Focus On Customer Frustrations & Your Profits Will Take Care Of Themselves!

We recently returned from a week’s holiday in Turkey. I love spending time away with the family—these days it’s the only real quality time we get together. Plus, it gives me time to catch up on reading. I often read what I consider to be  ‘classics’ again and again. One of those books is  ‘Broken Windows, Broken Business’ by Michael Levine. I read it again in Turkey.

The book focuses on the principle that neglecting ‘small’ problems ultimately ends in anarchy. It was a principle founded by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in 1982 and put into practice by mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1993. He basically cleaned up New York with his tough stance and zero tolerance on the ‘small’ crimes such as graffiti and prostitution. The results are well documented and now New York is a transformed city (I actually haven’t been to New York for over 20 years, but I’m returning there on business in a couple of days’ time). The philosophy is that even if there’s just one broken window in an area, if that window isn’t repaired quickly, people will assume no one cares and this leads to more broken windows and so on. Within a relatively short period of time a once-peaceful, clean and smart neighbourhood can be ruined. 

This is what happened to New York in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. Now it’s a wonderful city and it’s booming.

So Michael Levine’s book takes this same philosophy and applies it to the business world. I agree with it 100%.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to recognise that many businesses fail or don’t reach the heights they could because they don’t focus on the small problems, irritations and frustrations (broken windows) of their clients or customers. Thing is, if the owners aren’t bothered, this permeates throughout the organisation (more broken windows) and ultimately the customer goes elsewhere.

You know this is true just from your own experiences. The key is to  make  sure  that   whenever  you spot a broken window, it’s fixed. And fixed immediately.

That shows your whole philosophy and approach to any broken window and again it will permeate throughout your business.

The hotel we stayed at in Turkey is a fine example of ‘fixing’ the broken windows.

Here’s two great but very simple examples of how the Voyage Belek Golf & Spa has fixed two very common broken windows…

Let me begin by saying we are very fortunate that we can holiday in fine hotels.

The Voyage Belek is one of them but this is the first time I’ve stayed at any family hotel that has taken note of and fixed a couple of common frustrations (broken windows) that virtually every family must encounter often.

First, around all the pool areas they have an abundance of sun loungers and parasols.  This is a big hotel. But there are more sun loungers and parasols than guests.

Joy. 

No more getting up at silly o’clock to ‘reserve’ parasols and loungers (there are 5 of us, so making sure we’re all together is an important part of our holiday—we don’t want to be walking too far to throw mum in the pool!).

And whilst getting a parasol is not as important to us now (my children are aged 17, 14 and 11), we do want one between us. Again, no hassle at any time of the day.

So by taking away this key frustration, the hotel have completely extinguished a big problem that virtually every average, good, very good and excellent hotel faces every single day.

There are no losers, just winners all round!

Second, they give you as many pool towels as you want. They don’t count them out and don’t count them in. You don’t need ‘towel passes’ or anything like that. You can change them at any time of the day and you can change them as often as you want.

What a breath of fresh air this is. Once again the hotel has taken away another key frustration and benefitted accordingly.

The lesson is insightful.

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, you can easily replicate the ‘broken window’ philosophy! What broken windows can you fix in your business right now that will have a similar effect?

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