Customer Service Is Exciting Never, As Well

There are few times I notice customer service. When it's bad, I tell everybody. When it's great, I maybe tell two people. Don't bet on customer service to save a boring brand. Staples of a good business–quality, honesty, service, and so forth–are not building blocks. They are MUST HAVES...unremarkable must haves.

If you try to describe your business in ten seconds, do any of those words pop up? If so, you probably have a poorly defined brand. And, what's more, you are inviting yourself to war with competing brands. They, too, can easily try to stand for quality or honesty or service. And, in the end, you both can look forward to a giant price war.

Winning on price is not winning at all. As soon as the deals go up in smoke, the customers do as well. Commodity pricing is for commodity items, like toothpaste and deodorant. Ask yourself, do you really want to be in that type of business?

Further, everybody stands for customer service or quality (or at least they believe that they do, but we know better than to believe the hype that United Airlines or GM throws our way, don't we?)

The only time that customer service is remarkable is when it defies expectations. Think Southwest and their policy to automatically put a missed flight into a no-hassle holding period. The money you spent on that flight is immediately available for future flights. Unexpected! It's a nice touch, but it isn't the CORE of the amazing Southwest brand.

Few companies have ever made the very essence of their brand around service. Allow me to introduce to most: Ed Debevic's.

Ed Debevic's is a chain of restaurants that has struggled over the years. According to Wikipedia: The restaurant is most notable for its wait staff who dance on countertops with fun music playing; sometimes the entire staff will stop and sing along. Each waiter or waitress takes on a character not unlike what you might have seen in a movie or TV show of the past. Occasionally you'll get a Flo-like character who'll rip into you good with the insults but it is all in good fun.

The restaurant, originating from Phoenix, AZ in 1984, was a chain that has shriveled up to two locations, both in Illinois. What would have made that chain more successful? Going all the way to the edge (thanks, Seth Godin) and having a restaurant full of surly waiters and waitresses. Dancing waiters and waitresses are OK, but it has been done. An angry wait staff? On purpose? On purpose!

I don't remember if I enjoyed their food, but I did have one of those "Flo-like" waitresses when I went there over ten years ago. And, to this day, I still recommend Ed Debevic's to Chicago-bound friends. Is it for their quality, honesty, or service? No, actually, it's for their lack of service, which, in some weird way, is their service.