Extraordinary Stories, Extraordinary Services

 

Extraordinary Stories, Extraordinary Services

Often a business focuses so much on its contact with the customer that internal conversations often get in the background. But I believe strongly in the power of culture to bind and support a company as it moves forward.

One of the ways people engage in cultural conversations is by sharing their stories. In my former company, we are often involved with customers when they are engaged in life’s most emotional moments — in celebrations, in mourning, and in love. We encourage our employees to do what’s necessary to make the customer happy in these important moments in life, and that often makes for some great stories.

Here is one example, the story of Rama’s bouquet.

It was Mother’s Day, one of the biggest days of the year and we have gotten a last-minute order to deliver a bouquet to a nursing home. We reached out to one of our florists nearby. He was just closing up for the day and was going to take a bouquet to only his own mother on his way out. But, at our request, he took this one last order, put the two bouquets in his car, and headed off for the nursing home.

When he arrived, he left his mom’s bouquet in his car and took the delivery up the steps. As he entered, one of the residents, an elderly lady, called out to him, “Is that for me? Did my children send me flowers? “What’s your name?” asked our florist. Our florist checked the card. “Mrs. Wong,” said the elderly lady. “No, these flowers are for Mrs. Chan”. Mrs. Wong looked dejected. “My kids never remember me,” she said.

Our florist hesitate for a few seconds and then decided his own mother would understand. He delivered the first bouquet and then went back to his car for the one meant for his mother. He didn’t even have to alter the card, which read “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! You’re the Greatest!” He went back to the nursing home and found Mrs.Wong.

“You know what, Mrs. Wong, I made a mistake and left your order in the car by accident. These are your flowers. Happy Mother’s Day.”

Mrs. Wong cried. Our florist cried. The staff at the nursing home cried. So if that story involved just one florist, and perhaps a few staff at the nursing home, how come almost everyone around the area knows it?

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We have a book of them — stories of extraordinary customer service efforts. Along with the story of “Mrs. Wong’s Bouquet,” we have many other tales of team members going above and beyond to make a customer happy. We have the story about the customer service rep who fielded a furious call from a customer and calmly, and sweetly handled the redelivery request, knowing all along that the customer was dead wrong and had given us the wrong address. ( The customer herself realized the error later and acknowledged the rep’s superior service in a letter to us.) We have the story of an elderly man, who asked us to deliver a flower to his long-time sweetheart, whom he had not met for decades. We did. ( We did the flowers for the subsequent wedding too.) That’s also in the book.” Rama explained.

One of my personal favorites has gone down in our company history as “The Cop and The Flowers”. In addition to Mother’s day, the day that really revs up our operation is Valentine’s Day. Rama continued.

That afternoon, I was in our service center looking for one of my supervisors. Everyone told me she was busy and had asked not to be disturbed. It took me almost an hour to track her down and when I finally did, she told me what she had been doing all that time.

“I have an order for a customer’s sick aunt in a small village outside of the city,” my supervisor, Devi said. “I have been trying to find a florist who can make the delivery in time for Valentine’s day.”

It had not gone down well. The village was so out of the way, she could not convince a florist to take the time during these busy hours to drive all the way out there to deliver the order.

But this supervisor, Devi didn’t give up. She continued to call around until she reached a local police officer. The officer knew the village and knew the destination and best of all, he offered to make the delivery. So Devi, after 3 hours devoted to this project had the bouquet delivered to the police station and the officer agreed to drive it the final few kilometers to Auntie.

The police officer called us the next day to relay the message from the auntie: “You didn’t just make my day, or my week, or my month. You and my wonderful nephew made my whole year!”

All these stories fuel an ongoing internal conversation. No amount of off-site training sessions and memos from the boss can do what staffers do when they talk among themselves and share their own stories. These conversations have power. They reinforce what we’re trying to do as a company. They reward hard work with the one thing most people really crave — positive recognition for a job well done. Because we take the time to collect and distribute the stories, we ensure that the conversations are ongoing. 

The story of Mrs. Wong is not forgotten when new employees come onboard and those who were part of the original story have moved on. We made storytelling an integral part of the company, Rama said with a smile.

These are the stories that are crucially important to have as you grow your company. It’s important as a company expands, to remember to keep the tug-at-your-heartstrings stories alive and flowing.

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That’s all for now, my friends. See you all in my next article.

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