Intro
In the previous section, Getting Down to Business we talked about our business core being based on a simple obvious fact that ice cream is a luxury. That’s a given and it drives everything we do to sell our ice cream and sell a lot of it. As we said earlier, we are a million dollar a year business.
In this section, we are going to take a close look and what I am calling the Four Pillars of the brand. And really these are the fundamental trade secrets, ingredients that we are sharing with you. Everything else from this point in the training will identify, explain, and demonstrate what we do make ice cream as much of a craving as we can in the minds and hearts and taste buds of our customers.
Best Practices and Benchmarking
Over the years we have done an enormous amount of research into best practices and bench marking of the best of the best ice cream businesses around the country. During our off seasons and on our vacations we travel by car. Our travel planning typically includes visits to ice cream businesses who are known as the best out there.
At the Dairyland, we are always experimenting with new ideas and practices to continuously improve. Doing this for many moons, we have selected the following as these four major pillars of our brand.
- Premium product
- Customer care
- Fun environment
- Memorable experience
Let’s take a look …
1. Premium Ice Cream
The first pillar is our premium ice cream.
Not just ice cream.
Artisan – Small Batch – Handcraft -Designer Flavors
Fresh Ingredients Premium Quality
Taste the Difference – butter fat
Three Product Lines – Ice Cream, Soft Serve, and Frown Yogurt
More about this in Module Four – Our Product
2. Customer Care – Who are You Working For
The second pillar is our customer care, sometimes referred to as customer service. We think customer care captures a higher standard. Caring entails empathy, compassion,
Who’s the most important person you’ll be working for at Uncle Ray’s? Who’s your boss?
It’s not me, not Todd, not Paula. Our Customers.
We refer to our brand of customer care as Knock Your Socks Off and Wow Factor Customer Care and we have an entire module that goes into considerable detail and actual demonstration – Module Three – Customer Care
3. Fun Environment
The third pillar supporting our brand is plain old fun. Hard work, high expectations, urgency can be draining, tiring. The magic comes from the idea that we are not working, we’re playing, having fun.
Uncle Ray used to love to say, “We’re not really in the ice cream business, were in the Fun business! How great is that?!?! It’s unbelievable! It’s exciting! It’s the absolute best thing that happened to them today! The great thing is that we spent almost 40 years building it – all we have to do is keep going- it might look simple. Simple things are often the hardest. It’s like a football game, never take a play off, even if there are only 10 seconds left! Heck, we might even put our competitors out of business. There’s no place like us unless you drive thousand miles south to Orlando!
Consequently, when guests who may have saved up all week long to have one of our delicious ice cream treats they are looking for a Feeling they get when they are greeted and treated to an extremely Friendly experience.
Powerful Mood Changer
We are the place where customers come for a lot of different reasons. Most of the time they are celebrating some event or accomplishment. However sometimes they come because someone needs a mood breaker. Maybe they’ve simply had a bad day. Maybe their dog died.
Their boyfriend broke up with them. They went to a funeral. They’re coming from chemotherapy. Whatever their reason, the only thing that sounds good at that moment is a friendly voice at the drive-up window and their favorite ice cream treat.
Having Fun
When we come to work we want to pretend like we are playing. This is like having fun.
You heard it before, were not really in the ice cream business, we’re in the business of fun. When real small kids go to Disney world and see Mickey Mouse and Cinderella, those memories last for a lifetime. We have to be just like that. If they can’t get to Disneyland, the happiest place on earth. Let them get to Uncle Ray’s Dairyland, the second happiest place on earth.
We don’t want to walk around here like robots. We want to be having a good time.
It’s a simple choice to be happy. Choose your attitude. Choose to be happy.
Downer moods are unacceptable. It’s no fun to be around someone who’s down.
When we’re with a customer, we want to be there. We want to look them right in the eye. Look right at them. We’ve got expectations that are high. We’re famous all over the place.
So let’s be sure we’re with the customer and make their day. That’s our mission: Make people happy, they leave in a better mood. They walk around with a smile on their face. “Hey, I was just down to Uncle Ray’s and did I have a good time when I was there.”
Happy
So choose your attitude … to be happy. Play and have fun. Be there for the customer and make their day.
How happy? EXTREMELY.
Who is it that we want to be happy? Two people. The customer AND you.
Your goal is to be sure your guest is extremely happy and everyone working with you is extremely happy. We give great service to our guest AND to each other.
The owners of Uncle Ray’s mission is to give great service to you on the team. The team will give great service to each other. When the team is well working together, you will give great service to the guest. When you go home tonight and your parents ask, “How did you like working at uncle Ray’s?” We want nothing less than you to respond, “Wow! I love that place!”
The result is simple. The team is extremely happy + The guest is extremely happy->And the owners of Uncle Ray’s are extremely happy because they have a business that is thriving and customers are happily lined up to the street. It has to be in this order or it falls apart.
The truth is that you are not here just to please me, Todd, and Paula. We are pleased only when the team and the customers are pleased.
4. Memorable Experiences
The fourth pillar is the outcome of the other three pillars: premium ice cream, customer care, fun enjoyable setting. It’s the total experience that makes a positive, lasting impression on your customers and takes more than simple courtesy. Much more. It means creating a memorable experience for every customer every time they come into our store. It means meeting and exceeding their expectations in such a way that you’re seen as easy to do business with. Our customers who experience all that will be our customer again and again. When you deliver great service, everybody wins – our customer, our store, and you.
Because we’ve been around 1978, we’ve had the opportunity to serve over 5 million ice cream treats. Customers don’t come here to eat an ice cream cone, they come here to experience it. There is a big difference. You eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, but you come to Uncle Ray’s for something special. Maybe you came here as a small child with your mother or dad, grandfather or grandmother. You came here after a ballgame, a dance recital or a good grade. These are moments that make memories long after those special people and times are gone.
Life is about making memories. Uncle Ray’s is more than an ice cream place. So much more.
Isn’t it cool to be part of something that is admired, marveled and treasured by so many? When the talk is customers telling their friends, you gotta check out Uncle Ray’s, that place is Unbelievable. It’s unbelievable because there is nothing like it – well maybe Disney.
Wow Factor
You just knew we were going to say it….”Wow, I Love that place!” We gotta have it from both the team and the guests … when we work, when they visit. Everything has to be a Wow-Experience.
How about using the umbrella we keep our front door to escort a customer to their car when it’s raining- that’s Wow!
How about answering the drive-up with a song in your voice- that’s Wow!
We are motivated by high standards, by greatness not just our award-winning ice cream and yogurt. It means great service – our personal appearance, the appearance of the store – clean, welcoming surroundings – patio, walk-up windows, parking areas, tables, and restrooms. It means the way a sundae is been perfectly assembled and presented, wow it’s a work of art.
It means striving for greatness in everything we do. Everything is important. There are no exceptions.
Liking our store just won’t cut it. When our customers leave our store, we have to be sure they leave, feeling, “Wow, I LOVE that place!
Value-Added
Of course, guests see our product consisting of great people, a great place, a great experience and our award-winning ice cream, and don’t forget our super fun, prize-winning miniGOLF! We have become a favorite destination in southeastern Michigan because we have created an attraction where people can take their whole family for a fun total experience. This is a whole lot more fun than going to the movies for two hours where we sit in the dark and don’t speak to each other.
So they come as close friends, as families, as sweet hearts. They bring grandma and grandpa, the dog, for gosh sakes! They laugh, have a good time talking to each other- as long as the kids aren’t Snapchatt’n or texting- this is a great time and memory maker at a heckuva price!
Mutual Appreciation
When we close our doors from Christmas until Valentines day, they honestly miss us. They love Uncle Ray’s and we love them and value their business. Our customers are the only reason we are in business. Without them we have nothing but a pretty building – there are a few pretty buildings that once had ice cream stores- those businesses are no longer here. We value their business and are committed to doing everything to make sure they come back again and again.