Zane Talks Customer Service at ABA Opening Keynote

On Monday, the American Booksellers Association kicked off its ninth annual Day of Education [1] at BookExpo America [2], with a plenary session featuring nationally noted speaker and entrepreneur Christopher J. Zane [3], owner of Zane’s Cycles [4], the largest retail bicycle shop in the country.

Before Zane took the stage, newly appointed ABA President Becky Anderson of Anderson’s Bookshops [5] in Naperville, Illinois, opened the session by thanking the Ingram Content Group for its “sustained and gracious support.” She noted that booksellers are experiencing not only “challenging times, but also times of distinct opportunity,” and that the amount of positivity that has emerged is a testament to the strength and resiliency of the industry.

Anderson introduced Zane as “a great retailer,” adding, “I think we can learn a lot from him.”

Zane’s engaging keynote presented his perspective on “the most important part of the retail industry”: providing extraordinary customer service. At the heart of Zane’s talk, as well as his book Reinventing The Wheel: The Science of Creating Lifelong Customers (BenBella Books), is the importance of adding value to the customer relationship.

Zane said he likes to begin his talks by handing out money, which is exactly what he did, approaching several audience members with a bowl of quarters, instructing them to help themselves. He explained that, in the same way the audience members took different amounts from the bowl, customers will take different levels of service when it is offered to them.

“When you provide more service than people need, they can pick and choose what works for them,” he said. “If we have service that’s extraordinary, they’re only going to take what they need. We provide more service than what’s reasonable.”

When Zane first opened his store 23 years ago, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to compete with nearby bike shops on price or size, so he decided service was going to make the difference.

Using guerrilla marketing techniques has kept Zane’s ahead of the competition. When the store first opened, its competitors offered 90 days of free service. Zane took it one step further by immediately implementing one year of free service in his store. When his competitor matched one year, he bumped it up to two. Eventually, Zane’s Cycles started offering lifetime free service.

“The great thing about the free service program is that it makes a for a good selling point, but it’s an offer that only some people will take advantage of,” which he related back to the idea of providing more service than necessary. “And we know we sell quality bikes,” he added. “If we sold it to them, we know it’s not going to just break.”

The Price Protection plan that Zane’s offers followed the same pattern of starting out at 90 days and eventually became a lifetime program. Zane shared a story of a customer taking advantage of the program after seeing his bike for $55 less in a competitor’s store. When he returned to Zane’s, he was handed $55 from the cash register.

“He just bought a bike from us, and is now standing back in our store with $55 in his hand,” said Zane. “We got him.”

In addition to these programs, Zane’s Cycles has a non-conditional return policy, and staff is given latitude to resolve customer problems in a positive way.

Zane has taken great care to the calculate lifetime value of a customer, which he figures to be approximately $12,500. He encouraged booksellers to do the same, noting that it will empower owners, managers, and staff to provide excellent customer service for every person that walks into the store.

“We build long-term relationships with our customers,” he said. “Our relationships with customers are not a singular transaction.”

At Zane’s Cycles, the staff relies heavily on customer feedback, asking customers to fill out a satisfaction survey where they rate their experience from one to 10, with one being the lowest possible rating.

“We’re constantly asking what we can do better,” he said. “I actually love getting ones [on the survey], because we can fix the ones.”

Though bike selling and bookselling are different trades, Zane urged booksellers to determine the unique value their store offers shoppers, and he encouraged them to develop their own ways of implementing it through superior customer service.

In closing, Zane suggested booksellers stock his book in their store, and, in keeping with his stance on service, he assured the audience that if customers were unsatisfied, he would refund them the cost of the book.

For more on Chris Zane’s retail philosophy, read last week’s BTW Q&A [6].