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Transcript from FT of London interview
Jan 2008
Mike Southon: So this is Mike Southon for Beermat Radio in association with The Financial Times on FT.com and I am totally delighted to be chatting with my very good friend Mr. Paul Dunn.
Paul Dunn: Oh. What a nice welcome. Thank you Mike, great to be here.
Mike Southon: And welcome to U.K so you have just flown in from Australia and you are going to come and wow us, we will find all about that.
Paul Dunn: Hope so.
Mike Southon: But you were never just an international celebrity.
Once I remember you were nothing, you were just a boy at school or
something. How did you get started I have been dying to ask you this
question?
Paul Dunn: Well I mean I grew up in the United Kingdom of course and
I was down there in the South East, Kent Coalfields…my dad was a miner
and swore blind that I would never get down the mine which I never have
done. And then I worked for a company I guess I can mention them, it
was called Belling & Lee and I was doing antenna design.
Mike Southon: And what had you been to a university…?
Paul Dunn: Yeah, all that sort of stuff, so I was engineer. And
then one day quite seriously this guy came into…and I noticed at
Belling & Lee that you had to have the right tie ___ and this guy
came in, it was so funny and he was the Managing Director of the
Australian company and he was very different. His name interestingly
was different his name believe or not was ___ and yes it was…I am not
making it up and he said, “Guys, I have got an opportunity for a chief
engineer in Australia and anyone who wants to put their hand up and can
breathe, you know you got it.” So I thought wow, the streets are paved
with gold over there so that was when I was 21…you know four year ago.
Mike Southon: And when are we talking about roughly, time?
Paul Dunn: We are roughly talking about the 60s mid-60s and so then
I went to Australia, and I was one of the first ten in HP or Hewlett
Packard over there so that was really cool.
Mike Southon: So how did you end up in HP?
Paul Dunn: I was headhunted I believe is the term yes and that was
just amazing, I mean how lucky can you be? You know you are having
breakfast and stuff with you know Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard and
getting the inside stuff on how that all works. I mean incredible
grounding and then I met an accountant which is quite strange and I
remember this guy called me up and he said because I was doing all of
the computing stuff at HP and he said can this thing do what
accountants do? And I said, well…his name was Bryan and I said well
Bryan the answer is probably yes, but I have a slight problem. And he
said what’s your problem and I said…I don’t have a clue what
accountants do. And so I went down and said Bryan, wow that looks
pretty easy and so what if I write some software and you know it’s like
debits on the right-hand side or what ever it was and given that you
like it you will buy it. And he said that sounds like a great deal, so
he did. So I went straight back to Hewlett-Packard and said look based
on the survey that I have just done, of one account I think there’s an
enormous market here. And HP at the time were into non-commercial
things, they didn’t really understand the commercial side of things and
so they were gracious enough to give me some space to do that and I
started running programmes for accounts and it kind of took off and
then I went off on my own. HP said no you can go on your own and do
that. And so that was in 1974 and working with accounts then in 1981 I
went to my first ever seminar and I discovered that…you know how it is
when you are sitting in the audience and you see someone is speaking
and I just got this thing… well that’s me that’s…
Mike Southon: ___ who it was? Was it a ___
Paul Dunn: He was a guy called James Rohn or Jim Rohn as he is known
and I am not sure that people in England know him very much but across
in the U.S. he’s big. And literally that day I decided I had stuff
inside me, that I needed to say and so in 1981 I started to say it and
then built some pretty successful companies doing that and then in...
Mike Southon: And what were you doing seminars on?
Paul Dunn: Well well we had about 23,000, we ended up with about
23,000 small to medium scale businesses as our clients and so we were
doing all of their marketing and stuff for them. And then in 1992 I
think it was yes, it was 1992 I really got this thing back again about
accountants and I realised that all of the small and medium scale
businesses with whom we were working had several things in common but
one of which was they had an accountant as their prime business advisor
shall we say. And I also realised that they really wanted accountants
to do more for them but the accountant didn’t know how. If you wanted
to say it as it was said in those days, if you said to most accountants
okay, so what’s your mission, your vision if you got in life?. And
they would say well what I do is I report on history and I remember
thinking very very clearly wouldn’t it be interesting if we could
change that around and turn it on its head so that they went from
reporting on history to helping their selective clients create
history. And people said oh that can’t be done because accountants are
weird and you know all of that sort of stuff. And for a couple of
weeks I believed that but then it really took off and we had in fact
the society from the States came over and said, wow this is really cool
and in a heartbeat we were partnering with, right across America. Then
about three months later the President of the Institute of Chartered
Accountants from U.K came over and he said wow. Well no he wouldn’t
have said wow would he? He would have probably said golly goshes, it’s
really interesting.
Mike Southon: Cranky?
Paul Dunn: Yes, or something and again in a heartbeat we were in the
United Kingdom and so working with accountants and then from that with
their clients and giving them, that is giving the accountant the skills
and the mindset and all of that sort of stuff to really really take a
different look at how their clients were working. And yes so that was
you know an incredible ball, shall we say and then just really quickly
potted history. Then in the year 2000 I mean by that time I was doing
around about 200 seminars a year with accountants and they would all
leave quite seriously and let me say this has changed my life. And
someone close to me said well it’s really great that you are changing
people’s lives but what about yours? Yours is a mess, kind of it and
she said…it was a she in a voice that must be obeyed, we are going on
holiday to France. So off I went to France under protest but it wasn’t
a vocal protest, it was like an inner protest and then I was in France
and three days later I bought a house and sold everything, all my
business interests and spent five years there, well three months in
France, three months in Australia and three months travelling around
the world. And mentoring and writing books and all of that sort of
stuff and then in the year 2005 I met our mutual friend Roger Hamilton
and for the first time connected I think with this whole thing about a
deeper purpose, so I got involved with that and you know since then I
have been back at it again shall we say with passion and hopefully with
purpose. And so yeah it’s great by the way to be back in the U.K.
because it’s been roundabout five years I think that I have been here
and I must say things have changed. I am not sure necessarily for the
good but they have changed as indeed everything has. But what’s
interesting too and I know that you know this is that the key
fundamentals remain the same. I mean there is nothing…what’s that old
song…everything old is new again or something and yet we see so many
people getting away from the…if you will…the basics and getting in what
seems to me anyway, getting into a mess because of it. So my thing now
is to take a look at the really small things that make just such a
significant difference to the way in which business works. Because
think all of us… when you think about all of us in business you know if
we could wave our magic wand what would we want? Well we’d want more
customers then as we would say in Australia you can poke a stick at.
We would want them coming back more frequently and we want to do that
simply and we want to do that without spending masses of money and we’d
also want to have fun. And we want the people around us to have fun.
And that’s not actually as complex as it seems, in fact it’s really
quite simple once you get the handle on it. And that’s why I am back
in the U.K and that’s why I do my stuff these day and it’s really fun
and people do get the results which is great.
Mike Southon: So in Australia you are running Results now which you
have the licence for Wealth Dynamics and the other Roger Hamilton stuff
in Australia, so you are doing a lot of that, lot of seminars going on,
a lot of people, met a whole bunch of them. And you do the Momentum
sessions, perhaps you are doing it in London and your big thing is it’s
all about the wow factor isn’t it? It’s all about creating a wow with
a customer?
Paul Dunn: Yeah it’s all about…I think we’ve moved beyond about five
years ago, couple of guys wrote a book which was underscoring things
that had been happening and for me when I read that it was almost like,
“Oh my God here’s the Holy Grail again and essentially what they were
saying…
Mike Southon: Which book was that?
Paul Dunn: It was a book called “The Experience Economy”.
Mike Southon: “The Experience Economy” written by?
Paul Dunn: Written by Jim and Joe? I will think of their names
before we finish but anyway…and it was saying that the days of customer
service as we know were dead in the water and that’s not to say by the
way that when someone comes in we treat them badly whatever. It is to
say that what we need to do is create a…and the word they were using
was an experience.
Mike Southon: It was different…the customer experience…
Paul Dunn: Exactly an experience which is a very personal experience
for that customer and of course that leads to a whole host of things.
I mean for example you know you start to think, well my goodness do
most businesses treat the customer homogeneously as if we are all one
and they do. And yet you and I know that the way I talk about it now
is that bad customers drive away good customers…right? We try and
think that there is this homogenous mass of people but there isn’t. I
mean there is individual customers with individual I hate to say needs,
because I think that sort of says that we should be going to the
customer and finding out what they want, which of course we should.
But I think it’s much more than that. I think if you think about some
of the kind of things that make you go wow you know and you look at…say
for example Apple and you look at the iPod Touch or iPhone you know
when people see that it’s like wow my God, I’ve got to have one of
those things. And I don’t believe he asked the customer how to do that
and so I think it’s this little magic thing that just makes it very
simple…go wow that’s something I have never seen before. And in order
to do that I think what we need to do and this is the exciting thing
for me is we need to get our teams thinking about and just
imagining…what if…what if we were able to…what if you know we could.
What if, what if, what if and so that you start to see the entire
customer experience from go to wow as a series of kind of like…almost
like a series of plays if you like or a series of storys which you can
write, you can direct, you can star in and all that kind of stuff. And
then you break that down into very small chunks and then you start to
say. “Oh my God we could do that” or “We could do that”. And it’s
always…the stunning thing is that it’s always those tiny tiny little
things that make you and I go, “Oh my God, wow I have never had that
kind of experience before. I think I will go back and I will tell my
friends about it.”
Mike Southon: Now this is interesting because you are really in the
realms of marketing here and this is quite a radical view of
marketing. Now I am not a marketing expert but my perception is that
you decide what you are going to do and the question you are asking
very early on, who is your market? Who are your customers as if they
are a homogenous group and that’s what marketing people do and they are
very clever whereas me as a salesperson probably you as a sales person,
I meet you in the street and it’s like…what are you working on now
Mike? I want that instant wow, it’s like I am doing this, I thought I
work for a great company, Oh wow, you work for Coutts or…Look I am just
selling this the iTouch, because we both got one recently…
Paul Dunn: We did…didn’t we?
Mike Southon: And we both went wow it is the most astonishing
thing…it’s that wow factor, so sales people understand this because
that’s what we want. We want the low hanging fruit, we want the magic
bullet, we want that instant…you know “take my wallet and help
yourself” moment.
Paul Dunn: Correct.
Mike Southon: But marketing people want it all to be a bit
homogenous. So are you finding resistance talking to marketing people
about this or do you feel they get it?
Paul Dunn: I am not sure that they do, I think it would be wrong of
me to treat marketing people homogenously as well but I think what we
are saying is the ones that do…you know it’s a stand out thing and it
really is standout. But again you know for me you see some obvious…I
mean I am staying at a rather nice hotel and I know exactly what is
going to happen when I leave because when I leave I tend to pack in a
hurry and I tend to forget that I had the bottle of water from the
fridge the night before…right? So of course what I will do is I will
check out and I forget to tell them. Now what’s interesting is I will
get a letter saying you know, “Oh Mr. Dunn you know you actually, you
turkey…you missed their $3 or £3 bottle of water would you mind sending
us your cheque…blah, blah, blah in settlement of the same. But what
fascinates me is never once in a 165 visits to a hotel or to various
hotels a year have I ever heard anything from the hotel that says thank
you for staying with us. ___ but I have had letters that said you are
a turkey so I know these guys can write. You get what I am saying?
But it’s just that simple simple human stuff that says how can I
involve the customer in a better way? How can I really tell them that
I really was thrilled that they came and by the way it was so funny
yesterday. I arrived very early of course on the flight from Australia
which is not a good thing because fair enough I mean hotel rooms are
unavailable until midday, so I was there at this ___ Hotel and I said,
“So what room am I staying in?” You know what sort of room have you
allocated to me and they said, “Well, it’s a standard hotel room” and I
said, “Okay well but what’s that?” And the woman said, “Well it’s
standard.” And I said, “Yeah, but what’s that?” She said, “Well, it
does include breakfast.”
Mike Southon: So there you go.
Paul Dunn: And next I think they had a trick if you like and it’s
not just enough for you know the marketing guy or the MD or whatever to
get this or get this stuff because in some ways I mean I can get it or
you can get it. But if our team haven’t got it, in other words if we
are not creating the right experience for our team how on earth can
they be creating the great experience for the guests and so often you
see little things I mean like a ___ for example. And this is not anti
Qantas, I mean Qantas is a great airline and it fascinates me how these
simple little words that they use just change everything. So for
example in Australia we have a couple of airlines, one of which is Mr.
Branson’s airline notably Virgin and on Virgin whenever you fly you
know from the moment you go into the terminal which by the way isn’t it
interesting how people use words like terminal and you are scared of
flying. And flying, I mean that kind of freaks you out, doesn’t it
but…but when you pick up the Virgin in-flight magazine...when you
listen to the crew - their announcements and stuff there’s only one
word they ever use to describe you and me and that word is guest. You
are a guest, that’s how they use it. On Qantas, I mean the more
advanced souls will refer to us as a customer but the standard…get this
policy is no you are a passenger. So if you imagine yourself as having
for example two twin kids okay and this one over here goes to work in
that environment, called Qantas where you and I are passengers and then
someone else goes to work here and they’ve drummed into them that no,
no, no what you are doing is you are serving a guest. Then which
airline is going to give you the better experience, the answer is that
one over there. And what’s so interesting is when you go behind the
scenes because see that’s where you sit, you go behind the scenes and
you look at all these terrible spreadsheets that you and I don’t like
looking at but when you look at them, we are not even called a guest on
there or passenger, we are called a PAX. So if the internal dialogue
is that we are PAX’s right, how on earth can someone who is part of
that go out and give great service. And I’d say you can’t. Someone
listening to us now could…it’s a very simple exercise I mean you could
just go down to the local restaurant and waitress comes up and just
when that happens, just stop them and say could I look at your little
sheet of paper please with which you take the order on…just let me
look. So you look at it and it will say Table 21 you know and then it
says number of covers - you and I are a cover you know. We want them
say number of guests and it’s those simple things that just will change
everything.
Mike Southon: So when you go and talk to people, I mean what’s
typically are you speaking to…are you speaking to groups of small
business people or large company people? Who’s your target audience
for this?
Paul Dunn: Ah. Very good question. Well my target used to be small
to medium enterprise because that’s something where I was and that’s
where I lived and you know all of that. But increasingly now we are
finding the larger corporations for example just we are doing some
stuff with Toyota. Toyota was really interesting in fact I was working
with Toyota a long time ago just before the Lexus came out and that was
a fascinating time because again they are renovating and doing great
things right? And we were talking about this whole idea but again you
and I know about this whole giving back this whole sort of corporate
social responsibility thing. And I said well how does Toyota do that?
And they said, oh well we have got it nailed and I said, really how
have you got it nailed? And they said Well we plant forests, I said oh
that’s really great and it happened that there were 100 other people in
this particular auditorium and so do we have any Toyota customers
here? And you know there were a few people who drove Toyotas and I
said do any of you know that? And none of them knew it, so I said to
the Toyota person, hang on I get this whole sea change as you said you
are right about giving back but how does the customer know” And they
said well when you come into our showroom we have trees there. And I
said yeah yeah but and this is the key…I said but…how do I get to go in
your showroom isn’t…in fact when I look at your Ads or when I look at
everything else that’s goes on, isn’t there this thing which I will be
talking about tonight called the sea of sameness, where you know it’s
high quality sameness but the problem is it’s sameness. So you get
that all car ads look like all car ads, you get that all real estate
agents look like all real estate agents and here we are in a bank and
by the way this bank does not look like all banks because I was met by
a concierge when I came in which was really cool. And the guy didn’t
know me from Adam but he did say welcome.
Mike Southon: And he said, “Excuse me sir…___.
Paul Dunn; I am an Australian you know and so it’s…again it’s this
whole thing I think about in terms of the sea of sameness, how do we
rise above the sea of sameness, I mean that’s the key. And so I think
there’s two answers and one answer is you get into this you know kind
of nitty-gritty, wowie kind of detail which is very simple to do. If
you only step back and think about it, it’s very simple to do it just
by changing the words as we were talking about with airlines regard.
And then trying to figure out how you broaden that and get your team
involved and again this whole social enterprise “movement” if you will,
I think is really tied in with that in a very nice way because if we as
the customer know that in some way we are giving back. Then again that
enhances the bond between the customer and the organisation.
Mike Southon: But it must be really difficult for these large
companies because as we both know we have worked a lot with start-ups.
You start up as a start-up, you want to differentiate yourself even if
you are different…anything crazy could do to get attention, you start
building up and you are having some success and people like what you
do. Then we call it in the Beermat world you are moving from sort of
sapling to mightier. ___ out what you are doing, you may be100 people
by then, you have to have some grown-ups as we call it. Of course they
come in with all their process and procedures about doing things the
same way repeatedly and well, here’s how we do it in our industry and
you can’t be crazy and say crazy things any more or get into trouble,
___ to a prison. So what you are saying is once you get to that stage
it’s now time to put the wow back in and do some perhaps different
things but nothing expensive and nothing radical?
Paul Dunn: Well, let me give you a simple example. A simple example
would be…it’s now a big company and if anyone who goes to an Indian
restaurant in London here, you probably can order a couple of beers
right and one of those Indian beers a thing called Kingfisher. Now you
would know the guy who owns Kingfisher, he is the wealthiest guy in
India, his name is Vijay Mallya, he just bought one of the whisky
companies here, I can’t remember which one it was. But he has an
airline and it happens to be the fastest growing airline and it’s a
huge airline now and so it’s become big right? But what is so so cool
is I happened to be on his airline fairly recently and I was one of the
random survey people…you know I just happened to be sitting in seat 23G
and I got the survey right? And you know how the survey goes, how did
you find check in, and how did you find you know all this sort of
stuff. But what fascinated me the most about that was let me tell you
the boxes. There were five boxes you could tick to indicate the level
of service. The first box was marked Abysmal, I liked that, the second
box was marked Poor, the third box…now this is so interesting…the third
box was marked Satisfactory which of course would be the top box for so
many companies right? And the fourth box was marked Great and the
fifth box was marked Wow. Now the most interesting thing about
that…how simple is that Mike…a simple piece of paper with five boxes on
it essentially and what is he saying to one of the team is hang on it’s
your responsibility because you are in effect being measured on the
number of wows…now how could a bank do that, you bet a bank could do
that. Could a large company? Of course but they do these surveys but
they ask the wrong damn questions. I mean they are asking, well are
you satisfied with our service? Well the problem with that is you
won’t know, dissatisfied customers go elsewhere that’s what they do.
Right so it’s not about satisfying it’s about delighting or as you said
a moment ago…it’s about wowing them and it’s just those simple simple
little things that do that. And I loved what Vijay Mallya did because
it’s so simple. You were talking about you know how the process
engineers come and say…boom boom boom we’ve got this processes, but
there are such a simple little thing called a survey form that changes
everything…just a simple little piece of paper.
Mike Southon: But then you got to get this attitude into the staff
which again may not be as easy you think because all the staff are told
do what you we taught you…follow the rules. If you don’t you will be
fired or you won’t get your promotion so it’s quite difficult to get
people thinking a bit wow isn’t it?
Paul Dunn: It is…it is unless you give them responsibility for making it that way.
Mike Southon: So it’s all about responsibility.
Paul Dunn: I think so…it’s all about creating teams and just simply
saying okay we are going to break this process into how many you want
to break it into and that team is responsible for that. I mean another
good example, I was in an accountant’s office, now you know accountants
aren’t known for you know you are going inside and going wow. I mean
they just are not and ___ the accountant and they were thinking about
how would they re-do their reception area so that you know people kind
of loved it when they came in? So they had a couple of choices, so
choice number one is they can go spent $50,000 or $100,000 with the
arty-farty if I could use that word. You know architectural firm that
will do all this sort of stuff, but what they actually did which was so
cool. They said to the receptionist or the group of people who by the
way they changed their names so they called them Director of First
Impressions which is kind of interesting. And they said Sally, here’s
$5000 and Sally that’s your $5000, you don’t spend all of it. But what
are you going to do that with that $5000 is make this a great place so
that when customers come in you know it’s just great for them. Now the
most interesting thing about that is who knows better than Sally how to
do it, right? The answer is Sally knows pretty good but what was so
interesting Sally came back you know couple of weeks later with I think
from memory, it was $23,00 worth of change and they go…it’s great thing
and guess what Sally is now you know it feel that she’s the queen bee
because she got asked, how are you going to do this rather than told
you have to fit in with all this high-tech whatever it was and of
course customers are getting better treated because Sally feels great
as well. So you know the great thing is it’s not rocket science is it
and yet we often think it is. We often think we need you know outside
people or you know blah, blah, blah…we don’t. We maybe need outside
people to say hang on, just let go of stuff and let the teams have the
responsibility to do it. I mean you know when I was at a famous
chemists yesterday and it occurred to me, I mean it was just a point
and it occurred to me that if the team there were actually involved in
saying, “Okay so guys is this an acceptable standard?” and the team
would say no, it’s not, I mean it’s just not an acceptable standard and
then the team would go and figure it out. So you get better involved
people I mean it’s a recipe that’s been around for long time. You get
people better involved people, you get small little changes that the
customer loves and you get presumably…not presumably…you do. You get a
better bottom line and less people leaving less …you know all of those
good things that we all want to get.
Mike Southon: Because I know you do a lot of public speaking and one
of the top in the world and fantastic speaker, an authority….
Paul Dunn: Thank you very much.
Mike Southon: Anybody who has a chance of hearing Paul, it’s always
a wow experience and you get up there and you knock them dead and you
are great on Power Point, you’ve got a few…you are the king of Power
Point. Lots of challenges ___ but you know you will also be there. So
it was a great experience hearing you speak because you got great
examples of how it’s done badly and then great ones of how it’s done
well. Do you also go into companies and advise them about how to
improve their wow?
Paul Dunn: Yeah of course, of course and that becomes really
interesting. But again you see what’s interesting is it’s not
necessarily me saying oh, you should do that, you should do that. What
it is, is trying to create an environment where they are doing it and
you know and sure enough we talk with them very so often…all that kind
___ thing. But it’s really not me…it’s really how can I help them
create the space so that other people are doing it.
Mike Southon: And they can take ownership of it, so you encourage
them to do it. You sort of catalyse them, I noticed you doing that,
you sort of throw a few ideas and see if they get it. That’s the big
thing what we do is…you say a bunch of things…always good stories
people enjoy. But then occasionally you see, and always physically see
them getting it and thinking I’ll see what I could do. I could go out
and spend $500 and do something amazing and just a little thing for
when people ___. I mean you give a great example of I think an
accountancy company or something, you arrive and you get a menu.
Paul Dunn: You get…you do…you get a menu.
Mike Southon: You get a menu of what would you like not tea or
coffee sir? It’s more here’s the menu sir, what can I get you and that
just makes such a big impression and it doesn’t cost a lot of money.
Paul Dunn: It really doesn’t and you know you can take that I mean I
remember this major U.K. company I mean we are talking about a company
with 16,000…that really said to me…seems pretty major…people in the
holiday business and we were talking to them about you know how do you
make this experience grow, how do you make this experience grow? And
here’s…Mike a 40 year old bar woman, I mean because of the way ___
company just creates these things and it’s just a fantastic idea that
just came up from the 40 year old bar woman who you would think…I mean
the typical company is not going to ask them but they are creating this
environments and these teams where people like they go, Oh why don’t we
do blah? And it turns out that the blah is great because she’s got the
experience of dealing with the customer anyway. So yeah it fascinates
me how that happens and by the way it also fascinates me how it can
become…there’s like a chain reaction. So for example one of the things
that was done we thought it would be really cool if when people come on
holiday that we thank them for that right? And so you know how when
you go in the room there’s his or her towels right? So we said,
wouldn’t it be great if you had a towel that said thank you, right? So
they just changed those as thank you. Now guess what when you leave
the resort and by the way they’ve got this whole thing about how you
leave because they have also have figured out that how we arrive at
something is very important but the key determiner whether we are going
to come back again is not how we arrived, it’s how we leave which is
really clever. So they’ve got the shop where you go through and by the
way there wasn’t just a thank you towel, there was a please towel as
well so both please and thank you towels. So people would say please
and thank you, I mean to say it sounds really bizarre doesn’t it and so
there were the please and thank you towels and guess what as you check
in…oh gee there’s please and thank you…we will buy Aunty Sally and
Uncle Bill you know some of those or maybe the next door neighbours
because you know I have noticed that whilst we’ve been on holiday,
we’ve been saying please and thank you to each other, you know our own
lives have improved so maybe our neighbours lives improve. They go
back and they get the damn please and thank you towels. So I mean it’s
just stupid stuff but it’s just stuff that works you know. And it’s
weird and who cares why and by the way even if it didn’t work, it
doesn’t matter. At least we are doing stuff, we are not just stuck in
this terrible rut?
Mike Southon: So what did the 40 year old bar woman actually do to create that wow?
Paul Dunn: Well it’s so simple, she said wouldn’t it be great if
when the guest leaves if we would find a way of thanking them for
staying and so that was the ___ now how could we do that and she said,
“Well when they are driving down the A-40 or whatever it is, why don’t
we just send them a text message which says hello mike it’s really been
great to have you at the resort. We are missing you already, looking
forward to seeing you next year.” It’s a simple thing and of course it
costs nothing but you just don’t get that and imagine you were in the
car you go, Oh my God you know just got this little text message. And
again the interesting thing about the text message is it is so small,
doesn’t cost a thing but I don’t know of too many MDs who would think
of that.
Mike Southon: I know it’s got to be people at the coalface because
just to nick some of your material here because I have seen you a few
times. The message that comes across very clearly is because you
always start with here are some bad things that happened and we did it
today and clearly the market for improving the wow factor is infinite.
All of us I mean all of us who travel, we have all got a great hotel
story and whatever so there’s an infinite amount of stuff to do. Plus
it’s getting into the mindset of companies that everybody’s at the
coalface, anybody that has any kind of customer interaction, of course
the person on reception that’s an obvious one, the person sending out
the invoices…how can you make it a wow invoice?
Paul Dunn: Exactly.
Mike Southon: I mean conversations that I’ve had with hotels which
have clearly gone over their heads…I mean things like okay I used to go
and argue with the hotel when I didn’t get my alarm call. Now those of
us who travel a lot, three star hotels, customers paying, you know
there’s probably about a 50% chance you are going to get the call. So
I now bring with me an alarm clock you know just in case, I have my
phone as well and whatever. I have learned to do it but I remember I
used to go and complain…in the days when I used to go and complain now
I don’t bother and it would be always I didn’t get my alarm call. They
say, oh sorry sir, it’s the computer…there’s a problem with the
computer and my suggestion was when I wasn’t being angry was next time
some body complains, why don’t you give them a $2 little digital alarm
clock with your branding on and do that and the other suggestion I came
up with…I actually came up…
Paul Dunn; That’s a good idea by the way.
Mike Southon: It’s a great idea which is it’s cheaper than arguing
with them to say sorry there’s obviously a mix up, have a free alarm
clock with our branding on it, or address on it. And the other one was
I remember somebody asking me, you go abroad Mike, what do you always
buy and I gave almost the same answer as I always buy a fridge magnet.
Because it’s quite cool you know I get a Bali summer with you and it’s
great and a little fridge magnet, it goes on the fridge, it reminds my
son that I’ve been there and it think it’s really really cheap. Now I
said to this hotel, “Look why don’t you make fridge magnets with Bali…
or not Bali necessarily wherever it is you are located”…Warsaw with you
know the Hotel Splendid Warsaw with a little…and give those out to
people as they go because what am I going to do? I am not going to
throw it away, I am going to give it to my son, he is going to put it
on the fridge. Then of course it’s…so where are you going next month?
I am going to Warsaw, you are staying at the Hotel the Splendid…these
are just tiny things which cost no money because you know I am in a big
hotel, we will be spending hundreds of dollars or our client
will…there’s no price margin whatever but it’s really starting in
square one and getting everybody involved.
Paul Dunn: And I think the same the really cool thing is that it’s
often we…because you and I and people like us are in hotels all the
time and we tend to forget that…oh no you wouldn’t but the great thing
is that this stuff actually scales right across you know I mean from
the Mom and Pop corner store right through to the large ones. So it’s
like irrespective of the business again it’s like what we said at the
beginning you know there are some fundamentals that are not rocket
science but the question is how we do it? And hopefully you know as we
talk together and people are listening to us so they might go…oh yeah I
really get that, I really could get a hotel magnet or I could get a
magnet or I could get something…you know that says. So the customer
goes…I mean this is really what you want have the customer do…you
really want to have the customer say “Oh my God, that’s never happened
tome before when I have done this”, you know whatever it was. And bang
and then of course you get the word-of-mouth, you get the whole thing.
Mike Southon: And I think I might to the people listening because
there will be entrepreneurs listening and they are always thinking of
an angle and they will be down the pub as we put it and thinking about
it. The big company people, the best advice I can give them is go and
watch what the entrepreneurs are doing, ideally in the same ___. If
you’ve got a big restaurant chain go to a small restaurant and just see
if there will be something that will be doing and chain and just see if
there will something…there will be something they will doing and you
think oh that’s so clever because I did a very fun interview with a
chap called Allan Leighton who’s now Chairman of the Royal Mail but he
was he started he joined ASDA to fix them. He used to go into
Wal-Mart, he says in the interview…he used to go in there trying to
nick ideas. He was taking pictures till they arrested him and when
they discovered who it was, they released them but then they bought…
Paul Dunn: They bought ASDA…
Mike Southon: They bought ASDA, so it was cool…so go and nick the
ideas that the entrepreneurs are doing because they will think of
something that was ___ their restaurant or in their service that they
will do, their delivery just that little bit special and you know
borrow their ideas. But I’ve got to pick a little bit on the spot now
because we are going to close up this section by saying, okay the wow
factor, creating the wow factor. What will be the three things that I
will put on my Beermat, wow on a Beermat which is a book I will write
and I promise to credit you. What will be the three things to create a
wow that just come off the top of your head that you talk about. So
let’s have three things wow on a Beermat.
Paul Dunn; Okay wow on a Beermat would be do something that’s never been done before.
Mike Southon: Something original that’s never been done before.
Paul Dunn: And something that excites you and your team…
Mike Southon: Excites you and your team…?
Paul Dunn: Yeah because…the reason for that by the way is because it then becomes passionate for you to do it.
Mike Southon: And you take ownership and that was my idea and you can point at it.
Paul Dunn: Exactly and then find a way of making it viral, that is
so that people will go away and talk about it and everything else. So
a simple thing like you know send a text message to a customer today, I
mean it might be really cool and I will give a fourth as well. Can I
give a fourth?
Mike Southon; Yes please do.
Paul Dunn: When we talk about small business and I was just tempted
to say it when you were talking about invoicing because one of the
things that really freaks me is how we do the standard stuff? So for
example let’s say you don’t pay the bill and which of course you
wouldn’t do but I mean you would. So you probably haven’t ever seen
one of these things but you know where it comes in the accounts
receivable, over the statement and it says 30, 60, 90 days you know,
there is columns in there…I cannot for the life of me understand why
people do that because the moment they do that, what do you know is
acceptable? The answer is 90 days and yet everybody has this standard
way of doing it and the people that go here you are and they are just
questioning. I mean the one question perhaps this is maybe ideal
for…the one question to ask is why the heck do we do it that way? Why
on earth do we do it?
Mike Southon: Oh I will tell you, it’s because we have always done
it that way and that’s…and you can get around that. The best
suggestion I’ve ever heard for invoices was...the point about invoices
is that they should be boring looking. Why? They should be sensible
because they are written by accountants, put flowers, put little
doggies on it anything…just jazz it up a bit so you become memorable –
here’s the fun invoice coming in…just make it fun to pay the invoice,
you’ve got it.
Paul Dunn: Exactly you have got it exactly.
Mike Southon: Well we will move finally on to something you touched
on which is the social enterprise part and just to put this into
perspective. There’s clearly some worldwide movement about giving
something back and it’s not just companies that make nuclear weapons
giving 10% to charity which is a joke I always do. Something a bit
more fundamental at that, I mean all the stuff that we do with XL and
other people is all about creating social enterprise so that
entrepreneurs have it in their DNA early that they can give something
back without detriment to themselves…and a lot of people have heard
about a concept you could go to any store, buy-one-get-one-free, that’s
a classic isn’t it. You’ve got a very interesting concept which is
buy-one-give-one-free. Now what the hell is that all about?
Paul Dunn: It is an interesting classic isn’t it and it’s a simple
thing and I am certain that it’s going to transform the
world…absolutely certain and the reason I am certain is because people
resonate with the idea. So quickly what is it about if we just close
our eyes and don’t do that if you are driving but close your eyes and
just imagine a different world. So imagine for example that every time
someone buys a plasma TV, imagine that automatically somebody who
cannot see gets the gift of sight, imagine every time you fill up with
petrol, that some trees get planted, imagine that every time your car
gets smashed which hopefully doesn’t happen too much but someone who
had facial deformity somewhere, imagine that was fixed. And there are
so many so many examples or imagine here is a classic one - just
imagine when you dine out tonight that automatically as a result of
that someone who is starving gets fed and it happens automatically.
This is not you know I am going to put you know ten cents on the bill
or whatever this is like it’s happening automatically.
Mike Southon: As a natural part of the business, that’s the key point?
Paul Dunn: Exactly and correct, as a natural part of the business
and what happens when you do that is that you involve and we were
saying about Toyota…when you do that and then you use the branding
around it which is buy-one-give-one or B1G1 as it’s also called. And
what that’s doing is again involving so it’s creating a different
experience with the customer, it’s involving this depth of giving back
exactly to the customer. So the customer…you create more customers,
more customers come back and the world gets a better place because not
only…you see again when customers or rather when companies give back
and we have got to acknowledge that’s what companies do I mean and it’s
great that they do. The problem is they will say well we donate 10% of
our profits or whatever to charity. I mean how does that resonate,
it’s not doing anything and it may not even be fixing the giving in the
way that we think either…just quietly. So buy-one-give-one-free is
this whole idea it’s such a simple idea and you know if we imagine just
right here today. Imagine here we are in London and I have no idea how
many people are going to the electrical stores, I have no idea how many
are buying plasmas, but I bet you it’s hundreds, if not thousands,
right round the U.K. So just imagine that it were a thousand and just
imagine that automatically as a result of that, a thousand people got
their sight, then clearly by the end of the year that’s 300,000
people. Imagine that all of the people dining in the nice, fancy
restaurant tonight imagine that every time they did that a kid got fed
and you know Mike and I know that you know to feed a kid for a year in
for example India is $28 or so. You know it’s like what’s it..£14 or
something which is like bizarre and that’s for a year and this is not
just by the way about necessarily doing stuff for the “Third world”,
right? There’s stuff that’s happening, as you know on our doorstep
here that we can do things with. Again once if you will and this is
perhaps not the right way to say it but once you automate, not the
right way but once you find a neat way of tying each transaction to
something that resonates with you and hence with the customer and I
know you are involved in that which is great. And you know there’s
just some amazing stuff that happens, I was talking with a coach
recently who had this thing…you know Dave Rogers whom we know and Dave
has a thing “Dine and Deal with Dave” and the idea is you go out and
you dine with Dave and guess what this month for just a result of that
5000 kids got fed.
Mike Southon: I know …and the scale of this can be very huge but
also what I really liked about it was the resonance and it’s still
making sense. I remember you sort of tackling me and saying that Mike,
bizarrely people pay large sums of money to hear you speak, I mean…___
we don’t know how this happens but how about hey what if every time you
spoke somebody got their palate fixed, their cleft palate…and you
talked about that, you talked about cataracts, it’s $25 for somebody to
get the gift of speech or the gift of sight…and the background to all
this is something that I know you feel strongly about and Roger feels
strongly about which is it’s got to be us entrepreneurs that fix this
stuff because for some reason the politicians aren’t getting their act
together so we have to get out and do it, that’s the message from all
this.
Paul Dunn: And that’s a great thing and that’s one of the reasons
why when you said you know I’d love to come by and take some time with
you why I was delighted to do it because…aside from the fact that you
know we always enjoy each other’s company but what is so great is that
here you are saying every time I speak you know couple of kids or
people who’ve got cleft palates, will get them fixed. And you know and
I know that when you happen to say that to the group of audience, when
you say, by the way it’s been great here being here today and as a
result of you being here guess what…x people who had cleft palates or
facial deformities have now got that fixed. You did really well today.
Mike Southon: And it doesn’t cost me anything, you know for me to put 25 bucks on my fee is nothing and...nobody notices it.
Paul Dunn: I thought that doubled your fee…
Mike Southon: Well it doubled ___ but then normally I have to pay
people…how does that work…I have to pay people to come and speak to
them because otherwise they get somebody good, they get Paul Dunn…Oh
dear, he’s on at me again so I have to get home and cry. Now Paul it’s
been an absolute joy talking to you. You are here in the U.K talking
about the wow experience which everybody can do. I do recommend going
to hear Paul speak and he’s got lots of stuff. You can check it on the
web…where do we find you on the web?
Paul Dunn: So it’s www.stuffthatsizzles.com.
Mike Southon: stuffthatsizzles.com and do support Paul and give him
the help he so desperately needs. This has been Mike Southon for
Beermat radio in association with Coutts, the FT and FT.com talking
with Mr. Paul Dunn. Thank you Paul.
Paul Dunn: Thank you Mike, it’s been great.
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