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Great Ideas

Waterstones, York, twenty minutes before closing time. I’d gone in to find a copy of George Orwell’s political essays. The woman at the counter referred to her computer and said ‘I think you’ll find there’s a copy in the Drama department on the second floor’. I searched the shelves to no avail and asked another member of staff if she knew where I could find a copy. ‘I think it’s in the creative writing section. Wait here and I’ll go down to the basement’. On the way down she asked another member of staff who went over and consulted his computer. Soon three members of staff were searching three floors to find me one £4.99 book. Minutes later it was triumphantly plucked out of a shelf in the political biography section and handed to me with a smile.  Isn’t it great when customer service exceeds your wildest expectations? On my way out I passed a glittering mound of Tony Blair’s ‘A Journey’ at half price.  If I was working for Waterstones promotions department, I’d have placed a large pile of ‘Why I write’ next to the Blair’s biography……

There was a wonderful hardware store in Glastonbury that was a fountain of esoteric ironmongery knowledge.  You’d wander in with a widget that needed replacing and they would turn it over slowly and say ‘right, you’re going to need a need a 3/8th inch spigot with a 3/8th inch British Standard Whitworth male screw thread on each end‘. And they’d turn round to a shelf packed with small cardboard boxes and find a replacement within seconds.  ‘That’ll be 75p please‘.  Alas, the store has long gone and with it a lifetime of widget knowledge.  In those pre-internet days, I took in what had broken and they rapidly identified it and were, more often than not, able to replace it.

The other day I needed to buy an electronic component.  I couldn’t find the right website via Google, as my search enquiry sent me to endless directory websites. And then I thought why not just search for the image instead? The web equivalent of handing my widget over the counter to a man in brown overalls. I found it on the first page of Google images.  I was so grateful to have found the lead, that I purchased it on the spot.  I didn’t cross reference it in price comparison websites to find the cheapest price. Because the shop had added alt tags to their images, I was able to find it visually rather than on a traditional text based search – and the ease of that search turned me into an impulse buyer. Moral of story – make it easy for your customers to find your products and add .alt tags to your pictures!

It was late in the afternoon, but I needed to get home.  Clasping a large bunch of fresh spring flowers (relationship insurance premium) I walked quickly down Praed Street to Paddington and scanned the train departure screens.  A West Country train in ten minutes!  I ran to the platform barrier to show my ticket but was rebuffed by an inspector saying ‘This is a cheapskate SuperSaver ticket and is only valid on trains after 18.30′ (or words to that effect).

The thought of spending two more hours on that dreary cash-sucking concourse, with its sushi conveyor belts and endless donut concessions was more than I could tolerate.  I found the First Great Western information desk and joined a very short queue. Come on come on.  My turn came.  I laid the flowers down in front of me and handed over my ticket. ‘Is there any chance I could pay for this ticket to be upgraded for the next train – you see I need to get home’. The woman behind the counter looked up at me, looked back down at the flowers and rapidly scribbled some hieroglyphics on the ticket.  How much do I need to pay for the upgrade? I said, getting out my wallet.  ‘Nothing’ she replied, looking down at the flowers and smiling ‘Flowers like that shouldn’t be kept waiting for anyone’. She glanced at her computer terminal ‘You had better be quick, your train is leaving shortly’.  Finally I understood that great line from Seigfried Sassoon ‘Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight’.

Engraved on the doors of the Amazon warehouse entrance is Jeff Bezos’s motivational phrase to all his employees ‘Work hard, have fun, make history‘.  Just below this notice (and written in invisible ink), is the following addendum  ‘and thanks for making me a multi-billionaire in the process‘. The growth of Amazon has been truly phenomenal.  From a two-bedroom house in Seattle in 1994, with extension leads running into the garage to power the servers, to a global business now serving 45 million customers.

When I’ve run e-commerce seminars, one of the questions I regularly ask delegates is ‘What do you think is the secret of Amazon’s success?’  Almost everyone says – ‘ the low prices’ or ‘the range of stock they carry’.  I then bring up the quote from Jeff Bezos himself, which underpins the Amazon philosophy – ‘Amazon.com is obsessively focussed on great customer service‘. It is a sentence that should be enshrined in the heart of every e-commerce entrepreneur.

It is hard to believe that when Amazon started receiving its first online orders, the programmers coded a small electronic beep to sound in the office every time an order arrived.  Every beep was greeted with a loud cheer in the Amazon office. It wasn’t long before they had to switch it off. Permanently.