Little things

Meteorologist Edward Lorenz once asked the peculiar question: “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” He proposed the idea that the innocuous flapping of a butterfly’s fragile wings could start a chain reaction in the atmosphere and lead to catastrophic results to vividly illustrate the ideas of chaos theory. His thoughts, presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have become known as the butterfly effect.

Although chaos often refers to randomness and lack of order, it is more accurate to consider it as an apparent randomness. The two main points of chaos theory are that systems rely on an underlying order, and very simple systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events.

Jon Kleinberg, a computer scientist at Cornell University, and his associates have taken these concepts and applied them to different models. One hypothesis is that the ideas and words of a few influential leaders can expand to create significant changes in the thinking of large groups of people.

This is not too difficult to fathom when you consider the history of societies and mainstream practices that were spawned from the religious, political, or economic ideas of one person that may have been considered radical at the time. However, these computer scientists also believe their ideas could be tested on such diverse concepts as predicting the spread of disease, identifying leaders of terrorist organizations, or selling a new product.

It would be interesting to apply their computer algorithms on how customer service impacts business success. Taking the butterfly effect on a different tangent, one would need to ask where are the “butterflies”—where does it all start? If the actions of a small system have the capacity to create an exponential change; then what are those little things in your business that make a big difference to your customers? Also, can you identify the negative “butterflies” that could create a “tornado” and wreak havoc on your business?

The answers to those questions are not so obvious because 95 percent of your customers will not complain when they are dissatisfied with your service. Instead, they simply take their business elsewhere. Here are some things that can turn your customers off without you even knowing it: Having to wait too long to be served, being ignored or receiving indifferent service, employees chatting among themselves or talking on the phone while ignoring customers, sale items not in stock, unmarked merchandise prices, dirty restrooms, poor quality work, being put on hold or having to select from a long menu of choices, or employees lacking sales knowledge.

Those are some of the little things that can make a big difference. You may have an indirect competitive advantage if your competition continues to plague their customers with these irritants. One of the best examples of this difference can be found between Wal-Mart and Kmart. In the 1980s, Kmart surpassed Sears to become the number one retailer; however, in the early 1990s, Wal-Mart had more sales than Sears or Kmart. Generally, the two stores seem very similar in the merchandise they sell, their facilities, and other characteristics.

However, Wal-Mart continued to make improvements in the little things while Kmart carried on with the status quo. For example, Wal-Mart had greeters welcome customers at the door, employees wore noticeable vests with their name tags, the floors were clean, and the checkouts were staffed with people who were quick and seemed to enjoy their work. (Note: It is difficult to use the Kmart on Guam as an example because they operate more like a Wal-Mart, than a typical Kmart in the U.S.)

Even though both retailers had similar sales in the early 1990s, today Wal-Mart’s sales are about 10 times larger than Kmart. Little things do make a big difference; however, the real “butterflies” can be found even deeper in Wal-Mart’s management style and their commitment to constantly improve upon the little things. While some executives give “lip service” to caring about the customer, others give real customer service by also serving the needs of their employees so they can take better care of the customers.

Lip service is what happens when managers flap their lips to give the “right” answers, but the reality is that customer service—and subsequently customer loyalty—is lacking. In the case of Kmart, which is working through bankruptcy, one might ask the question: “Could the flap of a manager’s lips set off a windstorm of business disaster?”

(Rik is a business instructor at NMC and Janel is the owner of Positively Outrageous Results. They can be contacted at: biz_results@yahoo.com)