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It’s September. For us Texan’s it means cooler weather and we can hang outside more. I take full advantage of this.

 

I’m sitting outside in my back yard with my laptop, a good Kinky Friedman book and one of my sinful passions, a great Partagas Black cigar.

 

The end of September is a special one to me. My three daughters all have birthdays within weeks of each other. I guess my wife and I are active during January. *Wink*. My anniversary is also this month.  So today was birthday shopping for the parents.

 

My wife and I went to Toy’s R Us to start our shopping and then stopped at our favorite sandwich shop.  I asked for a large drink in medium cup. I always ask for that because I don’t want the drink spilling in my car. It’s a trick I learned from someone else. Of course they always seem to fill your cup to the brim don’t they?

 

When I asked the girl behind the counter to do this for me she said she’d have to charge me for the large drink instead. I agreed. I’ve never been charged for a large cup before, but was in no mood to argue with her. She merely stated it was company policy. I laughed and took my cup.

 

When I took the lid off I noticed she had filled it to the rim and told her the reason why I wanted a medium drink in a small cup. “So I won’t spill it in my car”. She told me she couldn’t do that. When I asked why she stated, “That’s the way the machine fills up the cups. I told her that she should push the medium button for my large cup and I’d get my medium drink in a large cup. She became adamant about not doing it and it being against company policy because “it’s tied to the computer system.”

 

I told her to watch what I do. I went to the trash can, poured out enough of the drink so it wouldn’t spill and walked out.

 

My wife Joy is a customer service expert for McKesson. She was dumbfounded. She blamed it not on the girl but on the manager and the company for not training this girl correctly.

 

Are you treating your people with company policy? Are you training your people to do whatever it takes to help your customers do business with you?

 

My wife recanted a story from her files about a man who visited Rockfish, a seafood restaurant.

 

He walks in and has to wait. While he is waiting a man cleaning up dishes looks at him and says, “Can I get you anything to drink while you wait?”

 

“Actually I am in a hurry and just need a salad and need a Diet Coke.”

 

“We don’t have Diet Coke but I have Diet Pepsi.”

 

“That’ll do.”

 

Within 5 minutes he had his salad and a Diet Pepsi. No waiting. About 5 minutes later the man came up and placed a glass of ice and a bottle of Diet Coke in front of him.

 

“I thought you didn’t have Diet Coke.” 

 

“We don’t the man replied.”

 

“Then where did you get it?

 

“There’s a Walmart next door.”

 

“You went to Walmart to get me one Diet Coke?”

 

This is awesome. Take note.

 

“No sir, I sent my manager”

 

It reminds me of the Hallmark card ad, “When you care to send the very best.”

 

I can tell you, just from that story and my own experiences when dining at Rockfish, we’ll be going there more often.

 

Do you treat you prospects and clients like the coffee shop or like Rockfish?  If you don’t know maybe you should ask your clients. They’ll be happy to tell you.

 

My closing thoughts are: 

 

1. Always…always…always….go out of your way to do whatever you need to do to get and keep more clients. Always.
2. Train your entire staff to do as you do…treat your customers as if they were family. If you do this one thing, word of mouth will spread so fast you could potentially double your sales in less than a year.
3. If you don’t, someone else will.

Customer service and the staff in large organizations are typically the most overlooked departments and the most underpaid, under appreciated people. Train your staff to treat your people in customer service like gold. They are the lifeline and blood to your company. Make sure everyone understands it’s our customers who pay our checks and each person should be trained accordingly. Down to the guy that cleans your toilets.