Maya Angelou

The Maya Angelou Quote That Will Radically Improve Your Business

The passing of poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou has triggered a flood of articles highlighting her most famous quotes. The quotes are moving and inspiring, but there’s one in particular that can radically improve the way you do business if you put it into action.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I think about Angelou’s perceptive observation nearly every time I interview leaders for this column who have turned businesses into customer service champions. In fact, some have even quoted Angelou to make their point. Brands that excel in service focus on making people feel good about the relationship with the product, service, or employees.

For example, I’ve written several articles on AT&T’s renewed focus on making its stores the customer service leader in its category. It now has two J.D. Power customer service awards to show for it. AT&T conducted focus group research to develop its “10 feet or 10 seconds” method of greeting a customer. One focus group was greeted within 10 feet or 10 seconds of entering the store. The second group was not greeted nor told how long they would have to wait for service. Each group waited exactly three minutes to be served, and not a second more. Controlling for all other factors, AT&T consistently found that the first group had a significantly better perception of the brand because they “felt” recognized and acknowledged.

According to Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, “Customers shouldn’t think of your business as a place to buy a product or use a service. It should be a fun place to be!” Branson is a master of making his employees feel good and, when employees feel as though work is a “fun place to be,” they spread their enthusiasm to customers. Branson is constantly thinking about how people—employees and customers—should feel about the brand. When I interviewed Branson for this story, I realized that public praise plays a major role in how he motivates employees. “Praise people and people flourish; criticize and they shrivel up,” Branson once said.

Let’s turn to Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. Schultz’ vision for Starbucks wasn’t about the coffee as much as it was about the experience—the feeling—that Schultz wanted people to have when they walked in. Schultz had never planned to build a store that just sold coffee beans. Schultz traveled to Italy and had “an epiphany,” a feeling he couldn’t shake. Pay attention to the words Schultz uses in a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey about how he felt in an Italian cafe: “I was out of my mind. I walked in and saw a symphony of activity and the romance and the theater of coffee, coffee at the center of conversation and the sense of community. That’s what spoke to me.” Schultz didn’t want to bring the coffee back from Italy, but the feeling of the experience.

When I first interviewed Howard Schultz, I was the one who first brought up the word ‘coffee.’ Schultz doesn’t sell coffee; he sells an experience. He’s focused on how people feel when they enter a store. Everything in a Starbucks store— design, smells, sounds—is created to evoke a feeling of community and conversation.

When former Apple Store executive, George Blankenship, built out the first retail experiences for Tesla Motors, he told me his mission was not to “sell cars,” but to put a smile on people’s faces. I looked back at this Forbes.com article I wrote two years ago about the Tesla dealerships and customer service. Blankenship said, “We’re not selling you anything. We want you to feel differently when you leave the store.” When people learn something new in a relaxed setting where they are made to ‘feel’ better, they have a much stronger connection and more pleasurable connection to the brand.

Blankenship received the best training in customer service from his previous boss, Steve Jobs. The Apple Store grew into the most profitable retailer in America because Jobs and his team had decided in 2001 to reimagine the entire retail experience. They started by asking the question, “How do we want customers to feel when they walk into the store?” By focusing on “feelings” before profits, the Apple Store went on to become America’s most profitable retailer. Apple, Tesla, Starbucks, Virgin and many other great customer service brands have learned the lesson in Maya Angelou’s quote—people will never forget how you made them feel.