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Foreword

By Alwyn Scott

A few years ago, my wife and I were shopping for ski gloves at the flagship store of an outdoor goods retailer, a Seattle company known for deep expertise and legendary customer service. We picked two pairs of gloves and asked a salesman which would be warmer.

“Impossible to say!” he replied, delightedly. There were simply too many variables, he said—would my wife use them in wet or dry weather, high or low altitude, snow or rain conditions?—to render a meaningful opinion. And he walked off.

We found this hilarious. Like Jack Black’s comedic record-store salesman in the movie High Fidelity, this guy was so steeped in knowledge that he could not answer a simple question. Still holding the two pairs of gloves, we asked another salesperson, an older woman.

“This pair,” she said without hesitation, and pointed to one.

We have told the story many times, and we gradually moved our business to another Seattle outdoor goods store that took itself a little less seriously. One that could tell us, straight off, which item was warmer.

Here, in a nutshell, is what The Million Dollar Greeting reveals: Why companies that sweat the details still fall flat with customer service—and how you can not only avoid those mistakes, but build a culture where they just don’t happen.

It might seem simple. After all, customer service is as old as business itself. But the world is changing. We live increasingly in a disconnected, digital world filled with millennial customers and employees who see things quite differently than their parents did.

At Brooklyn Brewery, for example, founder Steve Hindy realized years ago that he needed to teach his customers about the history and many styles of beers if he hoped to sell the flavorful suds he was brewing. He started a “beer school” so employees could speak knowledgeably to customers.

More than thirty years later, the school is just as vital, in part because it appeals to new millennial workers, who tend to value a sense of authenticity far more than loyalty to a company.

That’s why this book is timely. Through extensive on-the-ground research, The Million Dollar Greeting distills a unique formula that helps businesses of all sizes achieve consistently good customer service for millennials and older generations. That formula, combined with a wealth of practical examples, gives this book its extraordinary insight and value.

This isn’t just feel-good stuff. It is a road map to much higher profits for leaders who use the formula correctly. Why? As we found with the ski gloves, good service brings loyalty and the willingness to pay more.

Would you be interested to know how global businesses such as the Amazon-owned shoe seller Zappos and the Hyatt Hotels chain use the formula to deliver the customer service that sets them apart?

Would you like to learn how Union Square Hospitality Group, which runs seventeen New York City restaurants, bars, and cafés, ensures top-notch experiences for customers, whether they are having antipasti at a rustic Italian bistro, southern barbecue at a jazz club, or Michelin-starred cuisine at the Museum of Modern Art?

What about smaller businesses? Ann Arbor food merchant Zingerman’s and Chicago’s Nick’s Pub & Pizza put the principles to work on an intimate scale, achieving a bond with customers that keeps them coming back—and telling their friends.

I have known Dan since the 1980s, shortly after he graduated from Harvard, and have watched as he opened two highly successful restaurants in Chicago: Spruce and Bin 36. I marveled at the attention to detail and the relaxed, sophisticated atmosphere he and his staff created.

Not every company creates this kind of experience. I should know. I have seen all kinds of businesses in nearly three decades covering financial news as a reporter and editor at Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal, Seattle Times, American City Business Journals, and Reuters, a global news agency that reaches a billion people. Some companies know how to connect. Others simply don’t get it.

Through extensive interviews with nine business leaders, Dan unearths the roots of their philosophies and reveals how they put them into practice every day.

Dan’s candid hindsight about how he might have run his own restaurants better leads him to ask the questions you want answered and to pull together the insights into a coherent whole. The sections lay out the principles and themes in a clear, easy-to-digest way, and memorable anecdotes are throughout.

The world is changing. But giving customers a good experience is still the route to loyalty, a good brand, and profitable sales. Here is how businesses large and small deliver it. And how you can, too.