In our recent electronic newsletter, we asked the following question:
When purchasing a product or service, how often do you have an outstanding* customer experience?
(*outstanding = a time when the experience had such an impact that you openly spoke about it to others.)

Here are the results:

These results remind me of when I used to own Buckman's Bakery & Ice Cream in Rochester, NY.

In the early 1990s, Buckman’s was on the verge of bankruptcy but my business partner and I saw an opportunity. We scouted out the business and were shocked to see 7,000+ square feet of pure filth. Even more alarming were the staff—lazy, unkempt, rude, and careless—delivering bad experiences, one customer at a time.

However, having a good understanding of the power of perceptions, we knew that if we could change the customer experience, we could take Buckman's back to the days when it was a special place in the hearts and minds of Rochesterians.

So we set to work to re-establish the Buckman’s Brand from the inside out. We defined our vision and made it meaningful to our employees by providing visible, measurable behaviors that everyone was accountable for doing (such as remembering a regular's name and what they ordered). We provided systems and approaches for delighting customers, and employees and customers liked it. Employees enjoyed contributing to the success of an organization they believed in. We also decreased our product assortment to the core products we knew we could guarantee would always be good.

Over time, our strategy worked. The positive perceptions about Buckman’s started to come alive again.

After some initial hiccups with the limited product selection, customers began to focus on the clean store and energetic, friendly employees. Customers began to appreciate consistent quality and being treated with care and respect. They loved being remembered every time they came in. They loved the Buckman’s Experience!

My business partner and I ended up selling Buckman’s for ten times what we paid for it after just three short years because of the three things we did really well:

1. We hired the best people.
2. We produced only products we could be great at (less was much more).
3. We established a performance-based work culture where minimum wage employees expected to be — and appreciated being — accountable for keeping the store clean and delighting customers at every point of interaction.
   

These three things ended up becoming the foundation for the Achieving Brand Integrity^® process.