continued from It's All About The Customer
A Very Branded Customer Experience
Often the best examples of great customer experiences come not from large companies, but from small ones. One of my favorite examples of a branded customer experience comes from Dixie’s BBQ and Auto Repair of Bellevue, Washington.
As you might surmise, Dixie’s BBQ and Auto Repair started as a place to get your car fixed. At least that’s the story, and there’s nothing about the establishment that would persuade you otherwise (except that the place is spotlessly clean).
It is a completely unremarkable steel-framed repair facility tucked near junction of state route 520 and Interstate 405. This is important information as the route numbers figure prominently in the daily fare.
Car posters adorn the walls. Auto related paraphernalia appears way down outside the other end of the building. On a hot day, the garage doors are flung open but instead of seeing an ’83 Chevy pickup on a lift or a ’91 Honda with its hood up, you’ll see a raft of picnic tables overflowing with folks up to their ears in what is arguably the area’s best known barbecue.
Ordering food at Dixie’s is easy, assuming you can handle a limited menu. Folks start queuing up cafeteria-style around 11:00 am or so. Some days it can take as much as an hour to get your opportunity to look into L.J.’s eyes and say, “Gimmee the 520 [a pork and hot-link sandwich], corn bread, and beans and rice.” L.J. is the daughter of Gene and Dixie Porter, the couple who started the place. Miss your cue and you might as well leave without your lunch because L.J.’s moved on to the next patron.
“Next!”
“But. But. But!”
“You let me know when you decide. Next!”
Don’t mess with L.J.
Paying is easy. Cash and cash only. While you take care of paying, you pick up your sides orders and get to tell Dixie herself what you’ll be drinking. You don’t need to be too specific as the choices are limited and you’re going to go fetch it yourself from one of the coolers behind you anyway.
It’s doubtful you’ll find a table to yourself. So you, and whomever you came with (nobody ever goes by themselves; where’s the fun in that?) carry your side of beans, rice, cornbread, soda, and bun overrun with brisket, to one the picnic tables. Now real the fun begins. You get to meet Gene and the man.
Gene Porter came to Seattle sometime around 1963. He was an auto mechanic, and his wife Dixie was a nurse. In truth, Gene looks like he should have been, or could have been, a fullback in the days when football players weren’t the size of mobile homes. Gene doesn’t really twist wrenches much anymore unless it’s at home on weekends. Weekdays he tends the meat smoker, directs traffic in the undersized parking lot, and most importantly, he doles out the man.
“Who wants to meet the man?” Gene’s scratchy, catchy voice is unmistakable. Hear it once and you’d recognize it across the C Concourse at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
“Who wants to meet the man?” Gene’s phrase is insistent and unavoidable. If you’re a veteran, you either tolerate or love the man, a scorching hot sauce of Gene’s own making that he carts around the garage in a beat up old quart saucepan.
I’m told it’s possible to not meet the man, but I’ve yet to see that trick accomplished. The best tactic to avoid public humiliation while saving your taste buds seems to be to call Gene over and tell him you’re just a rookie and want, “just a tiny bit, Gene.” With luck, that should call down just a teensy skoch of the man. Sometimes he’ll let you just keep the smidgen of sauce down near the end of your brisket or whatever. Sometimes he’ll make you stir it in. Either way, it’s hot. Really, really hot.
Inevitably someone who has either not been properly briefed, or who is convinced that his (it’s always a guy) gullet is of a sufficiently robust grade of cast iron to withstand a teaspoon or more of the man. Veterans live for this moment. So does Gene.
Nice as you please, Gene ladles on a lethal portion of the man (the record is apparently “7” portions of unrecorded size as was duly noted on the wall until it was recently painted).
Those within earshot watch with baited breath as the initiate meets the man. Usually it takes a few seconds before the sauce goes supersonic and the eater does a grand imitation of the Wile E. Coyote cartoon character, complete with head spinning, eye rolling, and steam pluming out of each ear, while the victim blindly grabs for cornbread and anything wet. Pure bliss if you’re watching.
So, what’s the point?
In truth, Dixie’s is nothing special to look at. It used to be a garage for goodness sakes. Depending on who you talk to, the food is somewhere between great and “what’s the fuss about?” The man hot sauce is ridiculously hot; the ordering experience not overly friendly; and the menu is limited.
Yet hundreds of people pack the place each day and patrons tell everyone they know about the fun to be had there. There’s a giant map on the wall with hundreds of pins denoting the place of origin from whence diners came. There are several pages of entries in the Google Internet search engine that have something to do with Dixie’s barbeque. This cramped restaurant that was once-upon-a-time ago an auto shop has morphed into a phenomenon.
To my point, it is a small example of the virtues of a branded customer experience. While Gene wouldn’t use those words on a bet, he and his family are clearly delivering something far more than lunch.
For about what it costs to go to a movie, you can get a meal, get called yeah baby by Gene himself (gender doesn’t matter because he calls everyone baby), scorch your innards, watch others do the same, listen in on discussion about the intricacies of three-tiered, Internet-native architecture or the state of electoral politics in a county you’ve barely heard of, and generally be well entertained while eating in a spotlessly clean former auto repair facility. What could be better than that?
And in exchange for this inimitable experience, Gene gets a better-than-competitive rate for his offer, untold legions of vocally loyal customers who come from far and wide, and a mountain of free publicity that now zings back and forth across the World Wide Web in the .22 seconds it takes Google to find it.
Beyond the Man
Dixie’s is a fun place to eat, and most people could tell a similar story about their favorite local eatery or retail establishment. I’ve just recently run across a place in Lafayette, CA called Bo’s that does an even better grade of barbecue featuring Niman ranch meat. I also find myself musing as I write this about a truly outstanding restaurant in Sydney called Rockpool. The list goes on.
You probably know at least one place that delivers a really unique and unmistakable experience. It’s that place where you go everyone seems to know your name and what you like. Or maybe you keep going back to a place because how the people there merchandise or provide service are especially captivating.
There are as many of these stories as there are people to tell them. It is such customer-centric folklore that has fueled the customer service and customer experience fantasies of pundits, managers, and executives at least since Thomas Jefferson railed against the evils of the city while frequenting the best shops in every city that he visited in a quest to feel the ultimate customer experience wherever he happened to be living at the time.
Face it. We all delight in telling tales of great service almost as well as we rejoice in recounting tales of horrible service. And it is that delight that gives me confidence that leaders and managers will soon return to the noble work of fitting their firms to deliver memorable, branded customer experiences.
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Kevin Hoffberg
Last modified:
05/03/06