How May I Help You?

Thomas A. Proulx

President and CEO
Netpulse Communications Inc.
San Francisco, California

The best service that you can give customers is to solve their problems. Even better is to solve a problem for them before they even know that they have a problem.

Our company brings broadband Internet connections to health clubs, allowing exercisers to surf the Web or check their email while they're working out -- right from their exercise machine. We make it our business to know whenever there's a problem with one of our connections -- anywhere in the country, 24 hours a day.

So, if a janitor accidentally hits the power cord on a Lifecycle that's hooked up to our service, the monitoring system at our data center goes from green to red. Usually, we can diagnose the problem remotely. Then our customer-service team can call the club and say, "Did you know that machine number 27 is down? Would you send somebody to plug the power cord back in?"

Nine times out of 10, we report a problem to the club before anyone there is even aware of it. And that blows people away. We do this with the specific intention of creating users who are so amazed and delighted by our service that they tell their friends -- our prospective customers -- about it.

Of course, we don't want things to go wrong. But when they do, we see that as an opportunity. The average person doesn't tell his friends about customer service that's just good. The service really has to wow him.

Tom Proulx (tproulx@netpulse.net) cofounded Intuit Inc. in 1983 and retired from the company in 1994. At Intuit, he helped create Quicken software. Netpulse Communications Inc. brings the Internet to 50 million U.S. gym users via Lifecycles, Stairmasters, and other cardio-exercise machines.

Madeline Albert

Southwest Region Trainer and Facilitator
Whole Foods Market, Inc.
Austin, TX

The first thing that I ask managers who want to improve the service at their companies is "What's it like to work for you? Do your employees feel appreciated and respected?"

The average work environment isn't terrible; it's average. And consequently, so is service. To get people to deliver exceptional customer service, you have to be specific about what that means. Too many managers just tell their employees to "be friendly." But friendliness alone is not enough: A friendly ticket agent who loses my reservation and causes me to miss my flight is just going to leave me frustrated.

Employees need to understand, in detail, what makes delighted customers "delighted" -- and how to re-create that. At the same time, it's important to leave room for employees to use their own personality and their own ideas -- to do whatever it takes to make customers happy. That means thinking of solutions, rather than falling back on policies.

Our customers see our people not just as employees but also as experts in particular areas of the food industry. So we need to make sure that we give employees the information that they need to do their jobs. For example, our produce comes from all over the world, and some of it is very unusual. We make sure that team members can tell customers where and how various types of produce were grown, what they taste like, and how to prepare them.

We know that it benefits our customers to get that kind of great service. But we also want members of our staff to understand how it benefits them to offer such service. Beginning on day one of training, team members understand that the difference between service and servitude lies in the dignity that only they can bring to the position. They know that the more they pay attention to the details of their job, the more rewarding it will be. That's the bottom line: All of us want to go home each night feeling proud of the way that we spent our time that day.

Madeleine Albert (madeleine.albert@wholefoods.com) waited on tables for 17 years. Then, in 1992, she began conducting restaurant-service workshops. After joining Whole Foods in 1995, she created the company's first service-specific training program. Whole Foods Market is one of the largest chains of natural-foods supermarkets in the United States, with 105 stores in 20 states, as well as the District of Columbia, and with 1999 sales totaling almost $1.6 billion.