I am a finicky shopper, I admit it. Really, I don’t shop, I usually know what I want, seek it out and buy it. I guess, like most men, I also don’t like bothering people or wasting time looking for someone to ask for assistance when I can spend that time actually looking for what I want. Occasionally, however, I do give in to the urge and ask an employee of the retail establishment that I am visiting for specific assistance for a specific product that I cannot find. Today was such a day. 

I donned my best winter gear, yes it is still winter where I live despite the fact that we are 2 days past the official start of spring, and headed for the stores. Now I wasn't looking for anything exotic but it was specific. I looked in two stores and having no satisfaction, I decided to head for a specialty store whose product was, by extension, what I was looking to purchase. I went into the store and directly to the section that contained the articles that I was looking for and began to look for the specific item that I needed as a female employee, in her mid-forties I estimate, approached and asked in a very pleasant voice, “Can I help you sir?” I then proceeded to explain to her, in specific detail, what I was looking for and she looked at the rack and unhooked a package containing the item that I had asked about, but, it was neither in the colour nor the size that I needed. When I again explained the item I wanted in detail she said, again, in a very nice and pleasant voice, “Well, this is all we have in stock.” “But they aren't the colour or the size that I need” says I.  Now I did not expect her to prestidigitate and magically produce the product that I was looking for, but I also did not expect what happened next.  Her response was to look me in the eye and say, with a smile, “Yes, but they will do”. I said very simply, “Thank you!” and walked away without the product. 

Now, the reason that I said thank you was not for her assistance in my search to spend money, but was for her summation of what is wrong with the retail and service industry as a whole when it comes to customer service. Three simple words that outline the reason that, time and time again, front line service providers, and, by extension, their managers and owners, are missing the meaning of true customer service. “That will do!” 

In my consulting business I try to give communities, businesses and individuals some insight in the construction, delivery and marketing of experiential tourism products and services as well as how, customer service, delivered at a consistent and exemplary level, has to form part of the foundation of a great customer experience. This type of commitment to a great customer experience means that the phrase: “That will do”, has no part to play in the mindset of front line staff; ever! 

Now don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that it is practically impossible to please everyone, every time, and that retailers cannot be expected to carry absolutely everything that consumers need at any given point in time. But, there are methods of handling situations, however difficult they may be, that can still leave a customer with the feeling of a great experience while not necessarily receiving a satisfactory product or service. I know, I know, there are those of you who have just read that and believe that this is a contradiction but let me explain further. 

In many ways the product is incidental to the delivery of the service that involves the product and it is the service that can differentiate the business or individual since the product can be duplicated and the service, because it should involve customization to the individual customer, cannot be duplicated completely once it is experienced. In other words the customer experience has a finite shelf life and once it is created for the individual, it is theirs to keep and cannot be completely reused for someone else. That is why service, delivered properly and with sincerity, creates competitive advantage for the company or individual involved, regardless of the product that is associated with the service. A few months ago I was out of town and visited a themed, family oriented steakhouse to enjoy, what I thought would be a great supper. I won’t bore you with the details of the visit but the meal, which I ate despite everything, was far less than exemplary; cold vegetables, steak which I believe came from the shoe or boot of the individual who cooked it, a longer than normal wait time and a few more less than satisfactory items. The server, however, was exemplary in the way that she handled the situation, including my factual statement of the quality, or lack of quality, of the food that I shared with her when she asked if everything was to my satisfaction as she delivered the bill. Her professionalism and genuine concern for a less than satisfactory meal overcame the lack of quality of my repast. In other words, she, and the manager/owner who subsequently came to discuss the issue with me, maintained the consistency of a great customer experience throughout. 

A side note here, I believe that customers have a responsibility to point out truly unsatisfactory products or services and I take this responsibility seriously. Now I am not saying that one needs to be belligerent and overbearing in the complaint, nor am I saying that the complaint should be made in front of other customers, but I do believe that a factual, non-emotional response to unsatisfactory performance needs to be made in order for management to address the situation properly. In other words, how can they fix something if they don’t know it’s broke? Again, I do not want to imply that one complaint should require an action, but any person who truly cares about creating exemplary customer experiences, will or should take complaints under advisement and monitor future situations to see if there is a correctable problem. I also do not believe in complaints made with ulterior motives, that is, free food or service. In the case of my restaurant experience, both the server and the manager/owner offered vouchers for the next visit, which I graciously refused to accept. For the record, I did visit again, recently, and everything was great! 

In my workshops I try to impress on front line staff that regardless of how many members of their business are involved with the preparation of the product or the delivery of the service, they, the front line staff, are ultimately in control of the customer experience. They are the “make or break” point that creates the experience in the customer’s mind and they are the creators of competitive advantage both for themselves and the enterprise. Managers/owners who do not recognize this, ultimately, do not understand nor appreciate the importance of their front line in the consistency of presentation of a great customer experience. I guess in their minds; that will do. 

Oh yes, for those of you who are dying to know; I was looking for a pair of black, 48” boot laces and yes, I found them, on my own, thanks for asking, at the last store I visited. I guess it was my fault that it took so long since I obviously started at the wrong store. 

Every experience is a story and every story is an experience… experience the Maxx!

The Miramichi Kitchen Party..... 10 years ......and counting!!!!!

When we started the Miramichi Kitchen Party we never thought it would become one of the premier tourism products of the Miramichi. We had been entertaining audiences together for over a dozen years in pubs, concerts and conventions and we knew that we had developed a presentation that was somewhat unique and a show that might interest tourists. I remember the first show of this type that we presented. It was  in a local restaurant and we called it "The Miramichi Dinner Theater". It went over reasonably well but we felt there was something missing. That was 1998.

During the next couple of years we talked about the "tourist show" and tried to partner with another local establishment but just couldn't  find the formula to make it work for everyone involved. We did, however, come up with a dynamite name and The Miramichi Kitchen Party was born, at least on paper.

In the winter of 2000 I became disillusioned with the job that had occupied my time for the previous 16 years. It was time to move into something different and over the period of a few months I came up with the concept for what would become Saltwater Sounds, a music store that would promote Atlantic Canadian recording artists and maybe, eventually, move into the retail sale of musical instruments. We might also have room for some "live" music from time to time. In one of my many conversations with Connie about the concept and design of the store she said: "...too bad you couldn't put a kitchen in the store, then, we would have a place to host our kitchen parties." The rest as they say... is history.

Since that time, we have had the good fortune of hosting people from around the world.... from as far away as China and Australia... from sea to sea across Canada .... from 43 of the continental United States... and from as far south as Mexico. We have made lasting friendships with some of our guests and and we have developed working relationships with some of the largest. and smallest, tour operators in North America. We have worked closely with all three levels of government and to what end? To bring the world into the Miramichi and have them experience the stories, music and people that make us who were are. We are proud of that achievement and value the experiences that we have shared.

We have shared our kitchen with some phenomenal musicians; Miramichi Fiddling Legend Matilda Murdoch, Acadian fiddler Melani-lin Richard, multi-instrumentalist Don Rigley and NB Country music Hall of Famer Stan Taylor to name a few. We have shared our stories and songs with thousands of people, in both official languages of N.B., and each and every time that we do, we have felt a pride to be a part of the rich history that is alive in this amazing part of our great province.

Here are a few of the videos that we currently have posted on YouTube. Hopefully they will give you an idea of what we are up to with this product. The first one is one produced by a couple of friends of ours, Terry Gadsden and Kevin Blair. It really captures the essence of the Miramichi Kitchen Party...





...this next one was shot by the Canadian Tourism Commission and forms part of their online tourism campaign to show people of the world..."the unexpected Canada"...




...this one is pretty cool. It was produced by the Province of N.B. - Tourism & Parks and features a Point of View Camera, which is sometimes located on my head...




If you like what you see here, come on in and join us. You can find all the information you need at www.MiramichiKitchenParty.com . We would love to have you join us and do us a small favour....spread the word!

Is hockey Canadian???

I am not a hockey player. Never was; never will be; but I always wanted to be one. Not the overpaid, runway model, factory made hockey players that we see when we tune into the mighty Hockey Night in Canada on a Saturday night. No, I just wanted to be a hockey player. You know the type, the guy who plays the game just for the enjoyment of it all. I tried, but I had “weak ankles” and couldn’t skate well enough. My on-ice hockey experience consisted of one game, on a very early Saturday morning, way back in the winter of 1966, when I was in Grade 7. My coach, who also happened to be my school teacher, did his best to accommodate my desire to play but, alas, it was not meant to be. One game, 3 shifts and I was done. So my game-playing arena took the form of the noblest of all replacement venues for hockey, the corner of Winslow and Lancaster Streets. which became affectionately known as the Lanslow Arena. My hockey destiny was to be a road-hockey player. I played goal and was pretty good at it. I eventually wore Number 29 in honor of my hockey hero, Ken Dryden, but I was never a true hockey player, or was I?
Hockey had been a part my family and what appeared to be every family in Canada from the 1930’s onward when the fledgling CBC Radio network started broadcasting games from coast to coast. My dad would faithfully listen to and, eventually, watch his beloved Toronto Maple Leafs battle against the ominous Montréal Canadiens. “He shoots! He scores!” is a phrase that is as Canadian as the National Anthem and as recognizable as the red maple leaf of the Canadian Flag. But is hockey still Canada’s game and is it still as relevant to Canadians today as it was back in the 1930”s?
The Society for International Hockey Research, an organization dedicated to promoting, developing and encouraging the study of hockey, formed a committee at their annual meeting in May 2001 to examine the claim that hockey was invented in Windsor, Nova Scotia (www.sihrhockey.org). While they were unable to confirm the true birthplace of hockey, the populous view was, and still is, that hockey is a Canadian sport, no matter where it was invented. In the early days of professional hockey, the teams were primarily located in Canada but, eventually, what became known as the “Original six” took shape, and by 1967, wintery Canadian Saturday nights meant only one thing – Hockey Night in Canada. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians, from sea to shining sea, were glued to their television sets for an evening of the best that Canada had to offer. Yes, hockey had become a part of every Canadian, however an event that ,some still say, has meant the erosion of hockey as part of the Canadian landscape was about to take place.
In the 1967-68 season expansion doubled the size of “the premier professional hockey league in the world” (en.wikipedia.org). This expansion and many subsequent expansions eventually introduced fans to hockey as a big business.
For the average Canadian, big business is less about hockey and more about the staid corporate head offices of Bay St. in Toronto. Unless you are located in a major Canadian city you don’t have the opportunity to regularly attend a major league hockey game and actually see how much of a big business exists around Canada’s game. For the rest of us, we hear about the absolutely astounding salaries that “no-name” players receive, in some cases just for showing up, much less playing a good game. We see the corporate sponsorships that are involved, our view being mostly of the Center Ice surface or the scoreboard time-clock during a televised game, but we do not feel big business prying their hands into our pockets for the $300+ ticket or the $200 “official team jersey” or the $5 hot dog. They are, however, certainly there, at each and every game. Hockey has become the corporate Trojan horse that is National League Baseball, Football and Basketball in the United States. We have welcomed it into our homes via whatever media that suits us, then, without warning; we have been stripped of our National identity to become nothing more than a pawn enslaved to corporate greed. But is hockey still part of the Canadian Identity or has it, in fact, been swallowed up by corporate America?
Let’s look back at one of the best examples, in my opinion, of hockey being the heart and soul of Canadians. The United States’ achievement of placing a man on the moon and bringing him safely home was something that the world watched on television and it became a personification of that country’s national identity but, I believe, everyone in Canada would agree that we had an event equally, if not more, significant to define the Canadian identity. The final game of the 1972 Canada Russia series was every bit as awe inspiring and even, in some ways, a greater achievement for Canadians. I feel that if a poll was taken today in Canada, that everyone who was around in September 1972 would not only remember what they were doing that particular day, but also, what it meant to be Canadian when Paul Henderson slid that 6 ounce piece of vulcanized rubber into the Russian goal. At that very moment, hockey was the definition of a Canadian. Being a hockey player was synonymous with being a Canadian. That is what hockey means to Canada.
There have been many other significant hockey events in the approximately four decades since that series. Each of them, in different ways and to differing degrees, has reinforced the Canadian identity. Subsequent Canada Russia series, women’s Olympic hockey dominance and the first Canadian “dream team” Olympians in 1998 through to the current 2010 hockey Olympians are examples of these. Hockey is Canada’s game; it always was and always will be. Corporate America can certainly seize opportunities to make money from it but they cannot take away the spirit of what hockey is to Canada and Canadians of all ages. They can mask it to the point that it looks like the multi genre, one formula, corporate sport entities of the United States but they cannot take from it what is real.
Is hockey still relevant today? I think that a current Olympic media ad that is circulating the television screens of Canada and the computers of YouTube reveals the answer to that question. It features shots of many Canadians enjoying different levels of the game, from a boy playing hockey with a pop can on a back street through to a stadium filled with fans cheering on their Canadian team. It is interspersed with “He shoots! He Scores!” as well as one rendition of “She shoots! She scores! It ends with the following statement “Let’s make sure everyone knows whose game they are playing”.
You don’t have to be an individual covered with thousands of dollars worth of armor, getting paid a multi-million dollar salary to play in a multi-million dollar facility with 20,000 people watching you to be a hockey player. You just have to pick up a stick, find a patch of ice and a puck or, as I did, find a patch of street and a ball; and play. That is the definition of a hockey player and, that is what hockey was, is and always will be and it is still Canadian.

Music is.....

An old Irish blessing says “Take time to laugh…because laughter is the music of the soul.” Although I love the image this creates, I would argue the opposite. Music is the laughter of the soul. It is also the pain, the compassion, the love and the spirit of the soul. It has the ability to take us wherever we may not necessarily want to go but essentially need to go. Take, for example, the ongoing debate, in some circles, of the negative influence that music has on the youth of today. I cannot comment directly on that argument. However, in my 30 years as a musician I have performed many times in small, intimate shows where the audiences involved are some of the frailest of individuals in our society today – seniors; not only seniors who are active and ageless but also seniors who are in various stages of physical, emotional and psychological illnesses. In many of these presentations, I have seen how music, in its purest forms, has brought people from the depths of despair to the joy of singing; from the vast loneliness of dementia back to the reality of a time when they were the “belle of the ball”. I have watched as someone who has almost given up on living has been rejuvenated, for however brief a moment, and come back to a place and time where their voice was as alive as birdsong on a gentle spring morning. I have seen, time and time again, how music has taken people to places they had forgotten they knew about. I have seen music act as the final closure to people who have lost a loved one. The music has taken them to a place deep within themselves, where they can begin the healing that only true grieving can produce. In essence, music has given them life again. No, I have not seen the negative effects of music and, quite frankly, I am content not to have seen it. I have, however, seen the positive life changing effects of music. The mathematician in me was taught that where there is a positive, there also exists a negative. YOU come to your own conclusions now.