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Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp, Founder, Chairman and CEO is an autobiography which weaves in the story of the renowned five-star Four Seasons Hotel chain. Isadore Sharp started out as a builder and ended up as a global five-star hotel management magnate.

Cover via Amazon

The Four Seasons created a brand name built on delivering impeccable quality and service, and did so by creating the culture within the company to make it possible while building a brand recognized globally during the process. Their business model is based on those four pillars: quality, service, culture and brand. By following the Golden Rule, which is to treat others as you would like to be treated, the company pust employees first, including frontline workers, knowing that they would take care of the clientele. The company lived the talk. Employees were given the authority and flexibility to make decisions that took care of the customers.

Like the most successful brands and companies that were built to last, Isadore Sharp looked to other companies that were best in class to identify products and services that could be transported to his organization. He looked to other industries and countries for best practices. And he paid attention to the details; the devil is always in the details. He introduced concierge service, an idea he borrowed from a European company. He tested the service first in Washington DC, and it was so popular that he introduced the it in other hotels. Shortly thereafter competitors followed suit.

In 1968, after his wife Rosalie returned from a spa she remarked that spa food tasted better so Isadore investigated to find out what guests eating trends were, and what his competitors were doing.

Also after a brief vacation with Rosalie at Canyon Ranch in Arizona, a premier resort with spa and fitness, he asked two vice presidents overseeing six hotel projects at the time to investigate the feasibility of including spas. Being the first to introduce fitness centers in hotels, the vice presidents reported that the spa would make a good adjunct to fitness.

Over the years, the Four Seasons had many firsts in the industry: bathrobes, shampoo, non-smoking floors, hair dryers, make-up mirrors, healthy cuisine and so on. When he copied what was done in other industries and countries, he made substantial improvements.

Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy is divided into four Parts:

Part I: The Immigrant’s Son

Part II: Starting at the Top

Part III: Community and Culture

Part IV: A Fresh Approach

Part V: Worldwide Excellence

Part VI: In a League of our Own

Part VII: Staying Ahead

And each part includes several chapters that chronicle the journey of Isadore Sharp and those he interacted and worked with as he built a global brand. Sharp provides many examples to demonstrate what his team did and how they did it. He candidly talks about his successes and setbacks. He complemented the skills he lacked by hiring the appropriate people. And he allowed people to do their work by trusting and respecting them.

The organization expanded primarily through joint ventures, which were created by building enduring relationships based on mutual advantage and trust. The company had established such a reputation that deals were constantly presented, which facilitated the rapid expansion of the organization into difficult to penetrate regions. He includes the process of the expansion for many of the regions, the problems the company faced, how they worked through them and the end results.

To become a global brand in the hospitality industry, there are many things which the Four Seasons did a few of which are included below.

Things That Make the Four Seasons Unique

1. Hire local talent and promote from within.
2. Each hotel is unique and captures the nuances of the area it is located in.
3. Each hotel is better in every way than the last.
4. Have very unique spas.
5. Hire the very best chefs for a world-class dining experience.
6. Sign long-term management contracts for impeccable service and business model continuity.
7. Hire for personality and train for technical skills.
8. People come before profits.
9. Leaders and innovators.
10. The brand presells the hotel, so potential joint venture partners are constantly pitching opportunities.

Five Great Ideas

1. Do not make judgments and decisions in a vacuum, also look at how they will impact others
2. Continuous minor improvements when added up over time ultimately lead to major changes.
3. Challenges and setbacks are often disguised opportunities.
4. Delivering true value to customers lead to profits.
5. Be flexible, make decisions quickly and seize opportunities as they arise.

In Four Seasons: The Story of Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp there are countless examples that are duplicable for those wanting to excel through quality and service. To begin the journey, ask yourself the following two questions.

1. What would the customers consider important?
2. What will the customers recognize as value?

While reading Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy, I noticed distinct similarities between it and The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence. The similarities make perfect sense since both companies compete on quality and service in their respective industries. For those interested in quality, service and entrepreneurship, below are some previous posts for your perusal.

Additional Reading

Review: The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence

Innovate The Steve Jobs Way

How to Build a Business by Doing These 10 Things

Review of How to Build an Empire on an Orange Crate by Honest Ed Mirvish

I recommend Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp because there are many ideas that you can use. And Steve Jobs from Apple introduced Concierge Service at the Apple Store based on the Four Seasons’ Concierge Service.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

Related articles

• 2011 Books for Mentoring (theinvisiblementor.com)

I wanted to learn more about Nordstrom, the company I knew in name only, after participating in the webinar “Innovate the Steve JobsWay: 7 Insanely Different Principles for Breakthrough Success,” and reading and reviewing The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs: Insanely Different Principles for Breakthrough Success byCarmine Gallo so I purchased The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence: A Handbook for Implementing Great Service in Your Organization by Robert Spector and Patrick McCarthy.

Steve Jobs, Co-founder and head honcho at Apple studies companies like The Four Seasons, Nordstrom and Mercedes Benz to deliver impeccable customer service. I wanted to learn for myself what made these companies so special so I started with The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence: A Handbook for Implementing Great Service in Your Organization.

The co-author Robert Spector has written several books about Nordstrom, and you can see that he is an expert in the ways of all things Nordstrom. Like Carmine Gallo in his book The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs, Robert Speck has spoken to many Nordstrom employees, present and past. In addition, he has also spoken to many of the Nordstrom clan.

The book is divided into three sections:

1. Part I: What Managers Can Do to Create Nordstrom-Style Service
2. Part II: What Supervisors Can Do to Create Nordstrom-Style Service
3. Part III: What Employees Can Do to Create Nordstrom-Style Service

It is truly a handbook because at the end of each chapter there are exercises for the readers to do and keys to success nuggets. The book is splattered with mini case studies on other companies that have introduced Nordstrom-like service.

The book is a very practical guide because while you are reading you get a sense of how things are done at Nordstrom, and you could easily replicate it. Robert Speck and Patrick McCarthy even include a section on compensation at Nordstrom. What I also appreciated, was that they included some negative information as well. There are about five Nordstrom store that were unionized, and there was a class action suit against the company for not paying employees for their time when delivering impeccable service such as dropping off a product for a customer after work or writing Thank-you notes to customers while at home. As a result of the lawsuit Nordstrom made changes.

For anyone who wants to up the level of customer service they deliver in their business, this is one book that they should read. But, I’m never for copying everything that one company does, but instead look at other companies, and introduce the elements that make sense for your kind of business, that’s what Steve Jobs did.

So what makes Nordstrom so special?

• The company is decentralized
• One of the company’s mantra is to “Use sound judgment”
• The customer is king and queen
• The company cuts down on the number of rules for employees to follow
• Employees have a lot of power to make decisions on their own
• Employees are allowed to take care of the complete needs of the customer. For instance, a customer initially wants a dress for a party, she finds the perfect dress but doesn’t have a purse or shoes that matches the dress. The employee can take the customer to the shoe department and service her there as well. So employees can work in other departments when serving customers, which allows them to earn more commissions
• The company makes it possible for an employee to say yes to a customer by giving them the authority, as well as stocking merchandise in a variety of colours and sizes
• The company hires people who are nice, knowing that they can train them on the technical aspects of the job
• They promote from within
• All the Nordstrom clan who work within the company started off sweeping the floors and working their way up
• Employees work on commissions, so they set the amount they can earn
• The company has a profit sharing plan

The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence: A Handbook for Implementing Great Service in Your Organization is a good book if you to want to learn about how to deliver Nordstrom-like service, but I recommend that you also read about The Four Seasons (Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy) and Mercedes Benz who also deliver impeccable service. You can also read up on companies on BusinessWeek’s Customer Service Champs to identify other companies that are doing customer service right.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or  RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

When you enter a bookstore, a retail store, or even a restaurant, what are your expectations? Does your level of expectation rise or fall depending on how much money you spend? As a customer, what kind of experience would you like to have?

Recently, my friend and I decided we would go out to dinner and see a movie afterward. I have been very intentional in trying to make time for friends, and deepening the relationships. As an introvert, give me a few good books, and I am happy to sit and read and read and read.

I was looking forward to going out because it was a different experience, and you have more creative ideas and solution, when you immerse yourself into different situations.

We bought our tickets for the movie first then went downstairs to the restaurant. There was a line-up but we chatted while we waited, and in no time we were seated. That’s went things got interesting.

After 10 minutes no one had taken our order. No one had approached us to explain that they were extremely busy so it would take a while for us to get served. No one gave us even a glass of water. My friend beckoned for the waiter to come over. He did, but was not happy about it. He told us we had to wait because the other customers who were ahead of us had to get served before he could take our order, and he proceeded to tell us that if we were in a rush we should go to the take-out section because it was a lot faster.

My friend and I kept looking at each other and then she told him that there was no reason for him to behave like that, and he started to defend his actions. I looked at him and thought, “No tip for you, I’m not rewarding bad behavior.”

About 15 minutes after waiting we got some water a dinner roll each. And it took another 10 to 15 minutes before he took our order. Fortunately we did not allow the waiter to spoil our evening, I refused to give him that power. The food was good, but it didn’t make up for the bad experience.

I felt like I was scolded. I felt like I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. And, I felt like he didn’t value my business.

At the end, when he brought the bill, he knew that we were going to the movies, but he didn’t care. I took my bill and got another waiter to cash us out. My friend who was more upset than I was about the experience tipped him 15 percent. I on the other hand gave him nothing and walked out.

I have been thinking about this all weekend, and I wonder why we reward bad behaviour? Why do we accept less than we deserve? I also asked myself, “Am I treating my customers the way that I would like to be treated? Are you?” And, should a business owner be held accountable for the service his employees provide?

Tomorrow, we”ll take a look at Nordstrom in a book review. Nordstrom is the standard that is copied and benchmarked for customer service.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or  RSS Feed.

Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service by Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles is a great book for mentoring because it offers some great tips on how to deliver impecceable customer service through a fable.

I first reviewed Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service by Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles five years ago for my newsletter Ambeck Edge, but I decided to post it on my blog because customer service is so critical. Some of the most successful companies have excelled because of impeccable customer service, and it’s one way for organizations to shine and differentiate today.

Shortly after I started reading this book, I had to shut up my inner critic and open myself up to the lessons. Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles present Raving Fans as a parable. The book starts off with the president of a company telling the new area manager that the company was built on customer service, and that the three preceding area managers didn’t understand that, and that’s why they were no longer with the organization. Each of those three preceding area managers lasted less than a year in the job. This fact made it difficult for me to understand why the new area manager, knowing this, would take off with his Fairy Godmother, Charlie (a man) to play golf.

To succeed in business, you have to create Raving Fans – satisfied customers are no longer enough. To deliver Raving Fan Service, you have to look after the customers’ needs whenever possible, be consistent in delivering the service, promise more and deliver more than you promise, and be ready to change direction when the vision changes because customers’ need and want change all the time. There are three secrets to creating Raving Fans – Decide what you want, discover what the customer wants and deliver the vision plus one percent.

Decide what you want: When you decide what you want, you must create a vision of perfection centered on the customer. This is your perception of perfection. You do this by visualizing the entire customer service experience. What does perfection look like? You live out your business fantasy by deciding what you want, and creating a vision of perfection centered on the moment the customer uses the product.

Discover what the customer wants: To find out what your customers’ vision is, simply ask them, and listen to what they say and don’t say. Understanding your vision allows you to better understand your customers’ vision. And if your customers’ vision is very different from yours – that is, the gap is too wide, you may have to stop servicing that customer. You cannot be everything to everybody.

Deliver the vision plus one percent: Be consistent – consistently meet expectations. To be consistent you must have systems in place within your organization. Every organization that delivers excellent customer service has systems in place, and a training program to entrench those systems into the heart and soul of the company. These systems are only guidelines, and you have to be flexible enough to alter the guidelines to better serve your customers. Once you are able to deliver consistent service, ongoing improvement is a must. The plus one percent is to keep you moving ahead and focused beyond your vision.

Cover via Amazon

Five+1 Great Ideas

1. All good customer service is a result of nifty systems
2. Constantly strive to improve what you have decided to achieve
3. Most customers have a focus – you have to find that focus and then mine it for information
4. Customers count on you to do what you say you will do
5. You can make big changes in almost anything, or achieve great things in your life by improving or changing by one percent. Things can’t help but improve if you keep at it one percent at a time
6. Customers have needs beyond the need of the company’s product, whether it comes in a box or is a service. People need to feel like they belong to a group – they need to feel that they are important, and that what they do, think, and say truly matters

I recommend this book because it’s an easy read – it takes less that two hours to digest the information. Suppress your inner critic if you are a logical person and allow the parable to unfold so that you can learn the simple lessons.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

Photo Credit: Google via Apture

How Did They Do That? An Interview With Dan White

Dan White, Founder & President, WNBC Business Solutions

Challenge: I allowed a contract employee to have too much control over one aspect of my business. The contract employee ran the tax business and did not regularly relate to me what was going on. The contractor fell behind, in some cases, more than a year. I had 82 angry clients. I now had to get a year’s worth of work done in three months.

Solution: I took back control of the business, and the contractor decided to leave the company. I set up a customer relationship management system to automate all processes. I could now see everything that was going on in the company. I hired a team of tax consultants to do one year’s worth of work in three months to satisfy the 82 angry clients.

Lessons Learned

1. I am accountable and responsible for everything that happens in my business
2. I learned that I wasn’t a good leader because a leader is not necessarily someone who inspires, motivates and set a good example, but one who takes the team into battle and make sure that they arrive home safely
3. I should not delegate the critical functions in my business without knowing what’s going on
4. I should not give anyone too much freedom without making sure that I am very comfortable with what is going on at all times

Formula For Success

Recognize a need, have a solution and understand where the customer/prospect is going to find the money to pay for the solution. There is a shortage of money. Governments create a scarcity of money. If a person doesn’t have something that is less wonderful they are not going to buy your solution because they simply do not have any spare money.

If you were Dan White, what would you have done differently? How much power do you give to employees and contractors? Is there an implied trust between employer and employee or employer and contractor? What lessons have you learned from Dan’s experience?

This is an excerpt from October 2005 Ambeck Edge