Happy Independence day!  I’m off the grid this weekend to be with the family.  But while you’re here, check out this infographic on the holiday.  And we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming later this week.

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While waiting outside of a store in the mall today, I watched in amazement at two different kiosks take two radically different approaches to selling their art.

• The “let’s wait” guy – He sat in a chair playing on his iPhone while people walked past with fleeting glances at his kiosk.  While his pieces were well crafted and unique, no one noticed because he didn’t notice them.
• The “carpe diem” guy – Each person that passed by got a “Hey, how are you doing today?” at the bare minimum.  He would match his art pieces by people’s styles and personalities that he teased out of them during the conversation.  Most importantly, he noticed every single person that walked by and they stopped at his kiosk in return.

Two radically different approaches with two radically different results.  How do you let people know about you and how your products and services will fit them?

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“At Starbucks, we’re in the human service business, not the customer service business.Without people, we have nothing. With people, we have something even bigger than coffee.”  - From It’s Not About the Coffee by Howard Behar

I spent many years bouncing between jobs trying to find the right fit for me. From retail stores to restaurants, I found myself in always a close but not perfect fit. Sure, every job has its sweet spots and drawbacks but I never could find the one “dream job” that everyone looks for.

When I sought advice, the usual phrases kept appearing. “Make a list of what your dream job entails.” “Figure out the best part of your past jobs.” “Try a pros and cons list. They’re the best.” (Alright, that last one may have been from Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation. Love that show.

So I tried it. I looked at those past experiences to see what themes might keep showing up. Over and over, one “industry” rose to the top of the lists – customer service. But how I hated that phrase. Customer service, customer satisfaction, customer response… it never felt like a natural world to me.

And then one day it all clicked. People. I loved helping people. I loved making people happy. Wether it’s helping them find the right outfit or serving up the best meal they’ve had all day, the theme that kept surfacing was the people aspect of it all. I remember writing down on my lists, “We’re people. We’re human beings.”

From there, the shift was simple. It’s time for a new look at the tired old words. The old “customer” service approach holds a fatal flaw that’s part of its core. It put’s the customer before the person. You can spin it however you want but at the end of the day, the approach requires you to look at them as a customer first. How would you treat them if they weren’t involved in a transaction with you?

So I’m ditching it in favor of a people centered approach. I’m in the human service business and that distinction dictates everything I do to make people happy. When people come to me for help, they’re first a person. That means no “You’re important to us so thanks for holding” for 30 minutes. No “My only job is to get you on a plane” when you missed your connecting flight. No more of the customer before the person.

My advice to the customer service industry? Quit treating people as customers when they’re humans first.

Honestly, the first time I saw the post on Signals vs Noise looking for someone to join the customer support team, I added it to an Evernote list with plans to come back.  My first thought?  ”That would be pretty awesome.  But I bet there’s tons of people applying.”

But it kept nagging at me in the back of my mind.  So I brought the info up and starting putting together some info for them.  A simple background with some writing samples.  I kept reminding myself, “Keep it simple.  Good now is better than perfect late.”

When everything was done, I drafted the email and just sat there for a minute working up the courage to hit send.  This was 37signals, a company I’ve loved for a long time.  The resistance whispered that it was all a waste of time; I’d never be called back much less offered the job.  Before it could get any stronger, I hit the send button and prayed for the best.

And then Jason emailed me back.  The guy that founded 37signals emailed me and wanted to talk.  Holy crap.  Do I have a shot at this?  Then a few more emails and a phone interview happened.  I might have a shot!  Then came the email with a job offer and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Fast forward a little bit and the next thing I know I’m on a plane to Chicago as part of the team.  From day one, I was told we had one job – “Make our customers happy.”  We even have a scoreboard of sorts that tells everyone how we’re doing.  Meet Smiley.  How many other companies throw it out there that publicly?

Now some companies have elaborate training regiments in place that dictate what and how you’ll learn.  Not us.  We actually trust you.  Michael gave me a MacBook Pro, setup my login info, and then let me learning by doing.  Here’s a few people – go make them happy. And you go and do.  When you need help, you just ask the others on the support team.   My training was two weeks of figuring out the ins-and-outs of our great products and I loved every minute of it.  (And the Chicago experience was pretty awesome as well.)

From there, it’s back home since I’ll be working wherever I can find an Internet connection.  Each time I think back on the whole experience, I realized the biggest reason I took the new job with 37signals was their love for people. At the beginning of the job posting, they laid out the whole job in one sentence. “You’ll join Kristen, Michael, Merissa, Ann, and Jason in making our customers happy.”  That’s all I needed to hear.

Just waiting around.

While waiting on my delayed flight, I got the chance to watch a ground crew turn a plane. The “turn” consists of offloading the passengers, cleaning the plane, changing the luggage, loading the new planes, and all the actions that happen between landing and takeoff. The best airlines (*cough* Southwest) can turn a plane in 15 minutes. Obviously, the quicker the turn the better since planes don’t make money while they’re sitting on the tarmac.

So back to watching the turn. Frankly, it sucked. The crew wandered around slowly performing tasks with no thought as to how fast they should be moving. The one guy unloading luggage had no help from the guy sitting in the truck they use to pull the luggage carts. The lady lazily throwing trash bags out the door didn’t care if it landed anywhere near much less in the trash bin. By the clock on the wall, this turn is at 28 minutes and counting. And that’s on a small plane, not the Boeing 737s that Southwest flies.

For the crew, it comes down to a sense of urgency. Not to be confused with rushing, a sense of urgency requires the person to always be moving quickly and efficiently with no wasted time or motion. The Southwest ground crews look like a well rehearsed ballet compared to this mess unfolding before me. Each person performs their task while helping out each other when they can. The guy refueling the plane is helping move luggage onto the carts. The co-pilot is moving through the cabin picking up trash to help the flight attendant. It’s smooth, quick, and gives Southwest the ability to turn that plane faster than anyone else.

This one simple thing makes all the difference. From ground crews to tech teams to you in the studio, if you don’t have a sense of urgency, it’s just going to be a mess.

Oh, and the crew just finished. Took them 35 minutes to turn that plane.

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It happens everytime I pick up a magazine from the rack.  One by one, the little subscription cards start falling out and you look dumb standing there watching it happen.  Then you have to spend time picking them up and shoving them back in the magazine for the next poor soul to experience the same thing all over again.

Sitting in the terminal at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, I watched this happen over and over to dozens of people no matter which magazine they picked.  From little old ladies and their Southern Living to business men and their Forbes, the magazine cards don’t discriminate and make each one of us look stupid.  And God help us if you get several in a row where they won’t pick them up.  It’ll look like a kid got loose and started ripping them out of every magazine in the shop.

I know every magazine does it but how effective can it be?  It’s now habit to toss out every single subscription card  the first chance I get.  I never use them to sign up.  Ever.

So here’s my advice to the magazine industry.  Offer a cleaner design that makes it a page in the back that you have to physically rip out.  Have a simple form that offers the same prepaid postage to send it in so you can bill me at that great subscription rate you offer.  Make it as easy as signing up for an email newsletter on my favorite website.  I’m sure you would get more “impulse buys” that way.

As many people know, my days in the food world are numbered (by my choice) and I’m on to an awesome new job.  Feeling nostalgic, I wanted to look over the past few years spent in restaurants to see what could be gleaned from the days of catering food to thousands and making sure that finicky guest left happy.