Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

A manager came into one of the malls early one morning, expecting to find it deserted. There, scrubbing the floors on his hands and knees was one of the maintenance staff, Bill Ortiz. The manager asked him what he was doing. Ortiz explained that the floor polishing machine had broken a few days before, and until it could be fixed, he had been coming in at 2am – a full five hours before his shift – without telling anyone, to clean the floors by hand. Why was he doing this? To make sure that when customers arrived at the mall the floors would be clean and safe for them.

WOW, indeed.

And what’s even more amazing about this is that Ortiz isn’t even a direct Westfield employee; he works for an outsourced services firm. But, like everyone who works for Westfield – whether for the company or for an outsourcer it partners with – Ortiz is included in the company’s training, rewards, and recognition program. So as a result of being “discovered,” Ortiz was recognized with Westfield’s top annual employee honor as a WOW Star, complete with a $15,000 bonus.

In her keynote Harris explained that Westfield has three tenets that guide its business operations:
1. deliver WOW service
2. offer a quality retail experience
3. connect with the local community

She also revealed Westfield’s five steps for delivering WOW service.

Hear Find out what customers want, need, expect, and value and respond to that 100 percent of the time. Westfield not only has a customer council among its feedback channels, but it also creates action plans around following up on customer feedback.

Hire Customer orientation is a core competency for all Westfield employees. The company asks for customer centricity in its ads and looks for it in the interview process.

Train All Westfield staff and outsourced employees attend eight hours of initial training, on such detailed behaviors as how to interact and engage with each customer group. The company reinforces its 16 standards for success (e.g. “we constantly exceed the expectations of shoppers and retailers”) in daily WOW Warm-Up meetings.

Measure Westfield measures what is important to customers. To do so it uses secret shoppers who rate the mall experience on 25 criteria, as well as using both customer (shoppers and retailers) and employee satisfaction surveys.

Reward The company rewards monthly WOW stars with cash awards. WOW stars are nominated by peers and customers.

Since launching its WOW approach in 2005 annual employee turnover has declined from 96 percent (in 2004) to 63 percent (in 2006), and is trending toward 55 percent this year. This translated into about $312,000 in saving so far. Not to mention the increase customer loyalty the WOW approach is building.

“WOW feels good,” Harris said, “but it also brings in revenue.”