Sunday, March 22, 2009

Comment by a BLOGGER ...

Gotta say not everbody hits the 'nail on the head' but this does :)

Saturday, March 21, 2009
Trust: a two-way street read below or just click on it and go there!


Trust: a two-way street
As business owners we're always trying to build trust with our customers. But can you really gain their trust unless you trust them first?

I noticed something very interesting today when I walked into Biggby for a coffee. They trust their customers so much that they have a Brewed Coffee Express area where patrons can skip the line and get their coffee. To pay they are asked to simply leave exact change in the piggy bank next to the coffee carafes?

But aren't they worried about people running off with free coffee? That would be short-sighted. In fact, for every cup of coffee that may be stolen, there are probably 100 people happy they can run in and out quickly. After all, this isn't 7-Eleven where a bunch of zit-faced high-schoolers are hanging out at the Slurpee machine.

It's a nice convenience for their customers, but more importantly its a relationship that they are building with everyone that walks into one of their stores — we trust you and hope you trust us. This is a great example of living your brand when it comes to placing the customer first. You can't fake that and you can't design it.

See my other blog post about the Biggby brand here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a nice feature, especially in the busy stores.

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of a story down in Toledo. One day I received an envelope with about $165 in cash with a message. That basically said that the money was payment for all the brewed coffee that they had helped themselves to while they were attending UT. Most of the time they paid but occasionally would fall short (as most college kids do from time to time). Without trust in others what do we have?

TD