Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue I, 2014 | Page 76

L oya l t y T H R O U G H S E R V I C E
“Customer loyalty management is the holistic approach to driving higher levels of
loyalty through the culmination of all points of interaction with the brand.
This includes what customers consider, buy, and come back for,
combined with where they share their opinions and how they prefer to
engage across both digital and physical environments.”
—Customer Loyalty Management: Finding the Holy Grail of Marketing,
TIBCO Loyalty Lab white paper, 2013
he convinced a couple of key people to
see that this approach worked, it drew
others like them to the company and
the business began to take off.
When you have a culture of getting
the customer to say “Wow!” and show
an entry-level pizza delivery person how
this works in their favor, they buy into
it—and they stay, says Melton. “They’re
coming to us because they want to make
money. We have delivery guys who have
worked for us many years and make great
money. They’re experienced, know their
customers, and give them a good experience.” He also encourages his managers
to teach their teams to go out of their
way to take special care of customers
who order three or four times a month.
“Our customer feedback program
is also a loyalty program,” says Melton.
“As I mention in my book, a customer
who has an issue and has that issue resolved in their favor is more loyal to a
business than a customer who has never
had an issue, since their confidence that
any issue they may have will be taken
care of.” The brand’s website provides
customers with the opportunity to rate
the pizza, the delivery person, the entire experience, and whether they would
recommend to a friend. “We’ve made it
easy to give feedback about how we’re
doing, and it makes us better. We track
whether we get a 1 through 5, and try
to call back any score below a 3.”
It starts with hiring

It’s common practice to hire the best
possible person for any particular position, and in today’s economy employers
can be more selective if they’re willing
to take the time. As competition heats
up, good customer service can become
a real advantage, and hiring right plays

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Multi-Unit Franchisee Is s ue I, 2014

directly into that.
“There’s always been an element
around customer service, but today it’s
probably more detailed, specific, and better understood in terms of its importance
in the overall equation to the success
of your business,” says Reetz. “Take a
16- or 17-year-old kid who never had a
job or interaction with the public. They
don’t understand customer service, that
they’re on stage all the time, and that
it has an impact on the restaurant. So
there’s a lot of awareness-building with
new team members.”

John DiJulius

When it comes to hiring, Reetz cites
the “hire for attitude, train for skills”
approach popularized by Chick-fil-A,
among others. “We can teach you how
to make a pizza,” he says. “We cannot
teach you how to smile, be friendly, or
groom yourself for the kind of public
exposure you’re going to have.”
Second, he says, since no one can be
perfect at hiring, he subscribes to the
“hire slow, fire fast” philosophy. “If we
identify a team member not meeting our
expectations, we’ll coach them on hos-

pitality,” he says. But there are limits. If,
after coaching, a new employee cannot
be brought up to operational and behavioral standards in a reasonable time,
they must be let go, for the good of all.
At his company, employee training
begins with computer-based training
on the basics (e.g., food safety). From
there, based on the position, employees are taken through training modules such as hospitality (e.g., how to
answer the phone and take orders). The
next step is “guided practice” where a
manager or assistant manager takes
the new hire to the actual position and
coaches them through it. When they
perform well enough, they can go out
on their own.
“Our goal is every employee must be
fully trained within 30 days,” says Reetz.
This is not only good for the customers,
but also critical in terms of employee
retention. “It makes them more likely
to stick around.”
Building a culture that supports this
starts with hiring friendly people, Edwards agrees. “I’m surprised at how many
brands don’t pay attention to this. Find
the right people who can deliver on
the promise of what customers expect.”
Bad service—whose fault?

The customer experience cannot depend
on which employee or server they get,
whether at a hair salon or a fast-food restaurant, says customer experience guru
John DiJulius, founder of The DiJulius
Group. “You must have customer experience systems that average employees can
follow. The majority of employees will
not be superhuman rock stars.”
So why is customer service so bad?
“Because of management and the company,” says DiJulius. “We don’t think it’s