A playground stands beside a sunbeam-yellow and Grape Ape-purple cinderblock structure. Step inside and enjoy fresh-baked cookies, gourmet coffee, a 50” HD television, and if you’re a Type A who can’t stop working long enough for an oil change, free WiFi. Oh. And a complimentary carwash on the way out. The owner of this one-of-a-kind oil change station has managed to infuse charm into a business not known for its charm.

But, that was a year ago.

Yesterday I pulled into one of the bays in the sun-faded yellow and purple oil exchange. Absent were the coffee canisters (at 9:30 in the A.M.). A few stale, broken cookies sat on a dirty counter top. The TV was silent and dark.  A sign hung from the chain link fence surrounding the playground. Closed for Repairs.

It’s a natural fact. Paint fades along with enthusiasm.

It starts slowly. One day you come in and a couple of customers are waiting for you to open. No time to make the cookies now. The early birds are the first signs of a busy morning. The action doesn’t stop. You look up. It’s 10:30. Haven’t even made coffee. And you know this because a few customers grumbled about it on their way out – in a good-natured way, of course. The next morning, the phone is ringing when you walk in the door. One thing leads to another, but no thing leads to cookies and coffee. After a while, it becomes part of the routine – no coffee – no playground - no charm. Business is good. Why spend the money? No one seems to notice. I mean, after all, none of our competitors do it.

And gradually, suddenly, it’s not a one-of-a-kind business any more. It’s just an ordinary, average lube joint.
Or retailer. Or office. Or restaurant. Or hotel. Or "________________."

Customers gauge their emotional connection to anyone with whom they do business and the deeper the emotional connection, the deeper the loyalty to the business. That’s the whole idea behind the Personal Experience Factor, PEF. Most business owners intuitively know this and they start out doing their best to surpass their customers’ expectations, to raise the needle on the PEF meter. But, over time, they get busy and forget. And before long, they begin to take their customers for granted.

K-Mart and Sears used to dominate the retail landscape. Didn’t they see Walmart coming? Or, did they just stop doing the things that made them successful in the first place?

You must remember this: Work as hard to keep your customers as you did to gain your customers and you will always have your customers.

To keep a high PEF score in the eyes of your patrons, the experience has to stay polished and shiny. Things have to be renewed, repainted, replaced. Refreshed. Need some new ideas to refresh your business? Come to the Marketing Performance Seminar Feb. 19-20 in Denver...

Fresh ideas abound.

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Creating a seamless customer experience includes reducing the amount of time customers spend waiting for service. And if you can’t do that… take away their watches? I found the following AP article,

March 1, 2007 , 11:18AM

Associated Press

It didn't stop postal customer Al Cunningham from noticing the amount of time spent waiting for service.

"It's always long here," said Cunningham, 49, an insurance adjuster and former postal employee who was standing in line at the Watson Post Office in Fort Worth .

The Watson Post Office is one of the nation's 37,000 post offices in which clocks have been removed from retail areas as part of a "retail standardization program" launched last year. The effort is designed to give the public-service areas a more uniform appearance, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in Thursday editions.

"We want people to focus on postal service and not the clock," said Stephen Seewoester, Dallas spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service.

At the Fort Worth post office, the hook that once held up the small battery-powered clock now protrudes from a plaster wall. The clock was taken down months ago.

A customer-service expert at Texas A&M University was not impressed with the decision to take down the timepieces.

"It's silly," said Leonard Berry, holder of the M.B. Zale Chair in Retail and Marketing Leadership. "I guess they think people don't have watches."

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It was the perfect experience – almost.

My daughter Emily called excited to tell me about her trip to a new dentist.

“He’s got that whole ‘customer experience’ thing going on. His office is set up like an old fashion train depot. He has video monitors showing clips of trains passing through these gorgeous natural settings above each patient’s chair. And there’s a small track mounted about a foot down from the ceiling. This tiny train runs through your room ever few minutes. One of the cars is a flat bed and it’s holding five or six toothbrushes. Very cute.”

“It sounds like he thought of everything,” I said.

“Almost. But then he flunked out in the one thing that mattered most. My favorite part of going to the dentist is getting the new toothbrush at the end of your visit. I know that’s silly, but it’s just me. And when I thought they were about to forget, I asked for one. The hygienist said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. We’re completely out.’ And I wanted to say, ‘No, you’re not. There’s a couple on that train. I’ll just grab one when it comes through.’”

“But, you didn’t?” I asked.

“No. And neither did she.”    

Even the most compelling customer experience will fall flat if you leave the customer out of the experience.

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2007 is the year of video – on your Web site, your blog, your wherever and anywhere your imagination leads you. For example, when going to the drive-thru at my bank, I encountered a new attachment to the pneumatic tube system: a small closed-circuit television that displayed sports scores, weather reports, movie reviews, trivia, and such, to the point I didn’t even notice the wait. Instead of a disembodied voice greeting me, a real-life teller appeared on the screen who only interrupted the “show” long enough to welcome me and to wish me a nice day.

Realtors have been wise to this idea ever since someone posted the first “virtual tour” of a home for sale. Now customers can get a virtual tour of your store, or office, or even a video of you and some of your staff taking care of business.

This is the best time to contact WOA partner, Rex Williams, of SunPop Studios, who can create for you a professional Video inSite that will absolutely personalize and differentiate your business. You'll just have to see a few samples to appreciate his talent.

For the do-it-yourselfers, there’s a software program available online called One True Media and no I’m not receiving anything for the mention. For an example of what you can do with OTM, follow this link to see a Valentine Day video I created for Brickwood, a retail shop owned by my friend, Gina Angelo. I’m sure you can do the same thing with YouTube. I think OTM is for the technologically challenged, like me. But first, the legal matters. Before slapping your favorite song onto a video, go to ASCAP and check into a licensing agreement. Otherwise, purchase some royalty free music. There. You’ve been advised.

Here are a few ways to use video to grow your business in 2007:

• Feature a new product
• Promote in-store and online specials
• Introduce a new employee
• Provide “Infotainment”

Read About Mike Dandridge