I read a review of a book by Harry Beckwith. Apparently service among firms is so bad that a business can be above average and still stink.

So you had better focus on the customer than trying to beat your competitors on some service measure.

Those who have read Steven Covey's fabulously successful book of a few years ago .. "7 Habits of Highly Successful People" (if you haven't, you should) might remember one of the stories Covey used to illustrate "real" customer service. He had gone off on a business trip and absent mindly forgotten to pack any business shoes ... and it was night time and he had a very important presentation to make early the next morning ... what to do? Deliver the speech is his suit and sneakers?

He called around and reached the shoe department at a Neiman-Marcus store ... the salesman who answered the phone told him the store was closing within minutes but asked Covey's size and style preference and got the address of his hotel, drove there with several pair of shoes and helped Covey pick out a pair to 'save the day'. he salesman's boss didn't tell him to do this, the store's rules didn't force him to do this, his commission on a pair of shoes probably didn't even cover his time and gas for the trip ... the salesman just wanted to help out a customer.

Covey wound up buying all the shoes the salesman had brought and of course mentioning the incident to all his business friends (and writing about it in a world-wide best seller. Neiman-Marcus could not have bought that kind of publicity.

So if your customer is caught without his shoes, would you drive to his hotel, on your own time to help him out, or quote your terms of service and wait for the next client? There's no real right or wrong answer, just food for thought.

Howdy Nagita and Dave

Great storys.

Great,sensational and amazing customer service needs to be built into the culture of the business - it's not something a business can train in a 1 hour familiarity session at the start of the employees employment.

It's creating those stories that get retold that works.

Because good enough isn't good enough.

Brendon