I left my Local Bike Shop (LBS) today.
It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the right one, even after having bought my previous three bikes from there (the first back in 2010) as well as one for my Dad and two for my partner, as well as having them do plenty of servicing and repair work for me over the years. I’ll leave out the reasons I left my former LBS other than to say that a recent interaction left me feeling very dissatisfied as a long-term customer.
What I do want to focus on though is why I chose my new one out of two potential options, and why this is important for service organisations in an increasingly depersonalised world. It was all to do with the willingness to think beyond an initial problem and work out a creative solution, to use empathy, and to try and think of things that could be done rather than things that couldn’t.
In short, it was all about empathy, empowerment and expectation.
I’ve been getting back in to road cycling recently after a fairly long hiatus where I did almost exclusively MTB riding. My 2010 road bike had done a fair bit of work, around 7000km, and had somewhat of a catastrophic failure on the weekend where a spoke on the rear wheel broke, and in the process pulled the rear deraillieur into the wheel and did a fair bit of damage. Not terminal, but not trivial either.
It got me into that Twilight Zone of half contemplating a new bike. That time when you start having the discussion in your head along the lines of ‘you know the money you’ll spend replacing parts could be put towards a new bike, particularly since it is eight years old now, so it’s likely that more things are going to start needing replacing soon anyway…’. As can happen, this rapidly escalated into searching websites, visiting other LBS’, reading countless reviews and eventually narrowing it down to one of two – both the same brand, both within the price range, both doing what would be needed, and with several stockists of the brand within close proximity.
The next thing to do was to organise a test ride, ideally a test ride of both models to see if the higher spec components in the more expensive one would be worth the increase in the price tag.
The phone call to the first LBS – who I genuinely did want to buy from – did not go so well. No, they didn’t have one of the two models in stock, so no, I couldn’t compare them side-by-side. No, I couldn’t take the one they did have in stock for a test ride, as it wasn’t a demo bike, and it might get damaged out on the road. No, there were no other options, this is simply the way it was. End of story. I signed off the call thanking them for their time.
The phone call to the second LBS also presented challenges. Yes, they did have two bikes in, but no, not in my size – both were several sizes too small and of no real use. But that’s where things turned around. Yes, he did have a new one in stock out in the storeroom, and yes he could put it together for a test ride. Even better, he did have another bike in stock which was close to the other model (the same frame, which is a major factor), and with a swap of the wheels to a different spec would be almost spot on from what I could expect from the second model – I wouldn’t be testing the two exact bikes, but the experience would give me a good idea of the difference between the two frames, and hence the two bikes I was interested in. And yes, I could come over tomorrow for a test ride.
Empathy.
Being able to put oneself in the shoes of the customer and understand what they are actually trying to achieve, not just taking their question on face value. There’s nothing new in this concept, but in a world where products can be purchased just as easily online as in person (and usually cheaper) then empathy in customer interactions is only going to increase as a differentiator in customer attraction and retention, as was the case here.
What is a far more interesting question (which will probably remain unanswered) is how much these two interactions were defined by the culture of the workplace versus the individual skills and mindset of the people who served me.
For all I know, the rules in both stores could be exactly the same, in which case the person in the first store gets top marks. Don’t let new bikes out on test rides (we’ve been burned before don’t you know). Don’t set up a new bike unless you’ve got a deposit. Don’t get stock into the store unless absolutely necessary. It is also possible that the person in the second store will get a kicking for having spent time on temporarily creating a ‘Frankenstein’s bicycle’ for me to test, but he will also almost certainly be getting my money tomorrow on one of those two bikes.
Then again, perhaps this is embedded in the culture of the second LBS. Listen to what the customer actually wants, not just what they are asking you for. Think creatively about how you might be able to give them options to solve their problems. Use your own judgement with the good of the customer in mind and we’ll back your judgement, and if you get it wrong then so be it – you’ll know better next time.
Which brings me to empowerment and expectation.
We live in a world where change is never ending, and trying to define the Great Big Book Of Processes For Every Occasion is getting less and less feasible (although I’m not sure it ever was particularly feasible to be honest). For service teams then, particularly front-line services teams sitting in front of highly complex organisations, it will never be possible to know all the rules all of the time. As leaders of service teams, we need to empower (through skills, knowledge and permission) our teams to feel comfortable to make decisions in a VUCA world, and then set the expectation that making decisions is now part and parcel of the majority of workplaces.
But it needs to be both empowerment and expectation – not or. The former without the latter will probably lead to slow or nonexistent changes in behaviour and culture. The latter without the former will almost certainly lead to some disastrous decisions, and probably a whole lot of fear of retribution.
It also needs to be consciously designed into the system and culture (as well as being modelled) by those with a leadership role. Changes in mindset and practice of this nature don’t often become embedded by accident, and they never happen overnight, but they are the foundation upon which the rest of service transformation is built.