The OSAT Renaissance Project Ep. #3

The Power of Thank You

Good Morning and welcome to The OSAT Renaissance Project day number three.

And what a nice day we had yesterday.  65% for yesterday…for Tuesday.  Wow!  You guys LED the way on OSAT yesterday.  And this made us jump back up to 60% for our 30 day score.  So Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Which leads us into our show today

Thank you!

Thank you for listening today.

Thank you for the feedback concerning this program.  It’s been great to hear from you guys.

Thank you for the energy you bring to the Kroger Company

Thank you Thank You Thank you

2 very simple words

Thank you

2 very powerful words

Thank you

2 very necessary words

Thank you

We are in the business of serving people.

We serve over 50,000 customers a day in our district.

And that’s just our customers who pay - what about the people that come with them?

Add that to the total

What about our vendors?

We serve them as they serve us…add them to the total

And our associates

We certainly serve them!

So just for fun let’s say we serve over 100,000 people a day

How many times do we say

THANK YOU

Saying "thank you" has become a competitive advantage. So few people express appreciation. In fact a Lenox etiquette poll found that nearly five out of every 10 people don't always say thanks

That is why remembering to do so is a sales point of difference.

I am shocked by our Customer Connection scores pertaining to Appreciating - saying thank you.  As a division we’re sitting at 77%.  It just seems like a basic thing to do in business and in life.  Our customers are giving us their money - shouldn’t we say thank you?

If someone handed you a few thousand dollars wouldn’t you say thank you in a BIG way?

Of course you would and this is what our customers are doing - handing us thousands of dollars each year.

Thank you

And a side note - don’t say “no problem”

Man that’s a pet peeve of mine…

And we see this or encounter this everyday.  I went into a store the other day - not a Kroger store but I’ve seen similar encounters in Kroger - and I made my selection and went to checkout.  As the cashier handed me my purchases after I handed her my money I said thank you.  Her reply was “No Problem”

Man I hate that!

It should never ever ever ever be a problem to serve a customer and when we say “No Problem” we are implying that a problem could’ve occurred - that the customer may have inconvenienced us.

UGH

Just say Thank You!  Thank you!  That’s all

These two words hold great power beyond the business world as well.

They are two words that have the power to transform our health, happiness, and success. Research shows that grateful people are happier and more likely to maintain good friendships. A state of gratitude, according to research by the Institute of HeartMath, also improves the heart’s rhythmic functioning, which helps us to reduce stress, think more clearly under pressure and heal physically. It’s actually physiologically impossible to be stressed and thankful at the same time. When you are grateful you flood your body and brain with emotions and endorphins that uplift and energize you rather than the stress hormones that drain you.

And thanking our team has great power too.

Gratitude and appreciation are essential for a healthy work environment. In fact, the number one reason why people leave their jobs is because they don’t feel appreciated. A simple thank you and a show of appreciation can make all the difference.

Saying thanks to associates has several benefits. You build staff loyalty (and we all know how much turnover can cost in time, money and stress). And you increase productivity, which leads to greater customer satisfaction….OSAT baby

Yet few managers or business owners bother. So it’s a problem outside of Kroger as well.  A scant 10% of employees report they have supervisors who say a daily "thank you" for a job well done, according to a recent nationwide Maritz poll. More than half of employees said they were thanked never, seldom or only occasionally.

WOW

So yesterday we covered the first of the 3 “A”s - Acknowledgement.  Today we have covered the last of the 3 “A”s - Appreciate.
If we get these two things mastered just think where we could go…

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

How easy it is to say…