DOING THE RIGHT THING!

Yesterday was one of those days in which the world was rushed and not everyone was offering the best customer service. Since I start my day with coffee, the local coffee shop sees me quite often and handles my order of Pumpkin flavored coffee at their drive thru window. Unfortunately, the beloved pumpkin was replaced with regular coffee and I did not discover this til I was back at my office. Right then I knew it was going to be THAT type of day. And, sure enough when I stopped by the bank to deposit a check and get some cash back I was treated poorly by a teller who was not too thrilled to be working this week. This was followed by being cut off in the parking lot by a driver who just had to be 2 seconds ahead of me in traffic. So, what does this have to do with marketing and why am I blogging about it today? Well, the local coffee shop needs to be applauded for “doing the right thing” and apologizing today for yesterday’s error and giving me a coffee for free. I had not mentioned the mistake for that since I had my money in hand to pay for the coffee today, but just wanted to be sure that I received “pumpkin”. The clerk was excellent and so was the manager who also chose to come over and apologize for the minor mistake. WOW, I was so impressed by their excellent customer service this morning that I am writing this now in my blog! And this is an important lesson to us all about customer retention and building your brand of being the “best” in your business for customer service. Doing the right thing when you make a mistake or if a customer is hurt by your rude behavior, apologizing  goes real far.

Had the bank clerk who waited on me yesterday chosen to be as gracious as the clerk from the coffee shop today, I might not be considering moving my account to another bank. [Note for local people reading my blog: I have 4 different banks I work with so I do not wish to do harm to any bank by stating which one it is, but it is easy for a business to get a negative comment on-line which could hurt their business and that is why I am blogging about the importance of good customer service.] When you are considering your budget this year for marketing and advertising please do not forget the little day to day things that might be losing you business. Customer service and doing the right thing for your loyal customers will go further than an expensive ad campaign. Of course, choosing to offer great service [that means closely monitoring ALL the people who work for you] along with a strong marketing and advertising campaign will get you the best results!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my loyal blog readers and clients!

All my best to your success!
~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”