”Delight The Customer” is the eleventh in my 2022 series of articles based on my real life experiences, professional insights, personal views and fun stories. My hope is that in them you find joy and inspiration.
There are many elements can contribute to achieving great outcomes in life and business. You must, for example, possess determination to succeed and be prepared to outwork everyone else. You must care about people, be they your friends and colleagues in personal life or your customers in business. There is in fact a direct parallel between personal and business life. The same attitudes and practices are required in order to do well in both spheres. Not everyone is cut out for business but everyone is required to manage the business of running their lives. So what follows is relevant to all.
Much is made of formal education. The student experience is rightly viewed as a good thing but you can better pick up what you most need to know for success in the real world by living in it. Try out different jobs, learn about yourself. You need to know how to sell, that is as in how to present your best self to those you interact with. You are the product. You are a repeat sale. Present yourself so that people seek out your company; so that they come back to you time and time again. Delight the customers!
Take an interest in, but don't concern yourself with, popular media, stockmarkets, bank rates, politics and the like. These are things you cannot change. Concentrate on what you can change.
It's common in youth to at first feel that you are not going anywhere. Drifting is quite normal early on, often good fun … for a while. Learn from it then set your direction. The product 'You' may be little different from others but offer your 'customers' friendly service. That's it. No need to do anything exceptional – live by delighting your 'customers'. Life or business, the rule applies.
It's never too late to start. You won't get things right first time. Just remember that the golden key to turning an ordinary 'you' or business into an extraordinary one is to change the one thing which you can change in others - the customer experience. You must possess a genuine desire to delight customers. Anyone who delights customers, succeeds. The test is not to have the greatest idea but to learn. Learn your strengths, what it is that you can best do for customers. What is it that you can bring to the party which others haven't?
Ask yourself, “What it is that people/customers think the next day after dealing with you. What goes through their mind? What do they want? Where will they go for their next interaction?”
Answer - They'll go to the place where they enjoyed a memorable experience!
In due course people do not always remember a product, the purchase nor the price. But they always remember a delightful experience. They remember how they were treated. You'll not find a customer with a good buying experience who doesn't come back.
By the same token, customers never forget a bad experience. If memory is of unpleasantness, bad attitude, rudeness or disinteresr, they'll never return.
So, make friends out of every customer and establish relationships by projecting your positive self on to them. Build a family atmosphere. Develop trust. Work especially with better-than-yourself people. You move in the direction of those you associate with. Learn from them … and delight them too!
Thank you for reading. Did I delight the customer? Did I delight you?
I am Tom Riach. I live and write in the sunny south of Portugal.
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Comments
I have to stress the importance of your statement "You must possess a genuine desire to delight customers. Anyone who delights customers, succeeds" and just one more that bears repeating "make friends out of every customer and establish relationships by projecting your positive self on to them. Build a family atmosphere. Develop trust."
You nailed it once again with this fantastic post "Delight the Customer." You surely titled it well and it's so appropriate.
Thanks Terri, as always I appreciate your response. When I know I've delighted you then I feel that what I've written has been worthwhile. Pleasing others and yourself at the same time is critical, the two must coexist easily together, out of sync in either direction is less healthy.
I believe Will Rogers said it best. "A stranger is a friend I have yet to meet." When customers become friends the dynamics change. The simpest way to do this is delight the customers.
Yes Dennis, be it Will Rogers or all the way back to the Bible and all points in between, there is nothing new in 'conventional wisdom'. The principles of successful living (be it in life generally or business) hold true in all times. Some people of course have a way with words and a public profile which allows them to deliver the message with precision and wit. Will sure possessed that!
For small business nothing matters more than how you treat your customers.The way I deal with this is simple math. It costs 5 times as much to find a new customer than it does to keep an existing one happy. Making an unhappy customer happy is worth more than a satisified customer. Even so you don't want many unhappy customers. Word of mouth advertising has been in existance for thousands of years, nothing has proven more effective.
Thanks Dennis. Yes success principles and practices never change; mediums and technology change but not the fact that people buy from people they know like and trust. Understanding that makes selling 'easy'!
The best sales reps don't sell. They build know, like, trust, give information, explain benefits, and let the potential customer decide whether they are going to do business with the company they represent. In my younger years I did a lot of bidding for work in the construction trades for companies I at least partly owned. Many of my customers showed me other bids they had received that were lower than mine. I never wondered why my bid was accepted, I knew. When I explained how I was going to enhance value, and protect things of value, where others didn't my chances were much higher of doing the work. Did I earn more than my competiton per job? NO, Higher bids meant better quality materials, and using crews who were well trained, each member loving what they did. To date I have never found a situation (business) (friendship) where these simple ideas don't apply.
Summed up perfectly Dennis. Your words certainly delight me!
That's right George and it applies to all personal relationships. Terri recently referred to IBO, look at the relationships we established there - you and me for example!
I cannot agree with you more. and I am a huge recipient of the benefits of delighting your customers. They return and they bring friends and family and neighbors and so on. Thank you, Tom. Customer satisfaction and service are the best adverting.