Do you remember the days of classic cars, the milk man, and going to a full service gas station? Remember when you went to the grocery store and the clerk knew your name or going to the bank to catch up on gossip? What happen to these times? Technology is what has happened. Although many things have become easier to do and more cost efficient something has been lost in the process. The answer, personality.

Many times you receive a mailer from the corporate banks about a new offer, but whatever happened to the note from your personal banker Mary? She is now a computer utilizing the mail merge feature from a printing center in India. What should this mean to you? This means do something different when contacting your customers. This means writing a personal note now means that you have gone out of your way to say you care. There is an intangible value from seeing a hand written note compared to a mass mailer. Your customer can see through the mass mailer, but pauses to see the handwritten note. For example, I have multiple businesses and every Christmas or after a doing a job for a client I write a nice note on a Hallmark card to show how much I appreciate their business. the next time I see this customer or a few days later I always get the response, “I didn’t expect to receive such a nice note from you.” This comment tells me that I have WOW’ed the customer. You have now become a real person to them and not just another guy doing a job.

Another quick tip for you is to write a  brief reminder about your customers interest and any other idea that helps you remember who they are. Then the next time call them by name and ask them about their interest. My customers while working for the bank have been absolutely awed by this concept because I happen to see and talk to about 30 customers everyday. But, doing these little things means more opportunities for you to shine as an individual and possibly sales for your business in the future. 

These concepts and fundamentals can be credited to my grandfather whose sole purpose while doing business is caring for the customer. If you are good to your customer they will be good to you. Building a relationship takes time, but the rewards are countless. It has been proven that keeping the customers you have and spending the time on them is more cost effective than trying to recruit new customers. Not to say that you shouldn’t market to potential clients, but to remember who has helped you keep your business running. If you take care of your customers just like the old days you will be sure to maintain customer satisfaction, have a more dedicated customer base, and who knows you may make some lifelong friends in the process.

If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions please email us at questions@businessonthemound.com.

Tags: Customer Service, old school

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Customer Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.