Fast Talk: Books That Matter

Bob Nardelli

President and CEO
The Home Depot
Atlanta, Georgia

When I became CEO, I reread The Experience Economy (Harvard Business School Press, 1999). It became clear early on that what had gotten the Home Depot to its first $50 billion was not going to get it to the next $50 billion. I knew that the new competitive arena was the customer's experience.

So we experimented with a handful of stores and created a more inviting environment. We increased the light level to brighten things up and improved the floor coverings to get more reflectivity. We made our signs clearer. There's less store clutter. Our new rug displays provide enough space for customers to pull down a rug and lay it on the floor to see what it really looks and feels like. We now do night receiving so that during the day, customers aren't competing with forklifts, and store associates can be completely focused on creating a memorable experience. Results? Consider appliances. In stores where we have enhanced our presentation, sales have increased 22%. Basically we went from having no market position to being number three in less than 12 months.

We're also focused on getting customers more engaged. As the book says, move the customer from a passive to an active participant. We recently held the first-ever national Do-It-Herself Workshops, where some 40,000 women learned all kinds of projects -- from paving stones to installing low-voltage outdoor lighting.

We used to take a more quantitative view of customer service: Would you shop here again? What products do you like? Are we conveniently located? Today, we're looking for brand affinity. Do people want to come to the Home Depot because of the experience?

Chuck Williams

Founder
Williams-Sonoma
San Francisco, California

You might say that a cookbook is an unusual book to consider really influential. I found Les Recettes de Mapie (Hachette, 1956) in Paris on one of my first buying trips. It must have been 1959. I'd opened Williams-Sonoma three years prior, but things were just getting started. And this little book became my special ingredient.

It reinforced my idea of opening a French kitchenware shop for the American cook. This was before French cooking took off in the United States, before Julia Child came out with her cookbook. I was drawn to this little book because it was all about simple French cooking, and the presentation itself was simple -- bright yellow, colored pictures, under 100 pages. The author, Comtesse Guy de Toulouse-Lautrec, was a big deal, too.

The book inspired me. It became my way of sharing recipes with customers and, by extension, giving them good service. The recipes were simple but unconventional -- from a soufflé baked in a grapefruit to porc à l'orange, a tenderloin of pork with orange slices and juice. The book was in French, so I never sold it in the store, but I usually had it out on the store counter, showing pictures and translating recipes. When customers traveled to Europe, they would return to the shop with recipes and menus from restaurants. Cooking for customers wasn't uncommon, either. I'd invite them home for dinner and try recipes on them. Before long, porc à l'orange spread round the dinner-party circuit in the Bay Area.

Sharing recipes was my way of growing the business. It grew naturally. I've come to learn that if you love what you do, then the world will fall in love with you.