All business owners are working tirelessly to increase their market share, increase their customer base, build their email lists, launch new products and increase their revenue streams. These are all great goals but I challenge you to make customer service your number one priority if you plan to be in business for the long haul. Here’s the thing, without customers, you have no business; without strategies to keep your existing customers happy and loyal, you will be working your tail off to acquire new customers daily.
Why not invest in the customers that you’ve worked so hard and continue to work so hard to acquire? If you value your customers, you can be sure of a lasting and consistent stream of revenue.
The book, “Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit” by Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon, teaches the importance of investing in customer service using many illustrations and case studies of successful businesses.
These successful businesses stand out from the crowd (competition) because of the creative methods they adopt to provide special and intentional attention to their customers.
Here are 4 creative ideas that really stood out for me in the book. I hope you will be challenged to go an extra mile, to be creative in developing strategies to make your customers feel like royalty when interacting with you and your business:
1.) A thoughtful restaurant might establish a procedure to offer a choice of reading material, perhaps a newspaper or news magazine to everyone who comes to each alone.
2.) In the middle of summer, customers entering your boutique escaping 95-degree heat would be pleased to find ice water with lemon slices on the counter when they walk in the door.
3.) A gas station attendant who’s keeping an eye out for customers who are becoming habitual customers (but are not yet quite loyal) could note the name on those customer’s credit cards and at the very least use their name when thanking them.
4.) A hotel that has a guests preferences and concerns tracking system would make sure that their very allergic guest who only felt comfortable in her room if she had ten boxes of tissues placed there finds the ten boxes of tissues in any branch that she visits across the country, without her making the request.
George Jenkins, the late company founder of Publix Super Markets developed the customer service culture of Publix by always asking and answering this question… “How would you treat a king or a queen if they were in your home?”
Ask yourself the same question… “If a king or queen showed up at your business, emailed or called your business, how would you treat them?” I challenge you to build customer loyalty by treating your customers like kings and queens.