Skip to main contentYou really should read: The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence
Would you like to learn the consumer-satisfaction secrets companies like Domino's Pizza and Dell have used to achieve whatever success they have achieved? (We would tell you what that success is, but we don't care.) Spector wrote a book about those secrets, then wrote another book about the secrets of successful mom-and-pop businesses, and now travels the country sharing those secrets. Secrets! 2 pm Saturday, Oct. 10. Columbia Sportswear Stage.
What's your personal writing ritual?
Organization, organization, organization. I gather up all the materials, spread them out on tables and desks throughout my office, look them over, file them, and begin to absorb all the information.
What are your favorite themes to write about?
Customer service through human interaction.
The most beautiful word in the English language is: "Yes", followed closely by "Doily".
What authors made you want to pick up a pen in the first place, and why?
Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, to make people laugh and then make them think.
Fight Club time: If you could fight one author (or critic), who would it be and why?
To quote, singer-songwriter Dave Mason, "I'm a writer, not a fighter."
Name a book you think is highly overrated. Be honest.
That question's too snarky for my taste. Anyone who actually writes a readable book deserves our respect.
Dream project:
I just had it published: The Mom Pop Store, my current book, which is part memoir (my parents had a butcher shop in a farmers market in Perth Amboy, N.J.) and part road story (I interviewed mom-and-pop store owners all over the U.S.).
Most recent nightmare:
A journalist asked me what my most recent nightmare was, and I didn't have a good answer.
Your cure for writer's block:
Never heard of it.
Pessimistic question:
Will you keep writing even after people stop reading? I'm an optimist. People will stop reading only when they stop breathing.
Cautiously optimistic question: Obama? Discuss.
If you base your optimism on any politician of either party, you will invariably be disappointed and disillusioned. Base your optimism on yourself and the people who surround you, not on someone who doesn't know your name.
Share one thing you've had to change in your everyday life thanks to our current recession.
Eat out less.
Please paste a short paragraph from a story you're currently working on:
"Connecting to your community and your customers has always been essential to the success of small businesses, particularly in challenging economic times. Lora Lewis, who owns Hotwire Online Coffeehouse in Seattle, works with her baristas to remember customers' names. 'Collectively, they knew every regular customer's name,' said Lewis. 'But we had never shared that with each other. Now, when a customer comes in, if one of the baristas knows the customer's name, he or she will greet the customer by name and the other barista will take note of it. Eventually, we all know all customers' names.' We all like it when somebody knows our name. Simple? Yes. Effective? What do you think?"
WWeek 2015