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We’ve bought a piece of paradise.
Many of you will know Ohope in the Bay of Plenty, the sunshine capital of New Zealand. The place we bought is a real bach, pretty basic but in a great spot: toward the end of the spit, with an unobstructed view across the road to a stunning harbor and a 100m walk in the other direction to one of New Zealand’s best surf beaches. We stayed there for most of January, and wondered how we would ever be able to leave. We spent the first few days ripping out all the old tired furnishings – 3 trips to the dump, several trips to the retail centre in Whakatane and an exhausted credit card. One of the things we had to do was enclose the deck somehow – within minutes of our arrival, our miniature schnauzer puppy (more of a micro at this point) took a flying leap from the deck and headed for the road. We had some fairly innovative barriers for a while before we put some trellis up. Before we put the trellis up we had a lovely view from the lounge, and from the road the house looked like what it is: a simple beach house built in the 70s in a great spot. Nothing wrong with that. After we put the trellis up we observed that from the lounge, the view was even better because it obstructed our view of the road, meaning that all we could see was harbour. And from the street (or the harbour, if you were in a kayak) the house suddenly looked more like a respectable beach cottage than a basic bach. We’d gone from nothing wrong to everything right (well, not quite. Still got to deal with the wooden butterfly on the wall…) Here’s the point: sometimes it is the very small things that make an unexpectedly large difference. We were simply trying to keep the manic furball secure, but what we achieved was much better. The difference between good enough and great is sometimes measured in millimetres, not miles. I thought of this when I was with a client yesterday. He had just had a customer complaint, which in itself was fairly mild, but its implications were significant. The customer said many of his friends told him not to go to the business because the service was so poor. His staff were shocked. They are good people, they’re not rude to customers and they try to help when approached. Nothing wrong with that. But compared to a particular competitor, their service is barely adequate. They have no idea how many potential customers they don’t have because their service is only adequate, but it could be as many as another 10-20% that they’re missing out on. In the context of a key value driver, good enough is just not good enough. The return on investment in going from average to good (a C to a B) is 10% at most. The return in going from good to great (B to A) is more like 25%. It creates a deeper relationship with customers, greater perception of value, more satisfaction for staff, more certainty around cashflows – in other words, a much better business. Sometimes it takes a bit of a shock to get us to see the difference between nothing wrong and everything right. |