Corner Deli that Dared to Break Out of the Neighborhood” in 2007, Zingerman’s twenty-fifth anniversary.
Ari is an author in his own right, and has written multiple books and pamphlets explaining Zingerman’s business philosophy. Available through Zingerman’s Press, the titles are diverse and range from the fifty-two-page pamphlet Bottom Line Change: Zingerman’s Recipe for Effective Organizational Change to full books such as Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading Part 4: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to the Power of Beliefs in Business (there are also parts 1 to 3) and my favorite, Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service.
In addition to its mission and guiding principles, another feature that defines Zingerman’s is its decision to develop new, independent businesses rather than franchise successful ones. Firmly rooted in Ann Arbor, each new business is operated by one or more managing partners who not only run the business but also share ownership. Annual revenue companywide is now about $62 million—a far cry from the early days at the deli.
However, not all of the businesses under the Zingerman’s umbrella revolve around retail. ZingTrain, their customer service and leadership training company, hosts seminars in Ann Arbor and on-site around the country. It’s run by Maggie Bayless, who worked in the deli while getting her MBA at Michigan in the late 1980s. Asked why she got involved with ZingTrain, she says she admired its focus on customer service.
“After graduation, I stayed in touch with Ari and Paul and watched how they worked to build an organizational culture that focused on service not only to paying customers but also to staff and each other,” she says. “I didn’t find that approach to service, or to leadership, in any of the companies where I worked post-MBA. So in 1994 I saw an opportunity to bring my passion for training back to Zingerman’s—to both improve the quality of internal training and also to offer outside organizations an inside look at how Zingerman’s does business. From the beginning, customer service training was the number one topic that ZingTrain clients have been looking for.”
Guiding Principles
At some companies, the mission statement and guiding principles (if they exist) may be in the employee handbook, but they are definitely not ingrained in the company’s culture. Not so at Zingerman’s, where the guiding principles inspire day-to-day decisions as well as future ones. They are the foundation of how employees relate to one another, their customers, suppliers, and the greater Ann Arbor community.
As a cofounder of Zingerman’s, Ari has played a huge role in establishing, nurturing, and growing its customer service philosophy. A self-described “lapsed anarchist,” he is deeply passionate when he speaks about customer service, which is as essential to Zingerman’s identity as a pastrami sandwich from the deli. This isn’t just lip service.
Unlike most companies, which only consider a financial bottom line, Zingerman’s has three bottom lines: Great Food, Great Service, and Great Finance.
Customers don’t accidentally have a good experience at Zingerman’s. Customer service is woven into the fabric of the company, as the text from bottom line number 2, below, shows.
“Our business exists only because of customers who spend their money on our products. The customer is the only reason we are here. Consequently, the customer is never an interruption. Without those customers, there would be no Zingerman’s and no jobs. Consequently, the customer always comes first.”
One morning, during a busy breakfast at the Roadhouse, Ari and I spoke about all this. The room was filled with people of all ages and occupations, from millennials with babies and people in suits to older couples enjoying a cup of coffee. Over the chatter from patrons and servers, Ari explained Zingerman’s customer service philosophy.
“Customer service has been a bottom line, a literally, overtly stated bottom line for us, for twenty-seven years. We said in the mid-’90s that we have three bottom lines. And one of the reasons that we did that was because we decided that for us customer service was an end in and of itself. It wasn’t just a tactical step.”
He took a sip of tea and continued.
“For us it’s a core piece of everything. And I think really that’s why we did it, but I think it extends to people’s lives everywhere because it’s a mindset around your existence in the world.”
Before we discuss exactly how Zingerman’s delivers on the promise of meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations, it’s essential to understand a bit more about the philosophy of the company and why it has garnered so much national attention.
To begin with, for Ari and everyone else at Zingerman’s, “Great Service” is not just one of three bottom lines: it’s also the second of eight guiding principles, all of which are spelled out on the company’s website and in its printed literature. Along with the company’s mission statement and bottom lines, its guiding principles seem to be engraved on Ari’s heart, holding him accountable not only to Zingerman’s customers but also to its employees, from the bus girl to the managing partners.
These guiding principles weave together a very particular culture. And, as you can see, they are as enthusiastic as the people who work there:
1. Great Food!
2. Great Service!
3. A Great Place to Shop and Eat!
4. Solid Profits!
5. A Great Place to Work!
6. Strong Relationships!
7. A Place to Learn!
8. An Active Part of Our Community!
Reading guiding principle number 2, “Great Service!,” it’s easy to be cynical. You’ve probably heard something like it before:
We go the x-tra mile, giving exceptional service to each guest. We are committed to giving great service—meeting the guests’ expectations and then exceeding them. Great service like this is at the core of the Zingerman’s Experience. Our guests always leave with a sense of wonderment at how we have gone out of our way to make their experience at Zingerman’s a rewarding one.
If you’ve just done a mental eye roll, I don’t blame you. Pretty much every business claims to “go the extra mile” and “care” about your experience, even cable companies and airlines. However, in talking with Ari it’s very clear that these are not just empty words. He emphatically believes that he and his team not only need to meet customers’ expectations, but continually exceed them before, during, and after the sale. They do this in myriad ways. One small example: training employees to look people in the eye or engage verbally, depending upon how far from the customer they’re standing.
“Our job is to increase expectations,” says Ari. “Don’t you have higher expectations of yourself than you used to? Everybody that’s growing is increasing their expectations. It’s a good problem.”
This belief is reflected in the description of Zingerman’s second guiding principle:
Customer satisfaction is the fuel that stokes the Zingerman’s fire. If our guests aren’t happy, we’re not happy. To this end, we consistently go the x-tra mile—literally and figuratively—for our guests. The customer is never an interruption in our day. We welcome feedback of all sorts. We constantly reevaluate our performance to better accommodate our customers. Our goal is to have our guests leave happy. Each of us takes full responsibility for making our guest’s experience an enjoyable one before, during, and after the sale.
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