Poor Little Lambs

“AAAARGHHHH!!!!”

If you were standing outside anywhere in the Northeastern United States last Saturday morning, you would have heard this plaintive cry.

“AAAARGHHHHH!!!”

My wife had just arrived back from her third (in as many days) frustrating visit to Fedex/Kinko’s with a tale of woe. And being the resident cranky, customer service curmudgeon in my own company, I thought I would bring it to your attention.

The story starts in 1970 in Santa Barbara, California, where Kinko’s first started. According to the Fedex/Kinko web site, the first store front “measured 100 square feet and featured a single copier, offset press, film processing and a small selection of stationery and school supplies.” I think of this as the “copier that could.” Within four years there were 72 other locations.

I can relate to this story because those were the four years that I was in college. I remember the little copy center in New Haven on College Street where copies were 3 cents a page and the people behind the desk knew your name when you came in at 6 am after finishing a paper due at 9.

Over the years I spent many a night in Kinko’s. I remember 4 in the morning in Honolulu. I had a presentation the next morning before Hawaiian Airlines. I had gotten back to my hotel room from dinner the night before and learned that there were going to be 10 more people than I expected.

“No problem,” I thought. “I’ll find Kinko’s.” And so I did.

And that night in Baltimore, Maryland, in November 1999. MXenergy was launching its first product – a one year fixed price offer for natural gas to customers of Baltimore Gas & Electric. I was knocking on doors in Lithicum, MD, and the product sold so fast I needed to make more copies of our customer contract.

“No problem,” I thought. “I’ll find Kinko’s.” And so I did.

Or that time I visited a commercial customer with a colleague in Cleveland, shortly after Hurricane Katrina blew in. On the way to the meeting we learned that natural gas prices were hitting all time highs. I wanted to bring our customer a price chart and needed to find a computer…quickly.

“No problem,” I thought. “I’ll find Kinko’s.” And so I did.

Today you can find 1200 stores in 10 countries with 20,000 employees. Actually, Kinko’s calls its employees “team members,” something we do here at MXenergy as well. Which is one reason I always worshipped this company… until recently.

As much as I admire Federal Express, I’m afraid that I must date the decline of my little “copier that could” to the acquisition of Kinko’s by Fedex in February 2004. Fedex is a great company with its own history, dating back to an undergraduate paper written in 1965 by Frederick Smith. Smith recognized a need for a more efficient mechanism for distributing packages. More power to him. He capitalized on a great idea and built an international business that has improved business productivity worldwide.

I don’t blame Fedex for seeing a good fit with Kinko’s. But soon after the buyout I noticed a few things. The hard-working crew at Kinko’s were no where to be seen. Where were the team members that knew your name and remembered your order? That used to exceed expectations every time by having your copies ready hours before they were promised? That used to go out of their way to offer suggestions to improve the look and feel of your presentation?

I wonder if anybody at Kinko’s noticed that I stopped visiting on my out of town trips. It started when I went to a Kinko’s at midnight…and it was closing!

“But…you…can’t,” I mouthed to the employee on the other side of the glass door. “You’re…always…open!” He ignored me.

And then my wife’s experience. She needed to make 100 copies of a program for a theatrical performance she had produced. After waiting in line for some desultory employees to look up from their work, she left a sample to copy. The next day – after even less motivated employees finally found her order – she found the copies had not been made. She came back a couple hours later after having ordered 100 copies, only to find later that only 50 were made.

“But 50 times 2 pages is 100 copies, no?” asked the confused employee.

“No,” my wife explained. “I ordered 100 copies of a two page program which means 100 copies, not 50 copies.”

“AAARRGHHHH!!!”

What happened? Could it be that the entrepreneurial spirit of Kinko’s was crushed out of existence when Fedex moved in?

I remember late one night in the good old days one of the Kinko’s people – an immigrant from Russia, I recall, who worked long hours – told me that she felt like an owner because she held stock options in Kinko’s. She was motivated because she believed that good customer service would lead to more business and more business would lead to more value in her pocket. I understood this kind of motivation because we try to create the same kind of ownership pride at MXenergy, where many team members have the opportunity to own options or stock in our company.

If anybody over at Kinko’s sees this blog entry, I hope it doesn’t discourage them. Great companies can lose their way and still come back. I hope Kinko’s succeeds, with or without Fedex’s help. I still believe in the “little copier that could.”

Meanwhile, I am reminded of the Whiffenpoof song:

“We are poor little lambs who have lost our way,
Baaaah, Baaaah, Baaaah….”