00:45 | reVerSe tHInKInG – WHAt doeS tHIS meAn For uS? Say: You may wonder what does Reverse Thinking mean to me? What can I contribute? What knowl- edge can I share to contribute to our desired guest experience?
flowers, but rather handed them out as corsages to younger girls and older women.
would find a ‘thought of the day’. If I can’t find a say- ing I like, Johnny said proudly, then I’ll make one up.
His colleagues laughed at Johnny initially but now they followed his example in every department.
When Johnny had a good saying, his dad helped him to print his ‘thought of the day’ six times on a sheet of paper. Every night they printed 50 pages. Johnny cut out each quote, and signed his name on the back of every one of them. Then he put them in a paper bag, which he took to work each day. When he’d finished packing a customer’s groceries, he put the thought of the day in their bag and said ‘thanks for shopping with us’. His colleagues wondered what he was doing so he had to explain his new approach to them. They didn’t like his idea and thought it was a waste of time but Johnny persevered, even though his colleagues questioned what he was doing. A month later, the supermarket manager was doing his rounds and came up front where the cash regis- ters are. He found that the queue at Johnny’s check- out was 3 times longer than anyone else’s. He was concerned and asked for more cashiers, to get more lanes open. But no customers would move. They all said: “no, it’s okay. We want to be in Johnny’s lane. We want his ‘thought for the day’.”
Say: Once again, this is a true story. You can imagine this action was very good for the bottom line results of the supermarket. And who was the biggest change agent? It was Johnny, a 19-year-old bagger, with a learning disability, who decided to make a difference for his customers! Say: Everyone can choose to be a Johnny! Everyone can surprise other people. He made his customers feel welcome and feel valued. Now of course, this is not exactly the way we want/mean for AccorHotels LUB properties. But use this story as an inspiration, if Johnny can do it so can you!
Transformer note: Introduce the story of Johnny the Bagger.
Say: This is the true story of Johnny the Bagger.
Ask: Who knows what a bagger is?
Explain: So it’s not a beggar (with an ‘e’), who would be begging for money. But a bagger (with an ‘a’), who is bagging groceries in an American supermarket, at the end of a cash register. Read: One day Johnny attended a workshop on customer service. You should know that Johnny had Down’s Syndrome, and at the time this workshop took place, Johnny was 19 years old. The theme was ‘how can you put your personal fingerprint on your service’. In other words, how can you personalize your service in such a way that customers actually come back because of the service that you offer, and not for the building or its groceries... Johnny was touched by the theme and also wanted to make a difference, as he told his dad later that night. But he didn’t know how, because after all ‘he was only a bagger’. Then he had an idea: he decided that every night when he came home from work, he
Ask: What do you think of this story?
Transformer note: Facilitate the discussion. Use the reactions of the group to introduce the “personal fingerprint” exercise. Say: I would like to challenge you all to come up with your personal fingerprint. How are you going to put your personal fingerprint on the desired guest Experience? How can you make the difference for, and give attention to, our guests and Sofitel Ambas- sadors alike? How can you be a Johnny? After a few minutes of individual thinking, ask everyone to share their idea(s) with the rest of the participants. Say that you would like to hear what
Some customers even had Johnny’s saying on their shopping list.
Only weeks later, Johnny’s example was followed in every department. In the butcher’s store, there was a girl who collected snoopy stickers and started putting them on the customer’s meat packs. And in the flower shop, they no longer threw out broken
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