Which companies provide the BEST customer service? Names like Disney, Zappos and Southwest Airlines immediately come to mind for their ability to deliver exceptional service while running efficient, safe and profitable businesses. But what if we told you that one of the world’s greatest service cultures can be found at a deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan?
Zingerman’s Delicatessen opened its doors in 1982. Now, over 40 years later, the company operates 10 different specialty businesses, all working toward the goal of making the shopping and eating experience more memorable than ever. But Zingerman’s is more than a deli or bakery or candy manufactory—it’s a community rooted in a culture of service that elevates the customer AND employee experience.
So how do you enable your frontline team to run a profitable business while delivering world-class customer service?ITK host JD Dillon finds out from Timo Anderson, Trainer at ZingTrain who shares how training, recognition and measurement come together to foster a service culture that brings customers back while driving business results.
For more about why Axonify is the proven employee enablement solution that equips frontlines with the essential tools to learn, connect and get things done, visit https://www.axonify.com.
Which companies provide the BEST customer service? Names like Disney, Zappos and Southwest Airlines immediately come to mind for their ability to deliver exceptional service while running efficient, safe and profitable businesses. But what if we told you that one of the world’s greatest service cultures can be found at a deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan?
Zingerman’s Delicatessen opened its doors in 1982. Now, over 40 years later, the company operates 10 different specialty businesses, all working toward the goal of making the shopping and eating experience more memorable than ever. But Zingerman’s is more than a deli or bakery or candy manufactory—it’s a community rooted in a culture of service that elevates the customer AND employee experience.
So how do you enable your frontline team to run a profitable business while delivering world-class customer service?ITK host JD Dillon finds out from Timo Anderson, Trainer at ZingTrain who shares how training, recognition and measurement come together to foster a service culture that brings customers back while driving business results.
For more about why Axonify is the proven employee enablement solution that equips frontlines with the essential tools to learn, connect and get things done, visit https://www.axonify.com.
JD Dillon (00:13):
Hello friends, how are you today? It's great to see you. Welcome to the 48th episode of In the Know Your 25-Minute Deep Dive into the Modern Learning Experience and what we can do to make it better. I'm JD from Axonify and today's episode is all about customer service. Now, being a great customer [00:00:30] service organization has always been a competitive differentiator. Now, let us know in the LinkedIn chat, which companies do you think provide the best customer service nowadays. Let us know your recommendation and why that company stands out in your experience. But there's a reason we talk a lot about and regard companies like Zappos and Chewy and Ritz Carlton there. People don't just do the job. They do it in ways that surprise and delight and create positive word of mouth and the stories that you just have to tell to your [00:01:00] friends and your family and Facebook and Yelp, wherever you might social.
(01:04):
Nowadays now with customers having more choices than ever, exceptional customer service has become a critical business capability, especially in industries like retail, food service and hospitality. Now, I could go on and on about my perspective on what makes great customer service great, but I'm going to leave that for today's guests. Instead, I'd like to tell you the story of my favorite customer service [00:01:30] moment. And this story takes us to where else the Walt Disney World Resort, specifically the entrance of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at the Magic Kingdom Park on a busy summer day in July, and that's where we find a mom, a dad, and their two young sons walking up to their favorite attraction only to find that it's currently closed for technical reasons. Now, it's always disappointing when your favorite ride is unavailable, but these parents, they were more than just disappointed and by the looks [00:02:00] on their faces, their mood could best be described as pre-volcanic.
(02:05):
At least that's what the cast member at the entrance noticed when he spotted the family standing off to the side. So he wandered over to them, said hello, and asked them if there was anything he could help them out with. Well, that was the opening the parents needed, and they started into a story about what had become an all-around challenging day at the theme park because first, their tickets didn't scan properly at the front gate, so they had to wait for someone to come over to [00:02:30] help them. And then they stood in a 30 minute line waiting for coffee, and then they tried to go on Splash Mountain, but it broke down just as they were about to get onto the ride. The cast member could tell this story was going to go on for a little bit, so he asked the family to walk with him so they could get away from the crowd that had gathered in front of the ride that was currently closed.
(02:51):
And as they walked along the path, they continued to tell him about just how wrong everything was going that day. And the two little boys followed along quietly as [00:03:00] their parents took full advantage of this opportunity to finally vent their frustrations. And in fact, it was actually the little boys who noticed where they were going before the parents ever noticed because they were fully immersed in their just waterfall of complaints. And all the while the cast member listened intently, even as the family was asked to just stand off to the side here a little bit as the cast member put his arm in the air, in the shape of what he knew was the hold sign. And he continued listening as he ushered the family into the first [00:03:30] two rows of a splash mountain ride vehicle. And it was only then that the parents realized that they had been walking through the exit of the attraction this whole time while they were talking and amused by the stunned look on their faces, the cast member leaned into the log still with the hold symbol up and handed the parents a set of fast pass tickets.
(03:49):
And then he said to them, I'm sorry, your day started off so challenging, but I think things are going to get a little more exciting in a good way in just a couple of minutes, but be sure to come [00:04:00] back and see us at Big Thunder Mountain later on. Hopefully you'll be dried off by then. He then stepped back out of the ride vehicle and dropped his hand from the hold signal to the clear signal and off the family went into the ride. The cast member turned and went back to helping out people at the entrance to Thunder Mountain Railroad, and he never saw that family again, but he did hear from them when his boss called him into our office about a month later and handed him a letter from guest relations. You see, the family had written to Disney about the wonderful time they had on their vacation, [00:04:30] and the bulk of the letter was about that interaction with a cast member who had saved their day.
(04:37):
And that interaction was actually such a big deal at home that the kids were still referring to the cast member as a superhero because he could get them on the ride without having to wait in line. And all it took was five minutes, some quick thinking and a dose of empathy from a cast member to transform a no-good, very bad, terrible day into an experience worth capturing in a letter to the company. And [00:05:00] I know what you're thinking, yes, that cast member was Jake Gyllenhaal. Okay? It was me. It was totally me. And yeah, I wanted to share that story so I could brag about my letter-writing-worthy customer service skills. But I also think it's an important story because of what could have happened. Yes, I could have just suggested that the family come back later because attractions break down all the time.
(05:24):
That wasn't enough. I could have sent them over to guest relations, but it was that extra effort because I [00:05:30] had been in customer service for 10 years at that point. I'd seen this family before, or at least many versions of this family. I knew how to elevate their experience in the fastest, most frictionless way possible. So the question becomes how do we make sure everyone in our companies can do the same thing even if they haven't seen it all before? So that's what we're going to talk about and learn from. Today's guest. Timo Anderson from ZingTrain is here to share how training, recognition and measurement come together to foster a service of culture that brings customers back [00:06:00] while driving business results. But before we chat with Timo, I want to catch you up on a few things that have happened since the last time we saw one another, which was over a month ago at this point. So yes, it's time for JD ’s five Things.
(06:16):
Now, my first thing relates to that longer-than-usual gap between episodes because we've updated our program schedule to make in the Know a monthly show. The truth is there's just a lot going on. It's hard to put together a high-quality variety [00:06:30] show every two weeks, and I only have so many costumes. But the good news is that our monthly schedule will give us that much more time to prepare 25 minutes together. That's going to be insightful, informative, and fun. So be sure to subscribe to it K for show announcements and reminders@Axonify.com/ITK so you can check out everything that we're hooking up for the rest of 2024. My second thing since we last met is that I've been on a lot of airplanes and my longest trip took me over to London for the Learning Technologies conference recently, and our team [00:07:00] had an awesome time meeting members of the European community, and I had the opportunity to present three times during the event.
(07:06):
Now, if you couldn't make it to London, don't worry, we've got it all on tape. So head over to the Axonify YouTube channel to check out all of my sessions, including my Rapid Fire tour of the Axonify Daily Learning experience, my conversation on learning measurement with the amazing Maxine Grundy global Learning and support manager from Sage and my quick look at Axonify content studio and how we're helping organizations customize their off the shelf content in [00:07:30] partnership with Vyond. And that's all available on demand right now over on YouTube. My third thing is that I'm getting back on an airplane this weekend because I'm headed to New Orleans where I and the Axonify team are taking part in the ATD24 conference, the biggest L&D event in the world. And I'm speaking twice next week and this time I'm bringing a co-facilitator me or rather it's the AI version of me here.
(07:57):
Take a look at what I mean. Hi there, I'm [00:08:00] JD from Learn Geek and Axonify, and I'm Learn Geek AI JD 's Digital avatar. Now we're excited to be headed to New Orleans for the A TD 24 conference from May 19th to the 22nd. JD , I've never been to New Orleans before. Well, that's because you've never been anywhere before, but we're actually going to be speaking twice during the conference on Sunday. I'm partnering with my friends at Beyond to share how we're using AI to customize off the shelf content so it meets the specific needs of your [00:08:30] business and employees. Then I'll join you on Monday to explore the strategic impact of AI on l and d and how this digital transformation is changing organizational priorities, how work gets done, and therefore how work must be supported. Now, there's going to be lots of AI conversation during the event. It is the most popular topic in the industry right now after all. So rather than talk about prompt engineering or how to build courses faster, we're going to dig into what L and D professionals need to be doing now [00:09:00] to prepare for the impact that this technology is going to have on the work that we do.
(09:05):
Plus everyone who attends our Monday session gets access to the exclusive new chapter of your book, the Modern Learning Ecosystem, and I even helped to write it. That's correct. So be sure to add our sessions to your ATD 24 conference agenda. You can find more details including our session materials and additional resources over@learngeek.ai. We'll see you in New Orleans.
(09:30):
[00:09:30] So let us know if you'll be in New Orleans for a TD. Both versions of me will be very excited to say hello. Now the fourth thing for today is that we just published a brand new guide on employee engagement because engagement is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot in the workplace, but without much clarity or definition, we know what an engaged workforce looks like and that it's hugely beneficial to our organizations. But how do we make sure people are confident, competent, and comfortable doing their everyday work? Well, this 25-page playbook provides [00:10:00] a five-step plan for boosting engagement across your business and includes more than 30 engagement tactics, tools, and touchpoints. So download the employee engagement playbook today, ungated at Axonify.com/playbook. And be sure to tune into our fifth thing for today. That's the upcoming webinar that I'm doing on employee engagement. I'll be sharing practical dips from our playbook to help you take a learning led approach to engagement strategy. So join me online this on Thursday, May 30th at 11:00 AM eastern time, and follow Axonify on LinkedIn [00:10:30] for more details on how you can register for part one of our two-part series on moving the needle on employee engagement for your entire workforce. And those were JD s five things for today.
(10:44):
So I mentioned already I got a lot going on, schedule's kind of packed, so I don't have a ton of time to eat lunch after today's show, so I hope you don't mind. I brought a sandwich for today, but this isn't just any sandwich because I ordered this sandwich all the way from Zingerman's Delicatessen. [00:11:00] Zingerman's opened its doors in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1982, and now over 40 years later, the company operates 10 different specialty businesses all working toward the goal of making the shopping and eating experience more memorable than ever. But Zingerman's is more than a deli or a bakery or a candy manufactory. It's a community rooted in a culture of service that elevates the customer and employee experiences. In fact, they're so well known for their business practices that now they teach other companies how to do what they do through an organization [00:11:30] called Zing Trade.
(11:31):
And that's where we met today's ITK guest, Timo Anderson. Tim O's journey to Zingerman can be best described as circuitous. It included time as an exchange student in Japan and completing foreign study in Kenya before working with the Wayne County Regional Educational Service agency to drive team-building initiatives and explore ideas like cohesiveness leadership and communication team also spent time working on educational programs for youth and unemployed adults and assisted unemployed parents in gaining the qualifications needed to [00:12:00] become substitute teachers and all of that before he joined the team at Zing Train 10 years ago where he and his team offered training on sought after business topics ranging from customer service and leadership to visioning and open book finance. Timo Anderson, you're in the know. How you doing?
Timo Anderson (12:14):
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me, JD. It's a pleasure to be here.
JD Dillon (12:18):
My pleasure. I got to ask you, first of all, I went with the oven-roasted Turkey from Zingerman's. Do you have a favorite? Is there a go-to item that you would recommend on the menu?
Timo Anderson (12:26):
There is. My favorite is the Cuban conundrum. It's got a [00:12:30] lovely, delicious pork that's been braised, has some spicy mayo, has pickles. It's not quite a full Cuban, it's a little thicker sandwich in the standard one that you might have in Florida or some other is. But it's a spectacular sandwich
JD Dillon (12:42):
Now. Everyone is very hungry during our lunchtime conversation. So I experienced the Zingerman's customer service from afar because I ordered my lunch online because I'm in Florida and not in Michigan. But the difference in the customer experience was evident from the start. And for example, when I [00:13:00] ordered online and I got the confirmation, it included the option to just click reply to the email and talked to a real person. And most companies just outright tell you don't reply to their emails. So that was just one example of how I experienced the culture of service coming to life. But I'm curious, how do you define the idea of a culture of service and why has it been so important to Zingerman's Foster this culture over the past 40 years?
Timo Anderson (13:25):
Well, I think there's a few different components. The first is that we really think about [00:13:30] all honesty. Our founders, Paul Sagan on Ari Weinzweig really believe and teach and think about the concept that service is plain and simply the right thing to do. And so if you don't have that belief, it makes it very hard to be here at Zingerman's because part of that is doing those extra things as you talked about earlier, just intuitively helping that family get to a great experience. It's one of the things that our employees, 750 employees that we have now across our 10 businesses really are trying to do. The other thing [00:14:00] is I will say that we have a mission that really drives our behaviors. It's done in our early piece. And that mission starts with sharing the Zingerman's experience and getting clear on that Zingerman's experience is different for you than every other person in this live Zoom right now. Every single one of us has an experience that we're trying to do in trying to get really clear of meeting that person's experience one at a time and trying to hit all of the pieces that they're aiming at.
JD Dillon (14:28):
I have found across the organizations [00:14:30] I've worked for and worked with, most organizations have some version of their approach or customer service principles or methods, something we talk about a lot, but the question becomes how does the method come to life? As part of daily practices, we've all heard of the five foot rule. Employees are expected to interact and engage with customers that come within five feet. At Disney, we have the five keys. We have safety, courtesy, inclusion, show efficiency that really guides our decision-making every day. And when I was reading about Zingerman's, I [00:15:00] came across the 5/90/5 rule. So I'm curious what do those numbers mean and how does it inform the way that you look at customer service?
Timo Anderson (15:09):
So the 5/90/5 is just one of our small pieces to get all of our staff and then training others to say that 5% of the population is naturally good at service is intuitively spectacular. Paul and Ari are probably in that as founders and started embedding that 90% of the population is trainable and 5% might not be a [00:15:30] great fit, but that 5% is a lot less than a lot of business owners and business managers think like, oh, George isn't a good fit, or Helen isn't a great dah, dah, dah because she's not good at service if we don't give them the tools, they can't get there. But that 90% is a really big part of the population.
JD Dillon (15:47):
Absolutely. So let's dig into how we get the 90% of those tools. So we already kind of started by saying this, you can't deliver on a customer promise if everyone isn't on the same page with what that promise is and how it relates to my job. [00:16:00] So how do you start off by defining service expectations to make sure everyone understands what's expected of them?
Timo Anderson (16:06):
Well, I think if I can go back one step, first, we have a philosophy of putting anything in our culture that we need to teach it and agree that we will teach it. We want to define it, we need to live it every single time. Measure and reward, which we'll get to I think later as we talk, but in our definition, it was literally following Paul and Ari around and say, what are they doing naturally and giving our staff scaffolding. And I say the word [00:16:30] scaffolding because I think similar to your experience, it wasn't JD, you're supposed to do this and a binary option of this to this, which you get on those scripted service things that all of us have experienced, but it's the things to do. So our service recipe is simple. Figure out what the customer wants, get it for them and do something extra. I don't care what order you do it in, I don't care how it looks or what it does, but if you do all three of those things with every single customer, they're going to have a zingerman experience and they're going to have their Zingerman [00:17:00] experience breaking it down to a tool that can be personalized. I don't have to take any of my personality away from it. It just becomes this opportunity for me to have a scaffolding to hang my person, my experience and my knowledge onto.
JD Dillon (17:16):
And that idea of scaffolding is something I hear more and more when I talk about Disney or we had a guest from Zappos previously on our show, and it often comes back to the idea of yes, there are guardrails around what people are allowed to do or expected to do, but [00:17:30] within that, how do you bring it to life? And one of my favorite examples from a past job is I had a contact center agent who played the kazoo on the phone. Why? I don't know. Did people love it? Yeah. Did we tell anyone else to play the kazoo? Absolutely not. But it was that example of how unique that individual was in bringing our experience to life. So that was something that it couldn't be trained per se, but I think that we often kind of discount the nature of building customer service capability [00:18:00] as something that you covered during onboarding. Like yeah, everyone went through the customer service training. But as I even mentioned in my own story, it took me 10 years to get to the point where I had kind of the reflexes and the know-how to be able to figure out how to solve different types of problems. So when it comes to the teach side of the story, how do you teach people to deliver great service from day one, but then through their entire experience with the organization?
Timo Anderson (18:24):
So I think there's a couple things like you talked about the five-foot rule. We call that our ten-four rule and we've adapted it [00:18:30] from other places. So at 10 feet we smile and make eye contact at four feet, we verbally engage and we do that 360 degrees around, and I could teach you that JD first day at the deli and nothing else about any of our process. The second thing is that asking for help is a sign of strength and getting people to fully understand culturally that's not a norm, but within Zingerman's, I mean outside of Zingerman's on our country level, but with thinking about asking for help. So if I can teach you how to ask [00:19:00] for help and use the ten-four rule, I can have you operational day one and be beneficial to the customer and to the rest of the team.
(19:08):
Beyond that, we have a class, so there's a two and a half hour service class that every single employee from our C-suite to our busters to our frontline staff are going to take during their first 90 days. And we don't do it immediately because we don't do a day one orientation, but we teach this and have that along with a test role plays and practice and on shift repetition. And [00:19:30] so there's multiple ways that we're accessing and multiple modalities of how do we get this person to learn and think about these concepts of figuring out what the customer wants, getting it for them and doing something extra. And obviously we have to roll those into, okay, what are the extras you can do? If I was like, oh my goodness, I'd love to give JD a thousand dollars gift card just because that would feel great, right?
(19:52):
You love that, but there are some guardrails. What do those things look like? How do we frame and say for this, we might think about this for this we can do here. [00:20:00] If you walked into our deli, there's a very good chance someone's going to offer you a taste of meat or cheese within the first three minutes you're there if they're already cutting and slicing, whatever else. And so how that looks becomes slowly as you talked about, built into your system, but we can give some guardrails and some scaffolding for them to do throughout their employee lifecycle.
JD Dillon (20:22):
I think every organization agrees with the idea that great customer service is important, but then we start to run up against [00:20:30] some business realities when it comes to the investment required, like you said, whether it's dedicating time to training, demonstrating the right behaviors and prioritizing those behaviors in the workplace when there's a lot of things potentially going on. So how do you think about the measurement side of customer service, especially customer service and building a service culture impacts your business's bottom line just in case that kind of question around investment comes up.
Timo Anderson (20:56):
I think there's a couple of things. One, our business started from [00:21:00] a unique place. Ari, one of our co-founders was studying Russian history, specifically the anarchists when he was in college and came to us with a different non-business point of view. He was from a family of academics. We didn't have an accountant for the first 10 years of the business, right? There was no person running dollars. And so when we have our bottom line, we actually have three. We have great food, great finance, and great service, and each one of those are their own directly impacted, directly [00:21:30] measured bottom line. And we understand there's a tension between the three, but we never let service be a vehicle for more income. It is its own bottom line. We measure it and process it by both net promoter score, which has its pluses and minuses, but allows us to have a kind of categorical between all 10 businesses comparable score.
(21:50):
We also follow that though with the subjective information where we're listening to the customer voice and documenting, not having you fill out a survey. You [00:22:00] might get one for net promoter score from mail order in your sandwich, but we are listening to what's being said in our places on the phone and we're documenting both the good and the bad as code reds and code greens and looking at those on a weekly basis in order to track what are the subjective things that the customers are saying. It is purely the voice of the customer and we're able to track that and work through those pieces of information to continue to improve on things that we're working on.
JD Dillon (22:27):
And I think that point about isolating [00:22:30] what the priorities are for the organization and how you want to run your business from the beginning and not allowing one priority to overwhelm the other because there are such clear lanes and understanding that they bump into one another and that there's friction there and discussions to be had and priorities to be established, but that being set from the beginning as opposed to something that gets argued for and reprioritized elsewhere within the organization, I think is a great observation.
Timo Anderson (22:55):
Absolutely.
JD Dillon (22:56):
So I mentioned in the story that I got the letter [00:23:00] about that experience and I was already committed to the service culture of the organization before I got the letter, but the letter reinforced how important making those decisions and taking that time could be for people. So around the kind of recognition side of customer service, how do you think about rewarding and recognizing people for their continued commitment to building a service culture?
Timo Anderson (23:20):
I think that we do it in as many ways as we possibly can. We have appreciations at the end of every single meeting. We think of that as a key element kind of shaker style. Anyone wants [00:23:30] to in that meeting, but it's in the agenda, it's documented. There isn't space or flexibility for it to not happen. We have that as a piece. And so at the end of ZingTrains, huddle, almost everyone has them. And we have three or four, maybe five or six people we're doing out of a team of 13. We also have some monthly rewards. We have a great service committee, which is representative of each business, and each of those months we have nomination. So I could nominate the person who sold you your sandwich for giving great service. I heard it was a good experience, and you send an [00:24:00] email and I could nominate them.
(24:02):
And if they get chosen, they get $50 added to their paycheck. Not huge. But here's the other fun part. The nominator gets $25 in their paycheck because the nominator did the work to actually document it for our extra miles. And we document these all over the place. You get an extra mile file T-shirt, which if you're at home working, not a big deal, but if you're in a business where you're expected to wear a company T-shirt on a regular basis, that's one or two extra days of not having [00:24:30] to do laundry. That's pretty spectacular. So we think about these, and my favorite part of both of those is we document that in a newsletter. Everyone who's nominated gets listed. So when you were nominated, and so you're getting those pieces and the extra miles and the things you did, the stories like your story in your letter are written in the newsletter. So new staff are able to say, oh, I didn't know I could do that. I didn't have this opportunity. So it builds both a reward and a training opportunity into a circular process.
JD Dillon (25:00):
[00:25:00] And so much of helping people improve their knowledge and skill in this type of an area in terms of the interpersonal skills is demonstrating what good looks like and helping people figure out, well, maybe this isn't my style. I wouldn't quite approach it this way, but I could borrow this idea from you and this idea from Bill and this idea, and really find my way of bringing the culture to life and contributing to and building up that culture.
Timo Anderson (25:26):
Absolutely.
JD Dillon (25:27):
Amazing points. I have one more question for you because [00:25:30] I mentioned earlier on that I'm speaking in New Orleans next week, plug, plug. And after I do different types of presentations, a lot of people come up to me and want to talk about my time at Disney and mention that their organizations are really interested in doing things like Disney does. And the truth I often have to remind people of is that it took a hundred years for Disney to become Disney, and at this point it's taken 40 years for Zingerman's to be Zingerman's and what you represent now in the marketplace. So what do you [00:26:00] think our viewers can do to boost their own customer service cultures now in terms of that kind of first step towards elevating both the customer experience as well as their employee experience?
Timo Anderson (26:10):
I would say for me, the one thing I say almost every single training, if you walk away today and you go back and go into your business, go out in the community, walk the streets as you're going home and use the ten four rule, smile at somebody within 10 feet when they're within 10 feet, 360 degrees and make eye contact [00:26:30] and then verbally engage at four feet, you will positively impact that space if you're in New York City. Some people don't like it, I just promise I've tried it, but in your business it will change. The second that I would say to really look at is what are you trying to teach? What are your expectations? And if you don't have a clear definition, it doesn't have to be ours, but what do you want them to do every single time with a customer, right? You talked about Disney and your five components of that, I don't remember what they were, but for us [00:27:00] it's teach to five. It's teach thinking about that. We're having these components, so we want to think about, figure out what the customer wants, get it for them, and do that extra. If we can get it down to that clarity and let people start to do that, three steps is great. 42 steps sucks because you won't ever get past step seven. So just really thinking those two elements, what is our definition if we're not teaching them, they can't learn.
JD Dillon (27:24):
It resonated with that so much, even in practical experience because when I joined Disney, we had seven [00:27:30] standards that we were operating based on because the seven Dwarves. So they were all be like, doc, be likes, like don't be bashful. Those types of things. Guess what? Were really hard to remember. Seven different things associated to a different character set. It became much easier when we distill it down to four and now it's five ideas, and then connected them to specific actionable behaviors that I can do to bring that to life. And it was always a joy when my teams had conversations wrapped around our core value set [00:28:00] because it showed how actionable the culture had become. And I think that's the big thing I'm taking away is it's not enough to write it on the wall and have a banner hanging in the office and these types of things,
Timo Anderson (28:10):
Or put it on the card on the lanyard. I've seen that too. And it's like, okay, so do you want me to do this? Literally pull up my lanyard and be like, so JD , I am
JD Dillon (28:20):
Hello customer. Let me see what I'm supposed to do for you today. But no, so how do you embed it and how work is done and make it just easy, actionable concepts [00:28:30] that are easy to bring to life in everyone's job, no matter what you do within the organization.
Timo Anderson (28:35):
Yep.
JD Dillon (28:36):
Awesome. So Timo, thank you so much again for joining us today and sharing Zingerman's passion and insights into customer service with our audience. How can people connect with you, follow the awesome work you're doing and learn more about Zingerman's and ZingTrain?
Timo Anderson (28:47):
So zing train.com is on our post there. It is very easy to follow us there. We're doing a special on our seminars right now, so you could see that it's a couple days and you could reach out. And if you reach out there, we have an email. You can reach [00:29:00] out directly to ZingTrain at zingerman's dot com. So love to hear from you and love to continue the conversation. Thank you so much, JD .
JD Dillon (29:07):
Thank you again so much Timo and to our friends at ZingTrain for sharing their insights and to building exceptional customer service cultures. And if you want to order your own delicious lunch, including I got the macaroons for dessert, head over to zingerman's dot com to check out their entire selection of offerings. And if you had a good time today, be sure to subscribe to ITK. Head over to Axonify.com/ITK to sign up for show [00:29:30] announcements and reminders, and you can binge-watch the entire ITK collection, the archive of episodes on the Axonify YouTube channel, or listen to in the Know on your favorite podcast app. And of course, remember to download our brand new employee engagement playbook available ungated at Axonify.com/playbook. I'll see you back here on the next IK on Wednesday, June 12th at 11:30 AM Eastern Time. Until then, I've been JD. Now you're in the know. And always remember to ask yourself the important [00:30:00] questions like, what did the deli employee tell his coworker after a tough day on the job? Everything's going to breathe. All right, I'll see you next time. In the nose, produced by RIchia McCutcheon Visual designed by Mark Anderson. Additional production support by Andrea Miller and Tuong La. The show is written and hosted by JD Dillon. ITK is an Axonify production. For more information on how Axonify helps frontline workers learn, connect, and get [00:30:30] things done, visit Axonify.com.