How often have we all heard that service sells? We’ve been preached that old truism so often we take it for granted; we lose the real impact of what outstanding service really has-not to mention what outstanding service really means.
Well, I was reminded of that last night-and saw the results this morning.
I was visiting with a client yesterday and left his office at about 7:20 last evening. About 30 minutes later I noticed I didn’t have my cell phone. I began to mentally retrace my steps, trying to determine where and when I last had it in my hand. I was fairly sure I had left it in my client’s office, but I wasn’t positive since I could have dropped it in the parking lot, the elevator, or of several other places. I was debating whether to wait until morning to call and see if the client had the phone, or to call the cell phone company and have the phone shut off.
Then, I got a call on my other cell phone. It was my wife. She had just received a call from an employee of the company that cleans my client’s office. The lady explained that she had found a phone and the number she called was the last number dialed from the phone, which had been my wife’s phone. She wanted to know if my wife knew whom the phone belonged to. Debbie figured out it was my phone and informed the lady that it belonged to me and that I had been visiting with the gentleman in whose office the lady had found the phone lying on the carpet. The cleaning lady then told Debbie that the phone was safe and that she was putting it in the middle drawer of the gentleman’s office.
That’s service way above and beyond what one would expect from a cleaning company. The phone could easily have been stolen or the cleaning lady could have just picked it up and put it on the desk and forgotten about it. Instead, she took the time to see if she could track down the owner and assure them that the phone was safe and where they could reclaim it. How many cleaning crews would have taken the time-or cared enough-to do that?
Not only was I impressed enough to call the owner of the cleaning company and praise his employee, my client was impressed enough to give the cleaning company the cleaning contract on another office building he owns and to recommend the company to two of his clients-and it isn’t noon yet!
Such a simple thing. It took no more than a few minutes of the lady’s time, yet the act was so unexpected and unusual, it had an immediate impact that has resulted in additional business from the cleaning company’s current customer, as well as very probably additional contracts from the word of mouth the act generated.
How you treat customers gets around-and sometimes it’s the little things that make the difference.
