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It has been very windy this week. As you watch trees that are stretched into the sky think about the roots that run deep to support the swaying of the tree.
In business, we will face windy times. Thus, we must grow our roots during the calm seasons so that our structure will not topple when the winds get high.
What are you doing to grow your roots?
This last point is a critical one. I once worked for a company that required that the sales people send out a letter at the end of each quarter to tell the customers what special service we had provided during that quarter. This did two things for our company. First, it made everyone on our staff conscious of doing the extra mile activities in our accounts since we knew that we would have to tell the customer something in that quarterly communication! Second it reminded the customer of the benefits of our relationship. This helped if the road got rocky with an error or conflict. When those inevitable bumps in the road occurred, we were never far away from that recent letter reminding them of how important they were to us and what we had done for them.
Do you have a regular contact plan that reminds customers of the merits of your relationship? If so, share with us in a post… we’d love to hear from you!
Yesterday, I was ordering a Mardi Gras King Cake from a great local bakery, The Dough Basket. www.doughbasket.com Tanya Clark, the owner, knew that I was ordering the cake as a gift for a family with a small child. When I told her that I wanted to order my favorite flavor, the praline cream cheese, she pointed out that although that is a great selection, it might not be the favorite for a child since sometimes they don’t like things with nuts.
“Thanks!” I replied, as I truly appreciated her insights as the expert king cake sales consultant!
Tanya truly listened to my order and went beyond just filling the order and filling that king cake with what I told her I wanted. She consulted with me to a BETTER purchase.
What insights are You giving YOUR customers when they call to order a product or service? Are you merely filling the order as requested OR are you listening for ALL the information and serving as a sales consultant?
Customers remember when you go beyond the robotic order taking mode. After all…. if all I needed was someone to “punch in” my request, why would anyone answer the telephone at The Dough Basket? Tanya could simply have an answering machine that said, “leave your order at the beep”. Instead, she adds value to her product by looking for the best customer solution every time. Congratulations Tanya… and by the way… I think I need to order a second king cake… all this talk has made me want one of those praline cheesecakes for myself…. after all… I’m an empty nester now and don’t need to worry about what the kids do or don’t like!
I had a participant in a recent training who pointed out a common occurrence at retail service establishments. As John was leaving the store he was asked, “Did you find everything you needed?”
He replied that he had not and mentioned what he was not able to find and the service representative seemed totally uninterested in truly listening or in passing his comment along.
If we are going to ask customers if we are performing to their satisfaction, we had better at least ACT as though we are listening to their answer AND that we will record their input and act upon it. Have you had anything similar happent to you?