Great service organizations know how to read their customers and respond.  Businesses who lose site or misunderstand who their customers are and what they want, or what matters most to them, are at risk.  It's the little misses that really weigh on me. For example,my husband and I were recently at a well-known home improvement store purchasing bags of mulch, 22 to be exact, and some plants.  As my husband was paying for our purchases, he asked if someone could load the mulch in our car.  The cashier said she would call for someone while my husband went and pulled the car around. As I was leaving, I didn't see the large rolls of plastic to line the back of our car, so I asked the cashier about it.  She scrambled around looking and finally told me that I would need to go to the front of the store to get the plastic.  I think we all know that the distance between lawn and garden and the front of the store isn't exactly close.  At this point, the car had been pulled up for the "someone" to load our car.  "Someone" casually strolled over to our car as I finished loading the last 3 bags of mulch into the car.  Big service misses here, don't you think?

From the lyrics of Carly Simon's song, Anticipation.... "is keeping me waiting."   Waiting and wondering are two very dangerous words in customer service, and yet I experience both, often.  How many times have you been in a store, hotel, restaurant, or doctor's office standing in line, where clearly the person behind the counter sees you, but does not acknowledge you?  They can look right at you, but choose to say nothing, and somehow they are comfortable with letting you stand and wait.  Is this a training issue, or an acceptable business practice for some businesses, or are some people wired in such a way that they don't understand or can't anticipate the effects of this on a consumer?

"We wildly underestimate the power of the tiniest personal touch."  -Tom Peters 

Managing anything can certainly have its ups and downs and much depends upon the success of the manager.  Think about the best managers you have ever had (or have). What qualities made you think of them first?  Chances are it had a lot to do with how they made you feel.  Managers (including teachers, parents, spouses, even friends) have the ability to impact each and every interaction either positively or negatively. The result of that influence is powerful and can certainly affect relationships, productivity, and even health. 

At some point in your life I bet you have taken some form of a time management class.  Mine was the original Franklin Covey time management seminar, where you purchased the Covey planner of your choice and then learned how to effectively use it with the Covey system.  Over the course of several years, I think I owned and attempted to use each planner size they made in hopes of finding the perfect solution for my needs.  Obviously, something wasn't working, and I was searching for a workable answer. 

The definition of leadership is so much more than the words used in the dictionary.  There are so many facets to the meaning of the word.  Leaders are usually self-made and successful through hard work and making tough decisions.  The good news is leadership is not about a person's title on a business card.  Instead, it's about taking action and achieving goals, not about position.  So if we believe that leadership begins and ends with action, then all of us have certainly taken some positive form of action in our lives; therefore, we are all leaders.  I feel all to often people misinterpret their own ability to lead. To be a leader you don't necessarily have to have followers.  You just have to individually take action on achieving your own personal goals. Are you making a real difference in your world by your leadership, and what can you do to challenge yourself? 

Make it easy.  As a part of any employee orientation there should be time spent on noticing and reacting to the opportunities on when and how to make purchasing easier for the consumer.  Executive retreats would benefit from spending a day (or more) on evaluating the ease for the consumer to do business with their company.  The world of consumer purchasing has changed, and some companies are more in tune to these changes than others.  Consumers today are web-educated, mobile app data explorers who react to the best deal that they can understand.  Marketing messaging has, in many cases, overwhelmed the consumer.  So what's the answer?  Keep it simple/easy.