Going Above & Beyond for Your Customer!

I go through each day aware of things that most people ignore. The fact that I teach Customer Service and train people how to provide the best customer service experience make me aware of and notice a lot of things. In fact, some of these things make me alter what I teach and how I teach it.

One of the things that is basic Customer Service is that you should strive not to meet expectations but exceed them. The reasoning behind this is that if you give someone more than they expect they will remember you. If you give them what they expect, chances are no positive impression will come of it. That is because in the eyes of the customer, you did nothing special.

So, we must look for ways to give our customers more than they expect. Recently, I had an experience that demonstrated this very basic fact.

I was on vacation in Hawaii on the beautiful island of Maui. Over the course of the two weeks we were there, I was struck by the fact that almost everyone there was happy. Not fake happy like we see every day by people who feel that they must give the impression that they like their jobs. These people were truly happy. Maybe it was just that they get to live on Maui, I don't know. All I know is that their happiness seemed to rub off on everyone else.

One night we decided to eat at one of the upscale restaurants, the LaHaina Grille. I went there primarily for my wife as I am not the type that likes upscale places. Give me a good burger and I am happy. But that night, we went upscale.

The service was very proper and the décor formal (for Maui standards). The waiter came to take our order. I ordered steak and asked what kind of potatoes they had. The waiter rattled off a few types of potatoes whose names were all 24 syllables long. Finally, my wife just said "He wants French Fries." I told the waiter that I did not expect to get French Fries in this type of restaurant and that regular potatoes would be OK. Here comes the part that blew me away.

The waiter told me that they did not, in fact, serve French Fries at the restaurant but that they would send someone down the street to purchase some for me to have with my steak! And that is exactly what they did! Talk about going over and above for a customer!

A couple of things came from this moment. First of all, I enjoyed my meal a lot more and I was genuinely impressed by what they did. Second, it made me feel that I was important to them as a customer and that made me feel good. It also made me feel that I was appreciated and that is important as well.

I left that restaurant with a very good feeling. The meal had cost a lot, plus I had tipped well, and I felt it was all worthwhile because of what they did for me. Over the course of those two weeks we had a lot of good meals and almost all of them were a fraction of the price but this was the one that made a lasting memory for me.

In other articles I had talked about the true value of something as compared to the perceived value of the same thing. This was the classic example. What did it cost them to get me those French Fries? Maybe it took someone 10 minutes to walk down and get them and maybe it cost $5.00 although it was probably less than that. For that small investment, they made someone very happy and got a lot of goodwill for their trouble. I would say that was money very well spent.

I should also say that this restaurant gets top dollar for their food and deservedly so. The quality was excellent but the service and commitment to their customers made it all worthwhile. Plus, they took it one step further by doing something I thought was ingenious.

After we were done eating, the hostess stopped by, asked my wife and I to smile, and took our picture. She also asked for our e-mail address so they could send us announcements and coupons and such. When we got home from our trip, there was an e-mail from the restaurant thanking us for our patronage and enclosed was our picture in the e-mail!

Just by doing this it refreshed our memory and brought back pleasant feelings about our meal. It re-created the experience in our minds and made the impression that much stronger.

What did it cost them to do all of this? A few minutes to take the picture, download the photo and compose an e-mail. No out of pocket cost yet the value to the customer was quite large.

The bottom line is that they went above and beyond to give the customer what they wanted. They showed their customer that they appreciate their business and were concerned that they do everything they could to make the experience a good one. They could have taken our money, given us good food, and we would have been satisfied.

But would we have been impressed??

I think not!

David V. Greis
The Customer Service Training Institute
http://www.infowhse.com