On Being Unique: Part 2

On Being Unique: Using customers and employees to maximize the shopping experience 

Part II:

In part one, I talked about using information and some creative ideas to become unique and stand out from other retailers. Here, I’m going to discuss being unique from a different angle.

It has nothing to do with using your technology better. It isn’t about some clever ideas I’ve come across in the retail sector. And it doesn’t get into retail gimmicks. It has to do with using information you already have to improve your customer relationships, and about how you can make your work environment better for everyone, including employees.

Hug Your Customers

Jack Mitchell, author of “Hug Your Customers” and “Hug Your People”, starts his morning at 5 o'clock with a cup of coffee and the previous day's sales report. The clothing retailer lives for data. His company's "custom-made" software tracks what customers buy, as well as their golf handicaps, where they work, and whether they root for the Yankees or the Red Sox. "The technology," he says, "has helped us grow the business by getting closer to the customer."

• Remembering the name of your customer's dog
• Calling a customer to make sure he's satisfied after a purchase
• Having a kids' corner with TV, books and treats
• Knowing your customer's golf handicap
• Introducing customers to business contacts
• Letting your customer use your office to make a personal phone call

Hug Your People

The Mitchell Blueprint to hugging your employees has five principles: Nice, Trust, Pride, Include and Recognize. He goes into all these aspects in the book, giving examples of each principle.

In the Nice chapter, for instance, he explains how important it is to just be nice to people, and how easy it can be. He shows how easy it can be to forget this as well. One simple way companies stay "Nice" is by getting "Nice" employees.

Mitchell suggests different ways to notice these traits, many in an interview--the handshake, meeting eyes, the way they sit--and offers open-ended questions to use in this situation such as "Share the nicest thing you've done to another person" or "Who is the nicest person you know."

Mitchell also talks about the importance of maintaining a fun working atmosphere. Sure, business has to get done, but like his son Bob tells his people during a meeting, "Let's all make twenty customer calls today, but lets have fun doing it."

It is in this atmosphere that the Trust Principle comes into play. People that work for a "fun" place also have to take responsibility for their actions and how they affect others.

The Mitchell Blueprint, with its five principles, helps companies develop ways they can incorporate "hugs" in their company. Each principle makes up a part of the book, and each part contains a study guide.

This may seem elementary to a lot of business people (and it should), but it is a great reminder that people like to be assured, patted on the back and given a hug once in awhile, and this book reminds us all of that.

Five C's:

1. Caring
2. Compassion
3. Cooperativeness
4. Consistency
5. Cash

Personalizing relationships means you try to figure out what's important to everyone and how they feel, and to find a unique way to "hug" them that makes them think, Wow, they care about me, they truly care about me; this is such a nice place to work.

You can alter a blue blazer or sell aluminum siding at many places, but in order to be nice to the person in the cubicle next to yours, you need to personalize the relationship by knowing about their aspirations and tribulations, and then to demonstrate that you genuinely care about them.

How well do you know your colleagues, your coworkers? And how many do you really know?

There is humility—this is a tremendously unappreciated value. Everyone's heard of companies where the big shots fly business and first class while the underlings fly coach on the same plane. Or where some of the leaders and managers are prima donnas and self-centered, and yet are constantly demanding this or that from their workers without taking time to recognize how hard their employees work. Under that sort of harsh leadership, work becomes just a job, not a career, and there's little or no loyalty at all to coworkers or to the company.

Our definition of humility is an environment where people, especially leaders and managers, don't think they know it all and everyone is not only willing but encourages others to succeed. It's never saying about yourself or your business that you're "the best," but behaving as if there is room for new ideas.

The leaders have no problem saying, "I don't know" or "Now that you've pointed that out, I've changed my mind." It means standing behind someone, not stealing credit for ideas that weren't yours, and enabling others to shine rather than always grabbing the spotlight. There's a sense of togetherness and of putting others' needs ahead of your own. It means fessing up to mistakes. It means apologizing.

Now, these things aren't necessarily easy to do, and we're not always perfect at them—in fact, many times it's downright difficult to remember to do them unless they come naturally to you. But they really matter.

When there's humility, everyone is also encouraged to feel as equal as possible.

In summary, you can be unique just by caring. Everyone cares in their own way, and by going over-and-beyond the normal “care about your customers” approach, you can stand out by going that extra mile more.

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