Being an opinionated company is great. Great companies have a point of view, not just a product.
But there’s a world of difference between truly standing for something and having a mission statement that says you stand for something. You know, those “providing the best service” statements that are created just to be posted on a wall. The ones that sound phony and disconnected from reality. The ones that come off like a press release, not an actual directive.
For example, let’s say you’re standing in an Enterprise rental car office. The room’s cold. The carpet is dirty. There’s no one at the counter. And then you see a tattered piece of paper with some clip art at the top of it pinned to a bulletin board. And it’s a mission statement that says this:
Our mission is to fulfill the automotive and commercial truck rental, leasing, car sales and related needs of our customers and, in doing so, exceed their expectations for service, quality and value.
We will strive to earn our customers’ long-term loyalty by working to deliver more than promised, being honest and fair and “going the extra mile” to provide exceptional personalized service that creates a pleasing business experience.
We must motivate our employees to provide exceptional service to our customers by supporting their development, providing opportunities for personal growth and fairly compensating them for their successes and achievements.
And it drones on. And you’re sitting there reading this crap and wondering, “What kind of idiot do they take me for?” It’s just words on paper that are clearly disconnected from the reality of the experience.
It’s like when you’re on hold and a recorded voice comes on telling you how much the company values you as a customer. Really? Then maybe you should hire some more support people or offer email support so I don’t have to wait 30 minutes to get help. Or just say nothing. But don’t give me an automated voice that’s telling me how much you care about me. It’s a robot. I know the difference between genuine affection and a robot that’s programmed to say nice things.
Standing for something isn’t just about writing it down. It’s about believing it and living it.
David Andersen
on 16 Apr 09Hear Hear! Well said.
A Guy From South America
on 16 Apr 09Actually, I think it’s a cultural problem in general and not just how companies treat customers. I’m not a U.S. citizen and everytime I travel to the U.S., I always think people act as robots. People always tell me “Thank you”, “Nice job”, etc and are very polite but I always think that all these words are not really genuine. People react nicely as robots. So it’s a cultural problem in the U.S. that is reflected in companies.
zephyr
on 16 Apr 09Amen
David Andersen
on 16 Apr 09@ A Guy From SA:
I’ve hardly traveled the world so I can’t compare sincerity levels very well, but I did notice in Mexico City how genuinely sincere people seem to be when they greet each other. I was surprised.
My friends from India also tell me that service (generally speaking) in the US is far better than India and much of Europe. I think they are referring more to the general acts of service (attentiveness, follow through) than sincerity.Anyway, just some random thoughts.
Andrew Mitton
on 16 Apr 09These sorts of statements are normally the results of painful consensus by a bunch of executives sitting in a board room. Then they launch the campaign for a few months, lose interest, and move on to the next thing. I’ve seen it happen.
Culture is the result of conversations, stories, and beliefs; not a campaign. I’ve heard that Nordstrom’s has one statement: use good judgment. They pass out Nordie’s to employees who exemplify this statement and share those stories. I don’t think they have any sort of mission statement.
I think it was Stephen R. Covey who started the mission statement fad. It’s been a long time since I read his book. I wonder how far the concept has strayed from his original concept.
Scott Elfstrom
on 16 Apr 09It’s interesting that you chose Enterprise as your example. I rented from Enterprise about once a month over a year, and our local office truly lived up to the promise of quality customer service, often going the “extra mile” to make it an exceptional experience. From working extra hard to find the car to meet our particular needs for a trip to canceling charges when service or quality was unsatisfactory, they really came through and made it feel like we were getting a great value for the price.
It was such a great relationship, that I actually felt a little sad when we purchased a new car and didn’t need to rent from them any more.
Grover
on 16 Apr 09I was talking to a rep from a company that requires every customer sign a two year contract, and they thanked me for “choosing” to continue service with them. I have a relatively good working relationship with them, but that statement (clearly read off of a “say these things to soothe the customer” card) actually made me angry, because it just reminded me about how untrue the statement was.
@ A Guy From SA: Yes because large companies in other countries NEVER say insincere things or create meaningless mission statements that don’t reflect the true values of the company.
/me rolls eyes.
zephyr
on 16 Apr 09@Grover: indeed, except in many other countries the culture itself seems less defined by corporations…
Derek
on 16 Apr 09This obviously makes perfect sense. I guess my question is… why do so many people fall short? Everyone loves to talk about it but it feels like fewer and fewer want to move beyond the talk.
Paul Souders
on 16 Apr 09Putting “exceptional service” in your mission statement is like calling your spouse up at lunchtime and saying: “by the way, I’m not cheating on you.”
(Not just “service,” either. I think this every time I see concepts like “integrity,” “quality,” or “value” in a mission statement.)
Mauricio
on 16 Apr 09You get a lot of that crap with restaurants. Everyone in the restaurant business “uses only the freshest ingredients” and “only the finest meats and cheeses.” I am so sick of hearing that, most purchase their stuff from local bulk stores in order to get the best price.
This post is great along side of your other post about “having it your way.”
Brad
on 16 Apr 09I’d like to echo Scott’s sentiments, lest this post create the impression that Enterprise is doing a lousy job. Your experience notwithstanding, Enterprise consistently has the best customer service of any rental car agency I have ever used – they are unfailingly (or, based on this post, almost unfailingly) friendly, attentive, and willing to go the extra mile. One of the few companies I go out of my way to support.
And no, I don’t work for them. :)
mark
on 16 Apr 09“Standing for something isn’t just about writing it down. It’s about believing it and living it.”
And when you believe it and live it, usually other people will write about it for you.
Curt
on 16 Apr 09I’m not sure I agree with the first paragraph. Great companies make great products. A point of view may be valuable, but only to the extent customers share it.
George
on 16 Apr 09As an American living abroad, I can attest to the fact that American service workers do provide a lot more “service” than their counterparts in other parts of the world, such as Europe.
The difference, though, is that the Americans doing this aren’t actually happy to help you or give you service, they’re just being forced to say “thank you” or “how may I help” a certain amount of times per conversation by management who again are forced to do this by their bosses, etc.
For example, I could go to a clothing store in the US and I will be greeted when I go in the door, maybe told about their specials for the day/week, then will basically be hounded the entire time I’m there until I almost feel obliged to buy something after being harassed with “service”.
In Europe, I might be ignored entirely while I’m in the store, or politely asked once if I need any help. The truth is that none of the people working in these places really wants to help me out or be kind (that’s usually not the case anyways) – they’re all just doing their job.
“Doing your (service-related) job” in the US means asking you a certain phrase a certain number of times during a phone call, while in Europe it means doing the bare minimum that is necessary to get the job done.
I know which is more annoying, and it’s not the European version.
David Andersen
on 16 Apr 09@Curt:
I think a great company has a great product because it has a [great] point of view (about the product, what it should be, and all the stuff that goes along with it). Great product are the end result of a particular POV. Customers do share it, whether they realize it or not, because they buy the product.
Mitch H
on 16 Apr 09This reminds me of a Business School professor who always warned us to look for “Credible signals” sent by companies. In a nutshell, “Credible” meant “Skin in the game”.
Examples: Not Credible: A company says they are “committed” to customer service and spends 20 bucks making 1,000 photocopies of a series of platitudes about service and cleanliness. Credible An entrepreneur says he believes in his company. When looking for funding, they agree to eat ramen noodles and take no salary for a year in exchange for keeping more equity.
I’ve taken to looking at almost everything any person, corporation, or government says through the lens of “credible signals” – it’s a remarkably accurate way to predict which statements will be carried through, and which are just BS.
mg
on 16 Apr 09In contrast to Scott and Brad’s comments…
I connected with the post because I have terrible experiences Enterprise. In fact my last trip out of town. The service was so bad I wrote them an actual letter. First, try finding their mailing on their website, I couldn’t. Second I even quoted part of their own “Company Belief’s” in the letter as the standard that they had dismally failed at reaching.
I got a letter a couple of weeks later saying that someone was going to contact me and never heard from anyone again.
Don’t tell me you’re going to treat me “like family” then treat me like a piece of crap. Definitely a disconnect there.
Graham
on 16 Apr 09I can’t stand those canned greetings and responses you get in big chains these days. And the poor employee forced to recite them or face firing usually delivers them in a vocal tone that sounds more fitting in a George Romero zombie film than a place of business. (“Braaiiiinns ….. and would you like to hear our spppeeecciiallsss….”)
I find that my employees are a lot more motivated and passionate when I force them to wear more company approved “flair” to show off their personalities. Hehe.
Interestingly, I hate the flip of this too. When some bubbly teenager thinks that I want to strike up a conversation just because I’m in their store. I wanted a taco, not a relationship forcristsakes. Look food-dispensing-bipedal-unit, just bring me my value meal and STFU. I don’t care about how busy you are or how crappy the guys in the kitchen are doing today.
David Andersen
on 16 Apr 09“food-dispensing-bipedal-unit”
Ha ha!
Robert Dempsey
on 16 Apr 09I agree with Guy Kawasaki who I believe said that mission statements suck. I much prefer a mantra. 3-5 words tops. Less room for BS.
David Andersen
on 16 Apr 09How timely; I just got an email newsletter from a car dealership with the prominent headline:
EXceeding Customer Expectation Levels for Life
I am moved to tears.
Brett
on 16 Apr 09What about the cashier that’s programmed to say, “have a nice day to every customer” and then bitches about them to her colleagues the moment they are out of earshot?
Anon Coward
on 16 Apr 09I don’t work for enterprise but I know someone who does. They will be passing this around the corporate headquarters by quiting time today :)
Interestingly enough they have managed to do well in this economy. In fact they have had a good year.
You will like this too. The book Exceeding Customer Expectations is written about Enterprise This book is given to new employees, they really push customer service.
Its not just a piece of paper to the people who work “in the field” as they call it. Their paycheck is tightly coupled to reviews as I understand it. When someone calls you after you rent a car what you say does matter.
Another thing that blows my mind is how the Enterprise culture parallels military culture. Not too surprising since the founder named the company from the USS Enterprise which he flew planes from. Employee evaluations have an identical layout to fitness report you would receive if you were in the military. They use the same lingo, strict dress code. Too many things to list.
The ability to fuse the military culture (specifically Naval Aviation) with customer service and do well in this economy is pretty impressive. Those three things don’t really mesh.
David Andersen
on 16 Apr 09RE: Enterprise RaC.
My experiences have been mostly good. The branch I use in Cedar Rapids, IA is especially attentive and friendly (and genuine about it). One thing I love is the ability to hem and haw about which car I want on the lot and their willingness to go see if the car has some feature I want (like a aux jack or a speedometer that goes to 180mph). The are personable and flexible. I’ve been to one Enterprise in NY that was not friendly, but other than that, they do a good job; far better than most.
Olajide
on 16 Apr 09Derek: To “move beyond the talk” actually takes hard work, so no matter how great the talk sounds, it doesn’t mean sh*t until it’s seen.
Don Schenck
on 16 Apr 09Customer Service, MOST OF THE TIME, simply comes down to the individual that is helping you.
And your own attitude has a lot to do with it.
For the record, my own experiences with Enterprise have been excellent. Then again, I get good service everywhere I go, because I’m polite and understanding; they’re stressed just like everyone else.
When you encounter dirty carpets, missing people, etc., it’s a function of a bad manager.
Again, a good attitude and kindness go a L-O-N-G way. Ask me about the convertible I got for a rental in Tampa when everyone else was bitching because they had to wait for their car.
Sean McCambridge
on 17 Apr 09If you’ve ever been to a Taco Bell drive through, their employees used to be instructed to greet you with “How are you?” WTF? I stubbornly make a point to say something like, “Alright. How are you?”
Then, there’s an awkward silence.
Did the executives and/or managers who came up with this crap give half a second of thought to how this b/s pans out?
How about never serving me a stale tortilla again? That would be customer service.
Robert Hoekman, Jr.
on 17 Apr 09Interesting post, but can you elaborate? Matt, you said:
Playing devil’s advocate here, can you point to an example? Do you have any evidence? I’m a user experience specialist, so I’m interested in exploring the idea, and I’m hoping you’ve stumbled onto a genuine insight, but without evidence, this is just, well, an opinion, and there’s a big difference between opinions and insights.
Bob Moore
on 17 Apr 09I can imagine that it’s so very difficult to manage the customer service experience in a large organization. Cisco stands out as the best in my mind. Whatever their mission statement says doesn’t matter to me. It’s the execution that counts.
Spingirl
on 17 Apr 09For those commenting on US v/s rest of the world: at least in the US, the sales reps look like they want you to buy (since their commissions are probably based on whether you do or not). In Europe and elsewhere, they may not have the insincere comments, but you wonder whether they are interested in selling at all. They just couldn’t be bothered. The comment on Nordstrom is right on the money – fantastic service. No I do not work there, but do spend a lot of money there.
Jay Ehret
on 17 Apr 09Great job of criticizing a company that actually makes an attempt to stand for something. I rented a car from Enterprise today. They went out of their way to pick me up, then take me back home when I realized I left my driver’s license at home in my wallet. No problem for the young Enterprise employee helping me out. He showed concern for an appointment I had to make and assured me he would get me on the road in time to make my appointment.
This young man spoke very highly of working for Enterprise. He told me they treat their employees very well. He said it was the only big company he has ever seen that actually lives up to the promises it makes to employees.
It’s easy to throw stones at companies that make a bold promise, especially if you are making no promise of your own. Exactly what does 37 signals stand for? Your website makes only product-based promises. Why don’t you at least make a stand before you criticize those who actually do?
Happy
on 17 Apr 09I’m a happy, repeat, Enterprise customer. Employees love working there and do what it takes to keep their jobs and many times have gone out of their way to provide me with service and attention that is genuinely helpful. If you got bad service, I’m sure Enterprise wants to hear about it to make sure it never happens again.
It’s a simple fact: no matter what the company, no matter what the directive, no matter how much the company founder and company leadership live it and believe it, there are some employees and store managers who will ignore it. In the best of cases, those managers and employees don’t last long. Just because the mission statement is ignored by one store does not make it crap.
Happy
on 17 Apr 09Still, Matt, point well taken. Though your example does not reflect the company as a whole, I do understand your point.
Thanks for the reminder that just writing something down does not make it so.
Sanat Gersappa
on 17 Apr 09+1
SuatE
on 17 Apr 09This obviously makes perfect sense. I guess my question is… why do so many people fall short? Everyone loves to talk about it but it feels like fewer and fewer want to move beyond the talk.
Drew
on 17 Apr 09I share Don Schenck’s experience of customer service. It is very rare that I experience bad customer service in person, and I suspect this is partly due to my genuine effort to be friendly, patient, and engaging as a customer.
I’m concerned about our societal shift towards impersonal and even antisocial interaction. The idea that a person bringing you food is a “food-dispensing bipedal unit” is a perfect example of this. You don’t give a crap about them, shutting down even the briefest and simplest attempt at basic human contact, and two people proceed to treat each other like machines at best and inconveniences at worst. A brief exchange of pleasantries and a shared acknowledgement of a fellow human being might make a big difference. Does it ever occur to you that there are so many unhappy lifeless drones serving you is because people like you contribute to corporate culture’s effort to turn them into lifeless drones? To be recognized as a human being is one of our fundamental needs… it’s very demoralizing to be viewed as nothing but a dispensor of item X by a constant stream strangers.
Why do we find it so much of a hassle in our oh-so-important lives to simply treat other people as people?
As for the sales folks who leave you alone to browse… I personally find that very respectful. I am treated like an intelligent adult, capable of making an evaluation on my own, and of asking for assistance if I need more information. Sales folks who leap on me the moment I walk up to, say, a wall of televisions on sale, make me feel like I haven’t been given sufficient time to orient myself to the available options and formulate useful questions.
Walt Kania
on 17 Apr 09Good point about that Enterprise office, Matt.
The paradox. (Or is it a conundrum?):
If your brag about exceptional service, and the customer perceives it as less-than-exceptional, you’re a phony and they’re mad.
If you DON’T brag about service, but the customer is treated skillfully and like royalty anyway, they’re delightfully surprised. They like you. (Even if your carpet needs vacuuming.)
Which is why I counsel clients to never promise world-class, “exceed your expectations” service. By definition, you can’t live up to that.
Service is something you just have to DO. Yakking about it just gets you into trouble.
Nathan L. Walls
on 17 Apr 09Echoing many of the themes above:
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. If exceptional customer service is the claim, the company better be Zappos-quality.
Show, don’t tell. What resonates about Nordstrom is they aren’t advocating a number of customer “touches” or what-have-you. It’s more of a “read the situation” and act appropriately. Management models ideal behavior, employees model the behavior, new employees pick up the behavior. People are natural mimics and the established culture in an environment is a very powerful force. The good service is consistent, without being scripted.
Finally, what I noticed in Paris wasn’t so much that store employees were disinterested. Quite the opposite. Shop owners were unfailingly polite (for goodness sake, say hello and goodbye when entering and leaving a store). The cultural expectation is different.
In the US, the default seems to be a, “our customers need to know we care” oppressiveness. In Paris, it seemed, “we here, we know you’re hear. Please let me know if you need my help.” The customer was expected to speak up, not just issue furtive glances or make long pauses and wait for the sales staff to read minds.
Erik R
on 17 Apr 09At the end of the day if you don’t treat your employees differently than most corporate cultures do, they’re not going to treat their customers any differently. Mission statements are garbage if they don’t start from the top down.
You want your people to treat their customers with respect? Stop asking them to fill out a time sheet to take a leak for crying out loud. Reward them with something a little more substantial than some cheapass gift certificate when they bust their butts to hold the line for you.
And here’s one for the advertising agencies in particular. If your precious mission statements change every six months, how is anybody supposed to take them seriously? If it’s a good value to have it works or it doesn’t work. There’s no shelf-life there unless your mismanagement makes such a mockery of it that you have to come up with new crap every few months.
David Norton
on 18 Apr 09I have had great experiences with Enterprise, every time I have needed to rent a car they have had great customer service. It’s not just a mission statement, the company really follows through.
Soleone
on 18 Apr 09Amen to the comments from A Guy From South America and Drew!!
tsumuji
on 19 Apr 09I totally agree this article’s says. But I think, the mission statement often remind employees what they work for. It’s powerful tool, i think.
Daniel Rutter
on 20 Apr 09See also political candidates who, their press-release writers assure us, have a very strong personal ethics, which it has pained them greatly to abandon in these difficult times when such ethics unexpectedly turned out to actually matter.
Derek Skaletsky
on 20 Apr 09Great post. It’s really hard to execute a “Brand meaning” across a large organization, but the great ones do. Here’s a fun example from MAD MEN about this subject…cheers!
http://phase2strategy.typepad.com/p2_business_strategies/2008/11/lesson-from-mad-men——brand-has-to-mean-something.html
pwb
on 21 Apr 09Bad post. I think many of us know that Enterprise actually is different (in a Southwest Airlines sort of way). Enterprise is renown for not being like the other agencies and in particular with its management program where everyone starts at the very bottom cleaning cars.
I’m very surprised Derek chose to pick on Enterprise, one of the very, very few major companies that is actually “getting real”.
Jim Paglia
on 22 Apr 09Years ago I began using the registered trademark: Brands that stand. It is supported by another trademark: Brand that stand for something, stand apart, and stand the test of time. I have always believed that branding is about how you bring an enterprise to deliver on your shared work ethics (not moral values). Disney would be just another amusement park if they didn’t understand at every level how to get employees, investors and customers to engage imagination. As an example, when Disney World transisition from its fall decorations to Chirstmas displays everything is executed in one overnight session. Imagine the logistics required to to transform that place in the dead of night. But they do it because their utmost value is to embrace imagination and you can just imagine the expressions of the faces of guest who went to bed with one setting and woke the next morning to Christmas in the park.
This discussion is closed.