The Story of How Chick-fil-A Borrowed “My Pleasure” from a Luxury Hotel

00:00:10
Speaker 1: And we continue with our American Stories. And up next is a story about a founder, and we’d love to tell founder stories here on the show. We love to tell stories of people who turn nothing into something. And here the storyteller is Horst Schulze, who co-founded the Ritz-Carlton Hotels in 1983 here in America. And this story has a lot to do with service. It has a lot to do with customers, and it has to do also with a fellow Atlanta founder, Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, and where the phrase, “My pleasure,” came from.

00:00:51
Speaker 2: We all talk about service. Let me define service for a moment. It starts the instant you make contact. It doesn’t start a second later. It starts, in fact, within nine feet. Why? Because within nine feet, you make decisions about somebody, and they make a decision about you. So it starts with the great welcome, welcome, and then it continues with complying to the guest’s wishes. And that complying is very simply that I’m in that moment. It’s not about me anymore; it’s not about my company; it’s about my customer. I’m now here to help that customer to make the right decision for him or her. That’s how I’m complying. I’m here to be an assistant to that guest to make a great decision for themselves. And then it ends by saying farewell. That is service: welcome, comply, farewell. And people talk about the great service, asking to define it. You haven’t even given thought to what it is. That’s why they don’t receive it. They receive it if somebody happens to… if you happen to be lucky, you happen to hit a nice person, not by the design of the organization, and that is wrong. It has to be designed by the organization that there is service delivery. That means attention for the benefit of our customer. You know my relationship with Chick-fil-A, you know. And then Cathy, who is, of course, Chick-fil-A, is an exceptional, exceptional company. Exceptional people. Then asked me one day, ‘They have you?’ He tells the story slightly differently. I know that I’m right how I tell it, but they’re very close to same, the two stories. One day, asked me: ‘Have you been in Chick-fil-A?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ ‘So what do you think?’ I said, ‘Well, you’re the best of a lousy lot.’ And he said, ‘What?’ ‘Well, you’re not, but you’re better than the rest of them.’ And we discussed that. And then, of course, he asked me to kind of teach the people and deal with them, and we did a lot of things together. And one thing was, I had a meeting with his managers, all his vice presidents, in their headquarters, talking about verbal — how do you talk to a customer? And first of all, you should look at them within nine feet and say, ‘Hello, good morning, welcome.’ So the behavioral analysts say that the person relates to you with a mixed decision where they come, but about three meters, nine or ten feet, that’s when you make a decision that instant. So you want to make sure that that instant, a positive decision, goes into their subconscious. In fact, we have an interesting study. In the very beginning of Cal, we had comment cards, which is not very scientific, but I had about 400,000 when we were dealing with J.D. Power. I knew J.D. Power at the time very well. He said he was a step out of only automotive, and we were the first company that they actually did something with outside of automotive. I said, ‘Well, if I have those 400,000 cards here…’ ‘I’m being told it’s not a very scientific study.’ But when he said, ‘We’re given to me, we see what we can find,’ he came back and said something very interesting here. Whenever the first contact was good (that means sales or reservation, doorman, front desk, or bellman), when that was good, never, ever, did a complaint follow. Never, ever. Whenever there was one negative in the first contact, always other complaints followed. So in other words, you can put people into a subconscious positive if the first contact immediately happens to be well. And nine feet is very important because that’s when the decision is being made subconsciously; subconscious is stronger than conscious. So it’s a very important moment. So we taught from there on, whatever you’re doing within nine feet, you look at the customer and say, ‘Well, come undone,’ and eliminate. In our case, we said eliminate words like ‘hi,’ because I want to tell the customer immediately, ‘You’re important to us.’ If I say ‘hi,’ I’m saying we are equal. If I’m saying, ‘Welcome, sir, welcome,’ I’m saying you’re important to us. And I am very professional. I’m giving two messages here, which creates trust. So, and then, of course, we taught our people to eliminate two more words. Don’t ever say ‘folks,’ ‘guys,’ et cetera, and don’t say ‘okay.’ In our case, say, ‘I’m delighted to,’ or ‘It’s my pleasure.’ So right away, this kid that I hired from the inner city becomes a very elegant young man that we put in the correct uniform. Correct, because if I hired that kid, he now the next day is facing the chairman of the board of the Bank of England. I’m going to make sure that interaction happens right if eliminated those three things: ‘Hi’ or ‘whatever,’ ‘dude,’ ‘guys,’ ‘folks,’ and ‘okay.’ Now, all of a sudden, there’s a very elegant young man there. So I was explaining that to Chick-fil-A and said, ‘Now you have to eliminate “Okay.” We use “My pleasure,” and I guess — and I think this is wrong for your market segment.’ ‘Let’s find a different word.’ And we were — everybody agreed it was not the right word for Chick-fil-A. ‘My pleasure’ was too fancy, and we kind of discussed it when suddenly, in the back of the room, somebody raised their finger and said, ‘I like “My pleasure,”‘ which was Truett Cathy. Who? The owner, the founder, this great gentleman. ‘I like “My pleasure,”‘ I said. ‘Yeah, yeah, but you know, but it is too sophisticated for Chick-fil-A, Mr. Cathy.’ That was Truett Cathy. ‘It is too, too sophisticated. It, you should.’ He said, ‘I like it.’ That ended the discussion. By the way, guess what they’re saying? They’re saying, ‘My pleasure,’ you know. And, and so, and implemented some other criteria of service, which Dan will tell anybody, that I was successful to help them with. Now, they didn’t become an exceptional company because of me, but those are the little things that I helped them with, including the ‘My pleasure’ thing which they became famous for. I was wrong, and I didn’t tell them to use ‘My pleasure.’ I was against it.

00:08:25
Speaker 1: So anyway, and a terrific job on the editing and storytelling by Greg Henkel, and a special thanks to Horst Schulze, as always, for sharing his stories with us. And it’s not just a story; we have a bunch by Horst because, well, what a storyteller he is, and what wisdom he has. And by the way, what a thing to know that it all starts in that very first contact. And if you’ve ever been to a Ritz-Carlton, it’s different than the other hotels. Impeccably dressed, alert, they greet you from far away. It’s always ‘Welcome,’ and they’re different in every contact throughout the organization. And we can all be different, and we can all be better versions of ourselves. And what a story about ‘My pleasure’ and where it came from! Just beautiful storytelling. Go to more of Horst’s work on OurAmericanStories.com. His book is called Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise. The story of where ‘My pleasure’ came from, here on Our American Stories.