April 11, 2014

My family wanted to surprise our mother for her birthday this year, so we took her for a weekend in Charleston, South Carolina. As tourists, we did our part to contribute to the state's annual tourism revenue of just over $16.5 billion. If you visit most places that rely heavily on tourist's dollars for revenue, you see a kind of love-hate relationship with visitors. The locals know that their livelihood depends on the kindness, and generosity, of strangers and this can foster gratitude, as well as resentment. I have visited plenty of tourist traps where the staff "thanks you for your business" with such apathy that you feel like cattle being moved through the stalls at an auction house.

As I walked through an open-air market, where unique southern shops sat side-by-side with Ben & Jerry's ice cream parlors, I noticed a lot of people cramming into one little store. It was a fudge shop. "Must be some pretty great fudge," I thought to myself. I poked my head in the door. At first, the place didn't look much different than any other fudge shop. One worker was spreading fudge with a huge paddle on a marble table. (Whoever decided to put the fudge-making process in full view of the customer was a genius. After a few seconds of watching, you just have to buy some). The place also sold ice cream, and customers were lined up at every cash register.

My first assumption was incorrect. The fudge was good, but nothing remarkable. The ice cream was just ice cream, but ice cream is like that other favorite human past time; even when it is bad, it is pretty darn good. So why was the foot traffic in this place twice that of every other store in the market? Singing. Every staff member was belting out tunes as one big chorus. Each song started when the guy working fudge called out the first line of a song, then the rest of the staff would join in. This went on the entire time I was in the store.

They would, of course, take liberties with the musical numbers; changing the original words in the lyrics to fudge. And, as hokey as it sounds, it worked; the place was packed. And while other stores had people walking in, looking around, then leaving, the fudge shop patrons stayed, and bought. Someone in charge of that fudge shop understood that there is only so much you can do to make your product better than the competition's; beyond that, you have to focus on the experience. It worked, because I stayed in Charleston for four days and only remember three experiences. 1) The fudge shop full of singing workers (who, by the way, report that their shifts seem to fly by instead of drag, like most other jobs). 2) The guide for our horse-drawn carriage tour, who genuinely thanked us for supporting his business. 3) The historian at Fort Sumter, who added so much humor to her story about the fort that the audience broke into applause at the end. She did what Andy Griffith used to call, "Put a little more jam on the bread."

Every time I talk about experiences like this when I work with various companies, I hear the same complaint. "That's all well and good, but how do I get my employees to do that?" Or worse, "There is no way my people would ever agree to do that kind of stuff." Most managers mistakenly assume that there are only certain businesses where a singing staff atmosphere is a good fit. "Sure that works in a fudge shop, but I run an oil change business." I'll tell you this, if I had a choice between an oil change at a place that was fun and a place that was just fast, I'll pick fun every time. And my answer to "How do I get my employees to do that?" is "You have to do it yourself, too." Poor managers think their job is to dictate behavior to their employees and then trot off to their offices to work on spreadsheets. Poor managers also hire people based solely on a skill set. Great managers hire people based on a personality that will make buying the product an experience, and set an example by being part of the experience themselves.

You may not have a staff that can sing throughout the shift (after hearing some people sing, I would rather buy from a mime), but you can do something that will surprise people, give them an experience, energize your staff, and double the foot traffic of your competition.

 

Stevie Ray is a nationally recognized corporate speaker and trainer, helping companies improve communication skills, customer service, leadership, and team management.  He can be reached at www.stevierays.org or stevie@stevierays.org.

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