By Jim McCarthy Mar 5, 2010 0 comments

Good Service is (Nearly) Free

Ken Davenport wrote a spot-on piece today in the new Live Entertainment Marketing blog called, well, Entertainment Marketing.  (I’ll tell you more about that in a second.)

To summarize (though you should definitely go read the piece), Ken shows a picture that he took of a “guest services” desk at a movie theatre and asks why the live theatre business can’t do as least as well when it comes to serving people in this way.  I couldn’t agree more.

Good service is, essentially, free, but you have to have the will to provide it.

Here’s a thing I did way, way back a number of years ago that illustrates that.

Showtime isn't just on the stage. It's in the lobby too.

Showtime isn't just on the stage. It's in the lobby too.

I worked for a company called Noah’s Bagels here in California.  It was (and is) a high-end bagel place mostly located in nice neighborhoods around the state’s big cities (and in WA and OR, too).

We had a consistent problem in many of the stores where at rush times, mostly the mornings and lunch, people were waiting too long.  After some digging, it became obvious that it was because the staff at those was not fully focused on serving customers and was doing some prep and other kinds of work that could be done outside of rush hours.

So I came up with a program called “Showtime.”  All it was, really, was that the manager would designate “showtime” hours in the morning and at lunch, and all employees would work in the front from the start to the finish of those periods of time.  They organized the prep around those peaks so that none was necessary during the peak times.

Finally, we made it a little bit fun.  We created special “alternate” nametags with ‘showtime’ themes that the employees would switch to during showtime, and just before the start of Showtime, the manager would have a very brief (2 minutes or less) meeting with everybody right there behind the counter to give them any product news, info or whatever might have been happening that day, but also to announce that Showtime was starting.

It really cost virtually nothing, but it made a big impact.  More people got energetic, focused service and the employees felt they were doing something important by making a special effort.

Funny that it was called “Showtime.”  Maybe I was destined to be in this business (live entertainment) even when I wasn’t…

Ok, so about Entertainment Marketing, this is a blog created by the super awesome Damian Bazadona of Situation Interactive.  He’s invited me, Ken Davenport, and several other great people to contribute to the blog, and I think it’s fabulous.  There will be some things here that show up there, and some things there that don’t show up here, so you should read both!  I posted the “More Pie Now!” article yesterday as my inaugural contribution.  It’s still in soft launch, but the content that’s coming out is terrific.

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