When Customers Matter - The Service Provider

For years I have preached that good customer service is the key to growing a business and ever so often when I enter a restaurant, deli or clothing store and I am treated like a “friend just passed by” I am appalled that in this day and age, people still have not seen the relevance of the customer’s role in business.

As an employer, I have always had one rule of thumb – “customers pay you, I don’t” and yet I wonder in 2010, why businesses are still not getting this rather crystal clear picture.

Let’s take this little scenario,

• Business opens at 10:00 a.m.
• At 10:30 a.m. – there are no customers
• At 12:00 noon – there are no customers
• Lunch at 12:30 p.m. and still no customers
• Five minutes to closing, and still no customers.

What’s wrong with this scenario? No customers, no money!

Is the lesson so hard to learn? If we do not give good service, we get no customers; if we do not recognize how important customers are we have no business. I've heard service providers say that if a particular customer does not buy, another one will! That's a bad attitude anyway; whether a customer purchases or not should not be dependant on your bad approach!

Therefore, when I enter a store, even though you need to give me time to look around, it is still your duty to find out whether you can be of assistance to me – furthermore, it doesn’t hurt to hurry over to me as I enter the business to greet me, it is amazing how far this initial greeting goes. You don’t get a second change at first impressions – this is always a great time to impress.

I told a group recently that you should always put your best performance on for your customers – you never know who will be your next boss and that person that you are giving 110% service to, could be so impressed that he might instantly see you working in his organization.

Customers matter. Treat them with respect. Don’t take them for granted, because if you do, you are taking your job for granted. Actually that’s another thing that tugs at me ever so often; why do you have to take the job for granted – you provide a service to a business for which you are paid. Luckily, in some organizations, it is not only a service which you provide for a fee, sometimes there are several benefits that go along with it, hence the reason why you should give even more.

It is known that we have problems in our small society with customer care; giving of service must come from the heart, you must want to do it – it is your obligation to the business to give service to the customer – it is all part of the service you are paid for. No one says you need to go through the day “grinning” at every customer, but a smile goes a long way, especially when people are spending money.

Let’s start today to be more aware of what is expected. Try putting your foot in the customer’s shoe and ask yourself, “would I patronize a business that gives me such poor service?” I am sure as the customer your money would stay in your pocket.

Therefore, be a bit nicer, smile a bit more give service as you would expect it to be given to you and if you find this little task difficult to perform, you might very well be in the wrong job.

Let’s be kinder human beings to each other and to our customers and you will see that your life is one of contentment and gratitude and furthermore, they very small island of ours, will become more productive, more prosperous, a better place to live. Try it today!

The Final Analysis

People are often unreasonable, self-centered: Forgive them anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you, but be Honest anyway.

What you spend years to build, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do Good anyway.

You see, in the final analysis it is between you and God;

it never was between you and them anyway.”

~

In early April, a past student sent me the above “thought for today”. I somehow felt that she knew I would use in as part of my lesson plans and you need to know that I did. However after doing it, I wondered how many of the persons who typed the words truly appreciated what the words meant.

Ever so often we stop doing the good we know we should because of something someone said which inevitably discouraged us …. Do we stop doing good because of this? I say no. Do good anyway! …. and especially so when it comes from the heart …. and moreso when it is sacrificial.

How often has someone asked of you a favour, which you do in good faith and that favour sometimes causes you and that person to become bad friends – should it stop you from doing good – I say no. It’s never easy after that, to do any small act of kindness, but I say, do it anyway.

As the writer above says, “in the final analysis it is between you and God” – I’ve lived by this statement for the most of my life and if we live this way, we’ll see the miracles God performs in our lives daily.

Never stop doing small random acts of kindness as the legacy you build now, will go a long with in helping generations to come.

A facebook friend send me this video and I'll like to share it with you. Enjoy your Sunday!

Musing!

A very close friend recently took ill again and had to be hospitalized. His situation has been noted as “not good” since he is in Medical and Surgical Intensive Care Unit. As I hang up the telephone from speaking with his brother, I started thinking, among the tears, how grateful we ought to be for life.

In many classes I have often said to students, “any day which finds you six feet above ground is a great day” and that thought came to my mind as I have thought about him since that day.

How many times little things happen and we become so disgruntled and irritated by them. Do we for a very short moment every think that things could be worst – that instead of the electricity going off as we type a four page document that our lives could be taken as quickly? Do we ever think that the time it takes to say sometime unkind about someone that we could take that time to think about something positive above them?

Life is so very short and yet we spend so much time being all concerned about our neighbor who just purchased a new vehicle. Do you know what is funny? Most of the time we don’t even know how that person achieved the new vehicle – what measures did he have to take to get it?

Let’s be thankful for the moments – good or bad – let us be grateful for the little things in life, as well as the big – let’s tell that special someone how you truly feel – let’s learn to give the roses while our loved ones are still around and not when they are gone.

Give thanks and praise daily!

Beauty, always more than skin deep!

As I spoke with my girlfriend this morning, she complained of all the pain in her life, in her joints even – she complained about the fact that she looked so terrible that she couldn’t go to the bank during the day and needed to go after office hours. Her main concern is that health-wise and physically she looks so horribly that she cannot be among the “rest of the world”. Her comments pained me – in my very soul the picture she painted hurt like a dagger had pierced my very side.

Without thinking, without missing a heart beat, God’s spirit inspired me to remind her that she is a child of a king, that she is beautiful and even when we don’t think so, we have to force ourselves to look in the mirror and say it. Remind our inner being of how wonderfully made we are. As I spoke she started to cry – and the more she cried the more I told her that she was a wonderful person, that she was beautiful that God made her in his image.

Today, let us be each other’s keeper – let us encourage each other to move on to be the best that we can possibly be. Spend more time in the mirror, admire the beautiful person God made and above all encourage yourself to live the life even when life is painful.

Beauty, it is always more skin deep - therefore when you see a pimple and a blemish here and there, think about how pure your heart is and you will instantly know that you are a great person!