Make Yourself Memorable

I think most people love receiving gifts and souvenirs of a most memorable experience. There are many ways to surprise and delight your customers and it rarely has to cost a lot of money. It's the thoughtfulness and appreciation that counts.

A friend recently told me a story of a flight on Emirates airlines. Of course they provided his children a little kit of activities to do during the very long flight, and, then they went beyond. They took photos of every child on the flight, put them in a little frame that had the flight number, route, pilot and attendants names and presented them to all before arrival. What a wonderful gesture of appreciation and a most memorable souvenir for a young child.

Is that something you could apply in your business?

I remember attending a conference of all of the executives in a most progressive organization. As we arrived for the three day session a photographer took shots of every participant as we registered, and many more shots through the sessions. At the conclusion of the conference our chairman presented an amazing slide show that featured every single one of the participants. Our take-way was a file of all of the presentations and also the incredibly memorable slide show. It's something I cherish from a most enlightening time in a very progressive organization.

What can you do to make every company event most memorable?

The more I talk to people about customer service the more I hear about the mindless and dysfunctional activities organizations do to alienate their customers. Take the telcos where customer 'churn' is a key issue. The typical approach to dealing with 'churn or turnover is to aggressively recruit new customers with new deals, ipods, gifts and whatever. Almost every single person I talk to is totally pissed as, being a loyal customer they not only don't get to take advantage of the deals for new subscribers, they never get any acknowledgement or appreciation for being a customer. How bizarre. So what creates the 'churn'?

What have you done to appreciate your current customers and make yourself memorable in their minds?

Create memories. Make yourself memorable!

Free for the Giving

You may think customer service requires a huge capital outlay: expensive training, high-falutin' CRM software, and thousands of dollar in expenditures Nonsense! The most important parts of customer service are free.

Here's my baker's dozen list of customer service components that are free:

1. Smiling.
2. Saying "I'm sorry", "We're sorry," or "I apologize"
3. Saying "thank you for your business."
4. Saying "thank you for bringing this problem to my attention"
5. Thanking customers for allowing you to fix their problems
6. Listening
7. Sharing important information in a timely manner
8. Giving customers choices
9. Addressing customers by name
10. Making small talk that build the relationship
11. Relating to customers on a human level
12. Relishing your interactions with your customers
13. Enjoying your work

The point is, customer service is about many things, most of them tied to attentiveness, friendliness and empathy. We all have the capacity to employ and deploy customer service to salve our customers' wounds. It's as much a mindset as it is phraseology.

The same skills you employed while delivering newspapers, selling lemonade or Girl Scout cookies as a kid, will hold you in good stead as a sales or service professional. The best things in life really are free. Now pass them on!

Craig Harrison's Expressions Of Excellence!™ helps professionals express their sales and service excellence with style. Contact him through http://www.ExpressiosOfExcellence.com .