Despite what his business
card says, Dale Moser
views himself as just another customer service representative. That’s also how
the president and chief operating officer of megabus.com
views each of the company’s
150 employees.
“We can build the field, but
that doesn’t mean they’re
going to come,” he says. “We
need to make sure we’re meeting the needs of the customer.”
To fulfill that promise, Moser
regularly visits megabus.com
departure sites to hear, face to
face, the opinions and needs of
his customers. The practice has
helped push the 2006 start-up
and subsidiary of Coach USA
to 2007 revenue of approximately $15 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Moser about how to stay in
touch with your customers to
help grow your business.
Q. How do you break into a
new industry segment?
The key to that is making
sure you know what your customers’ needs are. When you
do that, you design it so that
you’re no less than meeting
those needs.
We’re out and about. We’re
out in the field. We’re not just
sitting in offices dreaming
things up. We’re looking at
what’s going on in the economy, what’s going on in our
social cultures, in our environments, in our cities. You look
at the potential to create a
service that has the underlying
plan to help with those issues.
I’d rather always under-commit and overdeliver. No
one’s ever going to be upset
with that. You commit to meet the expectations, and then you
deliver where you think, in
talking to customers, would
make the difference and differentiate you from the other
options they have.
There’s certain things that
once they try it, those were the
comfort zones that they say,
‘This is why I use you. I know
once I buy a ticket, I’m guaranteed a seat. There’s no getting
there, getting in line, finding out
the bus is full, and I have to wait
for the next bus, which
could be three hours
from now.’
Q. How do you stay in
touch with customers?
I respond to a large
majority of the e-mails
that come in from customers: ideas, suggestions, recommendations.
We do customer surveys
on a quarterly basis by
an independent firm.
That information is used
for us to reassess where
we need to go.
The one I like the best
is I like to get out. I like to
go to see a departure in
Chicago, in Milwaukee, in
Columbia, Missouri, and
talk to the customers before
they’re getting on the bus, and
just get a feel for why they’re
traveling today, why they selected us, what were they looking
for, what would they like to see.
