can have friends who maybe don’t know about the disc, Marcos podcast or fan and fan that news, let them know about us. It’s a big campfire. We want a lot of people around it. So it’s in the episode that someone share with your friends and go give us a rating on either Spotify or iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. And let’s keep positive energy going we appreciate everybody out there for me and Adrienne until next time.
