As detailed in Time recently Danny Meyer is rewriting the rules of success in the restaurant business. We can all learn a thing or two from him. As we enter the era where user centered design becomes a table stake we can learn from how Danny has made his establishments stand out. Like many great ideas, his are revolutionary but also obviously simple in hindsight.
In Danny's world, and perhaps yours too, it's simply not enough to deliver a great product or keep your promise, you need to find a way to distinguish or differentiate yourself as well. Danny bonds himself to customers by focusing totally on a superior experience and he has some interesting principles that guide him.
First, the customer is second. Whaaahhh? That's right. In Danny's world he believes he needs to first meet the needs of his employees and then his guests, in that order. If you don't think free, and decent, coffee matters to your employees, or that evaluation systems that are a joke are not toxic to employee morale, think again. Where do your employees fit into your enterprise, how do they feel about you and your business? Danny gives his employees a reason to be passionate.
Two, always be connecting the dots that you capture about a customer. As John Battalle writes in Search, the database of intentions will soon be upon us. But you don't need to wait for this to start employing the principles Danny details in your own business. Danny gathers every piece of data about his customers that he can and he then uses it to enhance and personalize and experience of a customer. The more data that Danny has, the more likelihood that he can create memorable and meaningful interactions with a customer. Most of companies SAY they do this but does the pizza guy down the street from you still ask for your name, phone number and address every time you call in an order? Does the HR process of your enterprise make people enter the same data over and over again in six different systems during the on boarding process? (Hint, you all do this, fix it.) Three, teach skills but hire for personality. I suspect many companies claim to do this and I'm not at all sure how Danny does it but he claims to hire folks based on his impression of people’s natural kindness, empathy, curious nature and work ethic.
These are hard things to figure out in a one hour interview. How do you do it? Seth Godin has a nice perspective on the challenges and solutions to this problem. (BTW, if you aren't reading Seth's blog and buying his books you should be.)
Update, The WSJ (subscription required) has a more detailed overview of Danny and his principles.
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