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218: How to Create an Above and Beyond Culture · Customer Service Revolution | Customer Experience & Employee Experience for Business Leaders

1:37
Hello, listeners.
1:38
Welcome back to another episode of the Customer Service Revolution podcast.
1:43
Welcome, John DiJulius I'm fantastic.
1:48
How are you today?
1:50
Great, fantastic, unbelievable.
1:54
how did your team do over the weekend?
1:57
we won.
1:57
We won six to one.
2:01
We are eight and one, maybe.
2:03
Yeah.
2:04
Yeah.
2:06
I'm feeling my age today, Yeah.
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Oh, it is.
2:12
It so is.
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I'm hurting every Monday after after I play.
2:17
Not enough cortisone?
2:19
I can only get, they won't give it to me less than 90 days.
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yeah.
2:26
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:29
How was your weekend?
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My weekend was wonderful.
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It was hot, but it was good, wasn't it?
2:36
Yeah, it's muggy right now in Cleveland.
2:39
I was in Jamaica last week for the umpteenth time and it wasn't this hot.
2:44
It didn't feel this hot.
2:46
it get as humid?
2:47
I would think it's humid there too, no?
2:48
It wasn't.
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But I got to be the only person I've been in the Caribbean for work, I don't know, eight, nine, 10 times in the past several months.
3:01
And I'm white as a ghost.
3:04
And that's spending enough time outside.
3:06
You look like you've got some color.
3:08
Yeah, all right, well good.
3:11
I need to get out of the set.
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Yes, yes, I'm not taking advantage of it, but I will, I will.
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I'm not complaining.
3:20
Yeah.
3:21
All right.
3:22
So today I thought we'd talk about creating an above and beyond culture.
3:27
How does that sound?
3:28
That sounds amazing.
3:31
You've had some experience with that, both in what you do and creating it as a leader of multiple companies.
3:40
It's one of my favorite things because I think not only do the customers benefit, but the employees benefit so much.
3:47
Yeah, the day maker dopamine.
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Absolutely.
3:51
What is the day maker dopamine for anyone who's not familiar?
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you know, there is a, I have a more professional answer, but scientific answer, but, when we do things for others, that's can't come back to benefit us necessarily directly.
4:07
there's an oxytocin that gets released that, you know, oftentimes we're more rewarded than who were.
4:16
making the other person's day.
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The other person feels well, but when you create a culture, an atmosphere, a business that encourages employees to take advantage of opportunities, find the opportunities, be
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innovative, be creative, you take the handcuffs off.
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give permission, all those things.
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The daymaker is the one that oftentimes feels the best at the end of the day.
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And I'm sure everyone listening has made people's day.
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And like I said, I think you get a bigger bounce in the step than the daymake-y, if that's the term.
4:57
Yeah.
4:57
So that's why companies that have an above and beyond culture, a daymaking culture,
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has such great high morale, lower turnover, but it's not easy.
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It's certainly not an easy thing to do.
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It has to be done by design.
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And the one mistake I find that companies have, leaders have, the myth, whatever, is I do this and I encourage everyone to do this survey with their employees and leaders.
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Ask leaders.
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I know, a scale of one to 10, how much their employees, they think their employees are empowered to go above and beyond for people.
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and then ask employees in an anonymous survey.
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It has to be anonymous.
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The way I do it unscientifically is I have, the leaders and employees are in the same room, I have the leaders put their head down.
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And then I ask the employees to raise their hand.
6:00
It's not as scientific as a survey of one to 10, but I'll ask how many people feel empowered.
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But the results are always shocking to leaders.
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It's never as high as leaders think.
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And that might be the case in our business too, as much as we think we build our companies around this.
6:25
But what we get into, go ahead, you were gonna ask me a question.
6:28
I was just going to ask, mean, to start us off, how do you define above and beyond?
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The act of doing something extra that the customer, coworker, employee, whoever we're talking about, didn't expect.
6:47
And that's an important distinction because a lot of times in workshops when we ask for above and beyond examples, they'll pat themselves on the back for something that's
7:00
irregular.
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Right.
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Literally recently in a workshop, when we're doing journey mapping and as you know, in journey mapping, call it creating your signature experience.
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We will look at each touch point.
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You, come in contact with an employee, a customer, and then we break it down into three columns.
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what's the service defects that can happen at this touch point that will ruin the experience from the customer's vantage point.
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What's the.
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Non-negotiable standards that should happen every time, and what are the above and beyond opportunities?
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And service defects is easy.
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That's the negative we don't want to do.
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The non-negotiable standards, the difference between non-negotiable standards and above and beyonds is if it can happen every time, it's a non-negotiable.
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If it can't happen every time, right?
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And we can get into what that looks like.
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It's an above and beyond.
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It shocks me to what people put on Above and Beyond.
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And I don't think it's the people's fault.
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Maybe it is, but it might be the company culture.
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I've had things where people recently in a workshop put, use a guest name as an Above and Beyond.
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Now, in some circumstances, I could see that if you work at a retail store and you don't know the guest name.
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That can't happen every time.
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They don't have an appointment.
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You don't have a database.
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cheat from.
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But in these particular incidences, they know who they're dealing with.
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These are appointments.
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These are reservations.
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You're my four o'clock.
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Call, meeting, service, whatever that is.
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that I use your name, Denise, is not above and beyond.
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At least it shouldn't be.
8:40
That makes sense.
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Yeah, but I could see in a place like coffee shop where you go in and they call you by name.
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That's above and beyond that they remember who you are.
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Maybe even what your coffee drink is.
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Unless a non-negotiable standard is Starbucks getting your name for the order, then they should then use the name.
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What's the name for this?
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And they write it on the cup, right?
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So after you give me your name, should say, all right, Denise, walk down there.
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Your order will be right up.
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then the other part of that is they should say, instead of Vente Soy Latte.
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Unless that's your name or your nickname.
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They call me Venti.
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Yeah, you're tall.
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What are steps that it takes to create an Above and Beyond culture?
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Yeah, so there's five that we say there's five.
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One is empowering employees with the autonomy.
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Then there's training them to recognize the opportunity.
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in that, I want to go back to one, but in that, in the two is like the journey mapping.
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It's having that part of each stage.
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So if you're a new employee or an existing employee, we're teaching you what the most common opportunities that may present themselves.
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So look for those.
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Three is inspiring employees to think outside the box.
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Four is acquire and document all the stories that have happened.
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And then five is advertising those stories, recognizing and celebrating those stories.
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Advertising those stories back to your team.
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So it's positive peer pressure.
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It's like, my God, this is who we are.
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Like, I gotta keep up.
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I gotta raise my game.
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Everyone's doing it.
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FOMO.
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Do you know what FOMO is?
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fear of missing out.
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Yeah, I didn't know.
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had asked my, when it first came out, I had asked my kids.
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The first one.
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also FOMO is a lot like TOMA.
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Top of mind awareness.
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Yes.
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How many people know that one?
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uh The first one you mentioned was empowering the employees.
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And you brought that up at the beginning of this conversation to empowering the employees and how important that is.
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So I have a couple of things around that.
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One, that has to be one of the most significant reasons that people don't go above and beyond.
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And two, how do you go about empowering employees?
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Yeah, so why employees don't go above and beyond is fear that they'll get in trouble.
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And these answers might not be the company they're working for today.
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Everyone's worked for several companies before they got to your company.
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And we don't know what happened to them in the past.
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and they were, know, someone got fired, someone got written up, someone got beaten, you know, for doing such a thing that costs us money.
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So, if you have that, you know, I always say to our team members, you'll never get in trouble for something you do, you only get in trouble for something you don't do.
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Maybe you can in 32 years, I'm trying to think.
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it's had to happen, but I just can't think of it, where I've been like, you did what?
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Like, what were you thinking?
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You know, in a positive way of that they went above and beyond and we were disappointed in that they were too generous.
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Nothing comes to mind, I don't think of it.
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So, you know, fear, policy, you know, they're driven by policy.
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And they're not inspired to make it right.
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And they're not inspired to be innovative.
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And so that's what policy does is it strips, know, policies, black and white with, with, with walls.
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And, know, you, you're not allowed to, you know, to, you know, someone, whatever the example is, someone brings in a gift certificate a day after it expired.
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You know, you're not allowed to let them.
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Well, what if.
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It goes back to a few things.
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In a retail environment, we put out coupons and incentives and marketing to drive people into the business.
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So because it expired on April 30th and it's May 1st, we're still trying to accomplish that.
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I don't know about the rest of the world, we put expiration dates on it just for a sense of urgency.
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But in my world and a lot of great businesses, it never expires, right?
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Internally, it doesn't expire.
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But let's say there's a reason why you want to enforce that expiration date.
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Let's say we have things in the salon and spa that you can't use on a Saturday.
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And our logic is because Saturday is our busiest day and we would be losing money on a Saturday if you came in and use that, use it Monday through Friday.
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Monday through Friday, we're not as jam packed.
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So I understand that and great.
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know, we teach our employees to say, I'm sorry, this isn't, you you know the proper terminology, but.
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You can't utilize this on Saturday if you can bring it back to your next appointment during the week.
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Okay, say that.
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But let's say we find out that the reason they couldn't use it during the week or in April was because they're out of the country, their spouse died, they've been a little busy.
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I don't want you to stick to that policy, right?
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So when you have a ton of policy,
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and employees get in trouble if they go against policy, well, you're not gonna be creative, you're not gonna be innovative, you're not gonna use your best judgment.
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And that's what a lot of policy does.
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How do you get around that?
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How do you take that fear away from people and empower them?
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by being a storytelling company, which means that from the moment you're interviewing, you're interviewing about that.
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And I'm okay with, I'm not saying that should be a...
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deterrent for not hiring someone, that they don't have that above and beyond.
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Again, that could have been scared, beaten out of them at their last job.
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So I understand that.
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they absolutely can be a great employee that can live in above and beyond culture at a Chick-fil-A or a Ritz-Carlton or our audience's business.
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But...
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To talk about it, we encourage this.
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We want you to go above and beyond.
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You'll never get in trouble for something you do.
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You'll get in trouble for something you don't do.
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That isn't enough.
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And that's why leaders are so shocked when their employees give a lower score on that they don't feel that they're allowed to go above and beyond.
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And leaders cannot believe that.
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told you, I said it last meeting, I said it at that, that's still not going to be enough.
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because of where they came from, their pre-existing.
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So storytelling, collecting and advertising.
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The best companies are storytelling companies.
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They will share their top 10, 15, 20 above and beyond stories on new employee orientation.
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And you'll see eyebrows go up and say, you're allowed to do that?
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Oh, that ain't nothing.
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mean, have a hundred stories that'll blow that one away.
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Pre-Shift Huddles, talking about the most recent Above and Beyonds or an Above and Beyonds or I want to tell everyone, here's what Denise did.
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And then, know, little things like that, that now send people out looking for those same opportunities that yesterday they presented themselves, but they were either too fearful,
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didn't think they could, or just went right over their head because their service aptitude isn't there yet.
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And that's what storytelling companies have to, you know, always, it's about increasing someone's service aptitude.
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I like that.
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Can you give us some different types of Above and Beyond opportunities?
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Yeah.
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So to me, they're kind of fall into three categories, spontaneous, anticipatory, and service recovery.
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So spontaneous, I like to call it when it presents itself, but I got to be looking for it awareness, head on a swivel.
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Do you know what that means?
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I know that's a terminology.
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I think it comes from the Navy SEALs.
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I Yeah, might be wrong, but yeah, yeah.
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It's not a UPS thing.
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Like where you're looking out the mirror, the six point.
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Right.
17:19
No, it's a...
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So this just happened to me at a restaurant.
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Had a meal, you know, everyone got their meals.
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And then the server came back in whatever time it was, you know, 15, 20 minutes later to check on everyone or to check on everyone and saw that I was...
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I wasn't eating anymore.
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My fork and knife was done.
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And she's like, can I take this away?
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I said, yes.
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What she didn't realize is I only took one bite.
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But she didn't have a head on a swivel of to say, that not what you wanted?
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Was that not prepared the way you wanted it?
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Or maybe my answer was, I just overordered.
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What is it?
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My eyes were bigger than my stomach?
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Is that the old expression?
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But she didn't even realize head on a swivel.
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So spontaneous, the first type of above beyond is just,
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things that will happen right now that I'm interacting with you, my customer, my client, and you mentioned something and that's low hanging fruit.
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We can do that.
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We like to call the conversation gift.
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There's something that'll come up in every conversation that you can act on.
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Another really important part to this is when we do these workshops,
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Too often, the majority, if not all the above and beyond things that employees and maybe leaders put down, cost money.
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And they don't have to.
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And so one of the first exercises that we'll do with a company when we're creating their signature experience or the above and beyond workshop is list things that you can go above
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and beyond that don't cost anything.
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And you're great at this as an executor.
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Right?
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If you're a client, we're talking and, know, hey, Denise, you know, all right, I'll see you next Wednesday on our weekly call.
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And you're like, no, no, going to be out of the country, going on vacation, you know, whatever.
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You can't take the call.
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Where are you going?
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You've never been there.
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So, you know, I'm going to send you a link to hiking in that.
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city, country that you're gonna be in because I know that you like hiking or bike riding or you're running your first marathon or the top five restaurants in that city because I
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know you and Ken like to eat a lot.
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Fine dine.
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Whatever, those are little conversation gifts.
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You know, so it could be a follow-up, it could be a link, it could be a link to an article that you were telling me that has nothing to do with what I do for you, my business does
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for you.
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You know, it's little things.
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It's having your, if you're physically coming to, you know, onsite, it's having, you know, your coffee the way you like it, right?
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There's so many free above and beyonds that, you know, it's asking you, you know,
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your Ford, family occupation, recreation and dreams.
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The last time we spoke, you were telling me your nephew is graduating from college or whatever.
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Those are above and beyond that.
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You can make people's day and it's just spontaneous.
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It is looking at each touch point and teaching employees what are the most common things that may come up.
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at that touch point that I want you to look for.
20:34
Do you have examples of some of the others too?
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Yeah, me go one back, let me back up to the spontaneous that kind of bleeds into the next one anticipatory.
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So in the salon and spa, an example is if it's pouring rain outside and a person, woman is checking out and she hairs her hair done up for...
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a gala, a wedding, something that she's going to.
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Obviously that rain is gonna ruin everything she just paid for.
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So we like to teach our front desk, our guest care to give her a John Roberts umbrella, walk her out to her car or go get the car and pull it around.
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Now we can't do that 300 times today.
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We're not staffed for that.
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But 80, 90 % don't need us to.
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You might have come in for a pedicure and you have a baseball cap on and you may be going to the gym from here.
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You don't care if your hair gets a little wet.
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So that's, you know, a spontaneous, but it's also an anticipatory because that is gonna happen.
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Prepare yourself, you know, for when that happens, how to do it.
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So the second one, examples of anticipatory is what are things that your customer doesn't know they're gonna need when they do business with you.
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So one of my biggest ones that I've found out painfully is when I travel, I travel a lot, almost every week.
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It doesn't happen that often to me.
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I've been very lucky.
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It happens, right?
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I feel like it happens every other year where my luggage doesn't make it.
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Okay?
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And so, but when you work at a busy hotel, it happens to them every day where a guest checking in, if they have 500, 1000 guests checking in,
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There's several that won't get their luggage, even though it only happens to me once every 18 months.
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So as the customer checking in and I didn't get my luggage and I usually take the last flight out, and so it's 10, 11 p.m.
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and I don't have what I'm wearing on the flight is not appropriate for my business meeting tomorrow, my workshop, my keynote.
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but my luggage didn't make it.
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And so my first thing is, there any stores open up where I can go buy a sport jacket, a collared shirt, anything?
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And they don't know.
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And they're like, I have no idea.
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You know, and I asked some other.
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And then I get to my room and I realize I can't brush my teeth.
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I, you know, blah, blah, blah.
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I wake up in the morning, I realize I don't have deodorant, I don't have gel or, know, and you don't, when this only happens to you very infrequently, you don't realize what you
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don't know until you get to that point and it's almost too late.
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So, you know, why doesn't, why don't the hotel, I know they have toiletries, but why, they could sell me a package of toiletries I'd pay for.
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Why don't they have, and some have, this is what made me think of it, is,
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24 seven, what is it?
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Walmart might be open 24 seven, where I can go get a passable shirt, maybe a sport jacket.
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don't know they sell sport jackets, but they have some clothing companies that, hey, it will be on call.
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I mean, they're charge me for it, for an 1130 fitting and tailoring, but I'll pay for it.
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So it's things like that, you know, knowing what to anticipate that your customers would never know they need at that time.
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another example back in the salon and spa is while men make up less than 10 % of our business, they make up over 90 % of our gift card sales.
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So Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, the holidays.
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We have a line of men in the salon buying two, three, $400 gift cards for their wife, their mother, their significant other.
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Well, the next place, if they remember, they have to go to is a drug store to buy a Mother's Day card, a Valentine's Day card, a Christmas card, whatever that may be.
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our receptionist will say, you gotten your wife a Mother's Day card yet?
25:19
No, thanks for reminding me, gotta go there next.
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Well, would any of these work?
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And we have a dozen Mother's Day cards, right?
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And it's free from us, but that's, it costs us 80 cents when we buy it in bulk, but that's anticipatory that the customer doesn't realize yet that they need it until they get home
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and then like, crap.
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And now they gotta go back out there.
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Every business has that.
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those opportunities that customers aren't aware of.
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Let's pause for a quick break from our sponsor, Fin.ai
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Can you think of any?
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Anticipatory?
26:59
Yeah.
27:00
Oh.
27:01
Yeah, yeah.
27:02
Gosh, I think there are a lot of different ones.
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I'm trying to think even places.
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free above and beyonds, I think that's the important one that doesn't have to be giving away.
27:13
We worked with a car dealership and all their responses that we worked with the service element, service end of a car dealership and all their above and beyonds was go fill their
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gas tank.
27:25
That's nice, but that's...
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could be 75 to $100.
27:30
And I don't want us to fill everyone's, if I was a car dealership, right?
27:36
Maybe on some unique circumstances, it'd have to be a platinum VIP.
27:44
It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to cost anything, sorry.
27:50
Right, right,
27:50
right.
27:50
Yeah, we were at dinner over the weekend and we stopped at a place afterwards just to have a nightcap.
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And it's a place that we visited before and they, you know, are you having dessert with us?
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No, we're not doing dessert this evening.
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Are you sure the chef has prepared blah, blah?
28:07
No, we've, you know, too full for, for dessert.
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And they come out with little petit fours like some, you know, just like
28:16
Here, is just a little tiny little something, It's a little French.
28:19
I'm not loving that term.
28:21
You
28:21
Petite, that's it, you know.
28:24
Yeah, sampler, sampler, sampler.
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Is that what it is?
28:28
Yes, it feels a lot better.
28:32
Yes.
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Just complimentary.
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It wasn't a full dessert.
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was just a little, you know.
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you said, damn it, I gotta have, or the next time, you're gonna save room for dessert, right?
28:46
yeah, something new to try.
28:48
You know this from your prior career in the salon and spas with us.
28:54
Martha was someone who worked in our guest care and Martha book appointments, book a haircut, book a manicure.
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She would work in our call center.
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And we kept on hearing that Martha would let the salon know that on Tuesday,
29:12
Cindy Smith is coming in and she's celebrating and let's have a card and let's have everyone congratulate.
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On Wednesday, Betty Jones is coming in for a funeral and let's change the mood and have a sympathy card.
29:27
And it just kept on happening that where Martha always knew this stuff.
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And I asked her once, Martha, what are you drilling these people when they call up the man?
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Like no one else knows this stuff in the call center, but you somehow know what everyone's coming in for.
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And her answer was surprising and embarrassing that we hadn't thought about before.
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She said, well, John, there's certain appointments that people make that would trigger me.
29:58
What are those?
29:59
Well, if someone gets an updo style makeup and manicure, you're usually just not doing that because it's a Tuesday.
30:07
you know, so I'd say, what's the occasion?
30:10
I'm in a wedding.
30:12
You know, my son, my husband won an award, you know, going out to dinner, you know, with the boss.
30:19
If someone booked two or more spa services.
30:22
In Cleveland, I don't know about other places, people just don't come in for the day to kill time.
30:30
I wish they did, but usually there's a reason what's the occasion.
30:35
And she didn't ask that if you're booking a haircut, she wouldn't say what's the occasion, right?
30:39
But there were certain appointments that would, and so if you were getting a facial and a pedicure and a manic, what's the occasion?
30:47
I got employee of the month and my boss bought me this.
30:50
I just finished a big project.
30:52
My husband got this for me as a gift for our anniversary.
30:55
And so then, you know, from there, we made everyone ask those when the certain triggers were, you know, being booked.
31:03
And then we'd have that on you know, communicated, it'd be in their pop-up note.
31:08
Cause when they are calling for their appointment, that could be a week, two weeks before their appointment.
31:15
So you're not going to remember.
31:16
And Martha won't be there at the salon when you walk in.
31:18
So we'd put it their pop-up note.
31:20
We'd put it their pre-shift huddle.
31:22
Hey, everyone, we have a couple people coming in today.
31:25
They're celebrating or have things going on.
31:28
If you're the service worker, here's some cards.
31:31
Let's everyone sign it and congratulate it or sympathy or whatever.
31:34
Those are anticipatory that you train your employees to look for.
31:39
Love that.
31:41
You know what I always thought was a nice thing in the salons too is when you had somebody that was building, so they did not have a full book yet and offering a client a service
31:52
with them.
31:52
So we have a new nail technician and somebody's getting their hair done and maybe you know they're going somewhere afterwards and giving them a free manicure with the person who's
32:02
open at the time.
32:04
And that's a win-win that if I'm the busy hairdresser that has a full book of clientele, but I say, Denise, you know, you've been such a loyal customer for so long.
32:21
Do you have time?
32:22
I'd love to give you a compliment manicure with, you know, Alison, who's just a fantastic, and I just checked her book and she has time.
32:32
Now, you know,
32:33
I'm giving you a gift for your loyalty.
32:35
You're appreciative to me.
32:37
And Alison gets a great shot at a good clientele and having them do that.
32:43
It's an above and beyond, but it's also sales opportunity for future bookings.
32:47
That's, as you know, because you started out, that's how many people built their clientele from that.
32:55
I think a lot of above and beyond opportunities can be sales opportunities as well.
33:00
Yeah, yeah, as long as it's not construed as a hidden agenda.
33:05
But yeah, and so those are just some examples of anticipatory.
33:08
And then the third type of above and beyond a service recovery, where we drop the ball, right?
33:15
And how we make it right.
33:18
And if it's minor inconvenience, it just might be, hey, thanks for your patience.
33:24
And maybe there's not an above and beyond there because I only made you wait 10 minutes, right?
33:28
Or I was a few minutes late to our Zoom call, right?
33:31
But if it's the second, third time, well, we have a lot of issues if that's the case.
33:37
But if I totally missed the call, depending on the business model, if we made you wait 45 minutes, if your room's not ready at the resort and it's a legitimate time,
33:52
three, four, five p.m.
33:54
Not that you're checking in at 10 a.m., right?
33:57
But if it's three, four, five p.m.
33:59
and your room's not ready or the room has an odor and you want to change, so that's an inconvenience because we just dropped your luggage off at room 205 and you wanted to
34:12
change and get dressed for dinner or in your bathing suit to go to the beach or whatever that is, and now you have to be moved.
34:20
You know, you know, complimentary, you know, drinks.
34:24
I love Starbucks card that they give you if your order's been screwed up, if you, you you made the wait too long is we apologize that, you know, and I'm paraphrasing, you didn't
34:35
get the Starbucks experience you were expecting.
34:38
Please enjoy your, you know, your next beverage on us.
34:42
I love that.
34:43
It's an above and beyond.
34:44
It gets me to come back and it's telling me that you're aware that something wasn't right and you're going to try to reduce it.
34:54
So those are all examples of above and And so when it's service recovery, depending on the inconvenience, you're going to do something bigger, bigger, bigger.
35:05
mean, if we've screwed up,
35:08
you know, it might be, it's on us and we're throwing in, we're sending you flowers, you whatever that may be.
35:15
Above and Beyond is a great tool for service recovery because if you demonstrate, it's called the service recovery paradox where people end up being more loyal because of the
35:27
way you recovered than had nothing gone wrong.
35:31
And so those are great opportunities to really win over customers.
35:37
go back and visit about a story telling how great companies, you need to solicit stories to inspire stories, more stories.
35:47
So it's kind of the chicken and the egg, right?
35:50
And so what we do, but we learned this from working with great companies is how to acquire above and beyond stories is ask your customers.
36:00
Right?
36:00
And say, did anyone crush it?
36:03
Was anyone a hero?
36:05
Please share it.
36:06
Please submit it so we could recognize them.
36:08
So soliciting stories from customers, soliciting stories from team members.
36:12
And not only for team members to think on themselves, which is a great thing, which is a great thing, but there's a lot of team members that won't think on themselves because
36:25
that's not why they're doing it.
36:27
They, on their way to work, know, Denise was their first meeting appointment, whatever that may, and they know Denise loves her Starbucks or her Chick-fil-A or whatever, and
36:36
they stopped and got her that, right?
36:38
That's a great story.
36:39
But they don't do that for that reason.
36:43
So we need other employees to think on them because we need the stories because not everyone's gonna do that.
36:49
And then, you know,
36:51
you know, if you have closed day reports that, you know, prior more statistical and what happened, you know, other things.
36:59
But we always and we learned this from other companies.
37:01
We always had to have a section in above and beyond stories.
37:06
What happened today?
37:07
And so it's it's had on a swivel for a leader.
37:10
And so whenever when I was involved in the salons and I would see these closed day reports,
37:16
and someone would turn in one without any above and beyonds.
37:21
And maybe if it happened, maybe if it was just once, I wouldn't.
37:24
But if it was a couple of days in a row that you would turn in one, I'd reach out and say, you're doing one of three things wrong.
37:32
You're not paying attention.
37:34
You're not inspiring.
37:36
Or if you need to get your ass out from behind the desk and do something yourself,
37:40
and walk someone to the car or brush off their stow or start to go, know, whatever that may be mean.
37:46
And I've been guilty of this too.
37:48
And the last part of the acquiring is documenting.
37:52
Every story you hear that someone brings you is, it should go into a database of above and beyond stories.
38:00
But I've been guilty of this where someone will come up to me, you know, and say, Oh my God, I just want to tell you that Denise in the spa or Martha on the phones or Lindsay or
38:10
Claudia, know, fortunately we get to hear a lot and they'll say they're amazing.
38:14
Like they are, you know, and they'll tell me a story.
38:16
And in the past I'd say, yeah, aren't they?
38:18
Yeah, I know.
38:19
And an opportunity was blown, right?
38:23
Not only to recognize Denise or Martha or Claudia or Lindsay, but to recognize them in front of everyone.
38:33
So there was that peer pressure, that FOMO of,
38:37
I'm sick of hearing about how great Lindsay is and I could have done that.
38:41
I've had that opportunity, I just never thought of it.
38:44
So that's how you acquire it.
38:45
So now when you acquire them, here's how you advertise it back and talked about a couple of these things.
38:51
At orientation, new employee orientation, you share the top 10, 15 above and beyond stories.
38:59
Pre-shift huddles, you end every meeting.
39:02
you know, with the most recent Above and Beyond stories.
39:05
So it sends everyone out with that heightened, you know, sense to look for and execute.
39:10
We used to do it in employee newsletters.
39:12
Now it's the intranet of anytime we hear, so back to if someone now tells me, hey, I want to tell you how great Lindsay is.
39:20
I always say, would you do me a favor?
39:22
Could you email me that exact story?
39:25
Cause I won't do it justice.
39:27
and or could you leave me a voicemail or whatever.
39:29
And now I have that tangible evidence that I could put on the intranet that I could, you know, celebrate in Slack and all that at meetings, awards, as you know, and our companies
39:44
at the end of the year before our, you know, annual event, we would send out the top 50 above and beyond stories from the, you know, the past 12 months.
39:56
and we want you to vote on which one was the best.
39:58
There's several reasons for it.
40:00
Number one, yes, we do want to recognize the best.
40:04
But more importantly, I want every employee to read the 50 to realize how many opportunities they may have missed.
40:14
Because I don't believe one employee gets more opportunities than the others.
40:18
But we do have and have had where a Chris Woj...
40:24
So it seems, or Martha seems to do this daily.
40:28
And then we had employees have worked here years that didn't seem to ever do anything above and beyond.
40:34
And if you ask the latter, they'll say, well, she just gets lucky.
40:37
She always finds the pregnant woman in the parking lot ready to give birth, right?
40:41
And that's not it.
40:43
It's one has their antennas up, the hat on a swivel and sees it, recognizes it, finds it.
40:49
And the other one just is.
40:50
is buried in her work and isn't looking for it.
40:54
So that's, know, the, and signage and the training and all that.
40:58
And then the other key thing to this is a lot of our clients don't celebrate the most awesome above and beyond story.
41:08
Do you know why?
41:09
Don't celebrate the most awesome, like delivering the baby in the parking lot um because it doesn't happen often enough or it's too big.
41:21
It's too big.
41:22
So there's literally a story when we worked with Starbucks, I'm sure it's out there and it's documented, where a barista donated one of her kidneys to a customer.
41:34
Yeah, yeah, right?
41:37
That's not something I'd probably be sharing.
41:39
not that I...
41:40
she upset that you didn't get employee of the year for that?
41:43
right.
41:44
But like in my world, I don't know if I'd make that a great story and I'd celebrate it, but I don't know if that is the winner.
41:54
I mean, how many times is that gonna happen to you?
41:56
How many kidneys do you have?
41:59
Where when it's something little, know, low hanging fruit.
42:03
So I'll give you one, The Maids International.
42:05
We worked with them for years as you know, and they are, you know, where they send.
42:09
you know, maids come to your house weekly and clean your house.
42:13
So their best story was one of the franchisees, I think, you know, found out that an elderly woman lived on this hill by herself and couldn't bring up her garbage can.
42:29
you know, and maybe take them out.
42:33
So he went there every Thursday and took her garbage can out and went Thursday night and brought it back up.
42:40
And it's a great story, but that's probably not replicatable and cost effective.
42:49
Right.
42:50
And so that story is great as it is might fall on deaf ears and maybe get some eye rolls and say, you know, that
42:59
I don't want my employees to be doing that.
43:01
We have a hundred customers, a hundred customers a week who know, so that wasn't the one they chose.
43:08
They chose a much simpler, still impactful, not as impactful story of something that it was just as small, but it was a great above and beyond, didn't cost anything.
43:19
And that would be more low-hanging fruit that's more likely that you'd see and have happen to you.
43:25
So that's an important...
43:27
distinction when you're celebrating these Above and Beyond stories is, you know, we don't want it to only be about the woman that donated her kidney to a customer.
43:37
Do you suggest that companies put limits on the amount of money an employee can spend on an Above and Beyond or a percentage of service dollars or anything?
43:50
Yeah, I don't know.
43:52
So, Ritz-Carlton's known to give employees up to $2,000 at their own discretion and rarely is it ever used.
44:07
Yeah, I don't know.
44:08
I don't know.
44:10
And I'm sure we've spent, you did a great, you've done so many in your 27 years?
44:20
28?
44:22
29, I'm sorry.
44:24
Right.
44:25
29 year working with me in my different businesses.
44:33
There's tons, but the one that's really cool was ATI.
44:42
No, AT Solutions.
44:45
Anti-terrorist training that I was working for in DC.
44:50
When I got there, asked me if I brought the books.
44:53
And I didn't, no one told me to.
44:55
So I checked with whoever my assistant was at the time and says, was I supposed to bring books to their conference?
45:01
And there was a couple hundred people there.
45:03
And she said, no, no, they ordered that weeks ago.
45:06
I sent it.
45:07
UPS, FedEx, but obviously it never arrived.
45:12
And so, first solutions, I'm so sorry, we'll send you, we'll find him, we'll send you another 200, but it wouldn't get there that day.
45:20
And they had people in from all over the country at this conference.
45:24
So even if when the books came, now would cost them a fortune because not everyone would be there and they would have to ship it out.
45:31
And so you jumped on a plane with a couple hundred books and delivered it by that afternoon.
45:37
And that was really cool.
45:39
But that's, you know, that's why you're who you are.
45:41
and got into where you've got.
45:42
but you haven't given anyone a kidney.
45:44
You still have both of your kidneys?
45:47
Shame on you.
45:48
I'm hanging on to them right now.
45:50
Do you have both ears?
45:52
I do, I do.
45:53
I've tried to, it's a family member, yeah, whatever.
45:58
My prescriptions I take eliminated me off a list.
46:02
Yeah, it's, I mean, you have to, it has to be clean.
46:06
Yeah, I was going to say I actually think I am because of different reasons I'm not allowed to donate either, unfortunately.
46:13
um
46:18
a nutshell, a bridged version.
46:21
Great, any companies you'd like to recognize that...
46:24
to a like.
46:26
that we work with.
46:28
And if you know any, I mean...
46:30
But do it consist...
46:33
Yeah, the one I learned a lot from was one of my first consulting companies ever.
46:39
Do remember who our first couple were?
46:43
well, I go back to like advance and, so before RPM before, let me think.
46:52
Oh my gosh.
46:55
Yes.
46:55
Yes.
46:56
The milkshake story company.
46:59
Yeah, that's a great one.
47:01
right, they have a mantra which I absolutely love and I'm written about in books and blogs called, the answer is yes.
47:08
Now what's the question?
47:10
And it basically stemmed from Cameron, the founder of Cameron Mitchell's restaurants when, and this, I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me.
47:19
When my boys were young, they didn't like what's on the menu.
47:23
And probably because we were in an adult restaurant, that's grilled cheese or PB &J or whatever they would throw at it.
47:30
And they'd like, can I just have a milkshake?
47:32
And we'd ask and they'd say no.
47:34
But yet they have a blender.
47:37
They have ice cream on their dessert menu.
47:39
And they have blenders in their bar.
47:41
And it's like, you know, why don't you do it?
47:43
So that became the metaphor, an icon for Cameron Mitchell's restaurant, high end restaurants, but if your kid wants a milkshake, we'll get it for him.
47:52
But that just became the whole icon for the answer is yes, what's the question, right?
47:57
If your kids want McDonald's fries to keep them happy and to keep them quiet and to keep you here as a family spending money and ordering expensive bottles of wines and filets and
48:08
stuff.
48:08
they'll run across the streets to McDonald's and get it for them.
48:11
that was one of the things that inspired me and just great companies like that, that if you can do it, why not?
48:20
And there you have it folks creating an above and beyond culture and some great examples of how to do it.
48:26
But becoming a storytelling company, think solves a lot of issues.
48:30
Yeah.
48:31
And you can't penalize, right?
48:36
You can't be hypocrites.
48:38
You can't say, you guys should go above and beyond and then say, whoa, Denise, why'd you do that?
48:42
That was unproductive.
48:43
Another great example that we've done, and this was back in a day before the weather app was on all our phones, but Zappos is great.
48:53
so I...
48:54
hauled Zappos in a live presentation, not knowing if they would do this, but assuming they would, unplugged the speaker cord that was plugged into my computer for sound for videos
49:07
and plugged it in the bottom of iPhone, called Zappos, who sells shoes, headquartered in Las Vegas.
49:15
And I said, hi, I'm...
49:19
I'm going to San Francisco this weekend and I'm just curious.
49:23
I don't know how to pack.
49:24
Do you have any idea what the weather is?
49:26
And you would have thought this was pre-set up or you would have thought I was calling the weather company.
49:33
I have it recorded and people have done it now since and it's always happened the same way.
49:38
But he says, you know what?
49:39
I don't know, but let me check.
49:41
And pulled it up and told me what the five day forecast was.
49:45
And it's so funny, the guy was so nice, Damian, because I just played this for someone.
49:53
He told me how to pack, you know?
49:56
And he asked, you know, as a pleasure of business and blah, But like, if you can do it, why not?
50:01
But I guarantee there's a percentage of leaders who would say, I don't want my call center to be wasting their time on that.
50:07
But it was low hanging fruit.
50:08
And you know, I've bought a lot of shoes from Zappos.
50:11
But that's just, that's the culture.
50:13
That's the culture that they have and they do.
50:17
when I did that, I was working with a company, it was a call center I was working with.
50:23
That's why I called them, because we just got on the subject of Zappos and how they answer the phones.
50:27
And so I just did it spontaneous.
50:29
And I don't know what made me ask for the weather, but I wanted to see what they would do.
50:33
And they did it.
50:34
So they said, let's call our call center and ask the same question.
50:39
And we were in Southern California, this company.
50:42
and their call center was literally in the next room.
50:45
So, Damien, Damien or Damien was the representative, they answered the phone for Zappos.
50:52
I called this company's call center and got Natalie and said, Natalie, I'm going to San Francisco this weekend.
50:59
Do you have any idea what the weather is?
51:02
And she says, excuse me?
51:03
She goes, you're calling, blah, blah, blah.
51:06
We're a manufacturer of furniture.
51:09
You know, blah, blah.
51:11
I said, yeah, I know.
51:12
I know who I'm calling.
51:13
And she said, I'm in Southern California.
51:16
I have no idea what the weather is in Northern California.
51:19
I said, okay, thanks.
51:20
And hang up.
51:20
And they were all like, ah, they're all bummed.
51:23
I said, listen, I 100 % believe that if Natalie worked at Zappos, she would have given me the weather.
51:33
And if Damien would have worked at your company, he wouldn't have.
51:38
It's not the person, it's the culture and training and peer pressure and FOMO and TOMA and all that, that they get brainwashed in a good way of, if you can do it, do it.
51:51
And so it's not the employee.
51:55
Yeah, and so that goes back to the storytelling as well.
51:58
Once you hear that story, somebody calls asking the weather, you're going to give them the weather that you won't think twice about that happening.
52:08
Yeah.
52:10
my biggest thing is it's not going to happen.
52:13
If you tell them once to go above and beyond, it's not going to happen probably after 15 times because they've been brainwashed by their previous employers only to spend two
52:24
minutes and 36 seconds maximum phone call or whatever and focus on the SOPs and don't think outside the box, policy, policy, policy and all that.
52:37
You know, you got to constantly be celebrating, sharing those stories to get people to realize that they have permission to do those things.
52:47
Maybe the brainwashing needs to start at the top.
52:49
Yes, yes.
52:51
getting them to buy in and changing policies and guidelines.
52:55
you bring up a good point.
52:56
The leaders need to be going above and beyond for their employees.
53:00
What gets felt on the inside will get felt on the outside.
53:02
Above and beyond cultures.
53:04
Yeah.
53:04
All right.
53:06
Thank you, John.
53:07
So listeners, we will put a link to the Zappos call into the show notes.
53:13
And I also have a link to a blog article that John wrote on Above and Beyond.
53:16
So take a look there for additional information on Above and Beyond.
53:21
And as always, feel free to contact us if you need help creating your Above and Beyond culture.
53:28
Thank you, John.
53:30
Thank you, Denise.
53:30
Thank you, revolutionaries.