Who in an organization is responsible for management and leadership?  What on earth does that have to do with paper towels?

The other day I stopped at a well-known coffee chain to do some work.  I was between meetings with an hour to spare and no desire to waste gas to drive home and back.  It‘s clear the shop was new and just days after opening because the staff were still learning and practicing their coffee making tricks.  Their manner was polite and friendly as they tended to their customers.  I didn’t even mind that the wireless wasn’t up yet, sometimes that’s how things work when you’re first opening.  I was perfectly fine doing paperwork and opening up documents local to my laptop.

I did run into a problem, though, when I went into the restroom.  After washing my hands I discovered there were no paper towels.  Okay, stuff happens – I can live with that!  What struck me as very odd was the response I received when I came out to let them know they were out; “Oh, I know, we don’t have any yet,” says the girl. Period, that’s it!

Okay, I ask you this, since when is it okay to open a new facility when you don’t have essentials in place?  They seemed to have no problem with the coffee supplies.  Nearby were two different stores where one might find substitutes until the “paper towel truck” showed up.  The garbage was filled with – you won’t believe it – paper toilet seat protectors being used as paper towels.

Two important words here – Leadership and Management! 

Did anyone at the shop calculate the loss of toilet seat protectors against the cost of paper towels? Would running to the local grocer and grabbing some paper towels cost the shop less than the number of boxes of toilet seat protectors used?  Calculate it folks!

That’s Management!

Did anyone take the initiative to say; “Hey, we can’t open with no paper towels, it’s cheap, unorganized in appearance and is a bad reflection on the place, who would come back if they thought we didn’t care about customers drying their hands?  We’d better get out and fix that temporarily and inform head-office our shipments are running late and it’s affecting business.”

That’s Leadership!

It’s that simple and everyone is responsible for it.  You need to pay attention to the details your customers care about.  Will I go back?  Not likely.  I want a different experience, than that.  The funny thing is the problem wasn’t that I had to air-dry my hands it was all about the response I received from the staff member when I brought it to her attention. 

Perhaps they could have tried this:

“Oh my goodness, we must be fresh out, I am really sorry about that!  I’ll check with Mr. Manager to see if we can temporarily take care of that until we get our next shipment.”

That two sentence response would usher my return.

Would my hands get any dryer?  No!  Would I feel better about trying to be helpful by telling them they were out?  Yes!  Would I feel like they cared I was left with a dampened experience?  Yes

Pay attention to the little things, they may very well be the driving force of your customer’s experiences!

The customer is WHY YOU ARE THERE, and each and every person in your organization is responsible for management and leadership.