“Inflation is when you pay $15 for the $10 haircut you used to get for $5 when you had hair.”
– Sam Ewing, former Major League Baseball player
Salvatore “Teddy” Lococo cut my hair for almost 14 years. Every single time, I got a great haircut and more importantly, my experience every time was spectacular, to the point that Sal became a true friend. I miss him (and his dad, God rest his soul!), and I still call him first to schedule a cut every time I am in Milwaukee.
So, after three years of not-very-good haircuts and even lamer experiences, Friday night, with an ever-thinning and wind-blown mess on top of my noggin, I wandered in to a place called Scissors and Scotch in West Des Moines. It technically doesn’t open until May 27th, but they were doing a “warm-up” soft opening. I’d left the office about 6:30, needing a haircut and wanting a drink. After a long week at work, and missing my family, I thought — “Hey, that looks like a place you can get a haircut and a cocktail.
It is, in fact, a place where you get a haircut and a cocktail. But, that’s not all you get.
You get a really good customer experience. I did not get the best haircut I’ve ever had (see the first sentence of the post for that…). I did, however, get the best haircut I’ve had in three years, and as I sipped my Single Barrel bourbon and chatted with the owners, a few of the other patrons and a few of the barbers and service team, I realized that I know where I’ll get my haircut for the next ten years. Founded in Omaha, and opening soon in Denver (hello, Colorado subscribers — Tech Center, Landmark Plaza building in August!) Scissors and Scotch turns a chore in to a pleasure and brings your heart rate down a few notches by a) genuinely caring what you want, b) giving it to you plus a few little touches you don’t even know you want and c) thanking you with a beverage of your choosing.
Think man cave with grooming, massage and a full bar — and you’ve got the picture.
But this post isn’t about a barber shop or a bar, or a bar-barber shop. It’s about the customer’s experience.
How much time to we spend considering what the customer really wants (and needs, of course) and delivering exactly that plus a little bit more? How many times do we call our own line to see what our voice mail greeting sounds like? How many times do we count the rings before our phone goes to voice mail (if it’s more than five — STOP IT!)? How many times do we rehearse the words we’re going to say to our client and try to hear them the way they’ll hear them?
Not often enough. We’re too busy. We’re too rushed. We’re too wrapped up in our own shtick to really “get” what the customer expects, and way too busy-rushed-wrapped up to consider ways to amaze them by doing that little something extra.
It’s a decision, that’s all it is, just like the one that I made about where I’ll get my haircut going forward. And in the office on Monday, I’ll spend some time on how we can make it that easy for our clients, too…
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