Go the Extra Mile, It’s Not Crowded There
I talked (okay, vented) a couple days ago about businesses who are difficult. Difficult to do business with, difficult to pay, and ones that generally leave a bad taste in our mouth.
I wanted to take a moment to illustrate just how easy it is to not be one of those businesses. We’ve already talked about keeping a customer for life, and as this example shows, going the extra mile for a customer is not complicated or time consuming, and it can really leave a lasting impression.
The Story:
I had dinner Monday at a popular, higher end seafood restaurant in my hometown. It was with myself and 7 other family members who were visiting from out of town, and I wanted to take them out for a nice experience before they left to go home on Tuesday. We had a wonderful dinner together. The food was good, service excellent, and we all enjoyed ourselves and were impressed with the restaurant. Great food, nice ambiance, and attentive staff were enough to get me coming back again anytime I wanted a night out with friends and family. But what really impressed me most, was not all the above, it was the phone call I received today from the same restaurant.
My cell phone rang around 2:00pm, and much to my surprise it was the restaurant calling. First thought, “Oh no, we must have left something behind”. A very pleasant lady on the other end of the line introduced herself as the manager, and began to recount the details of my evening with them:
“Good afternoon, this is Stacy the manager at Salty’s Restaurant.”
“Hi Stacy”
“I was just calling to see if you enjoyed your meal with us on Monday night”
“It was great…very nice. Did we leave something behind?”
“No, not the case at all. I just wanted to personally thank you for dinning with us, and to make sure that table by the window was satisfactory to you and your dinner guests”
Thinking, how did she know we had the window table…”yeah, the view was great”
“Your entrees were prepared to your liking, and the wait staff was agreeable?”
“It was great, my uncle loved the swordfish, in fact we all liked out meals. The staff was great too.”
“Was there anything we could have done to make your dinner even more enjoyable?”
“Nothing I can think of. We had very good service, everything was excellent!”
“That’s what we like to hear…anyway, I just wanted to say thanks again for coming in, and we look forward to seeing you again. Have a great day!”
“You too Stacy, we’ll see you soon”
The Reaction:
The entire conversation probably took 2 minutes. The attention to detail and personal service blew me away. And immediately they put their restaurant at the top of my mind when I am considering a nice seafood dinner out. Am I easy to impress? Probably, but I doubt I am much different than the average consumer. Not only will they capture more repeat business by doing this, they will get people telling others about what a great place it is as well.
How easy was that? Need an economic reason to go the extra mile?
Let’s say Stacy makes $30/hour managing the restaurant…and she made 1 hour worth of follow up calls today. My call lasted two minutes, so at that rate she made 30 calls. Assume half of us come back and spend $200, that’s generating $3000 in revenue by spending $30 (one hour of Stacy’s time). Not a bad return on investment. Take it a step further, the 15 of us who are coming back tell 15 people what a great place this is. Of those 15, five actually come for dinner with friends or family, spending $200 each. That’s another $1000 in revenue. Stacy just generated $4000 in revenue by being NICE, and GOING THE EXTRA MILE. And that was just today, what if she does the same thing everyday? See where I’m going with this? Doesn’t take long for the numbers to really add up.
Quit being difficult to do business with by breaking down any barrier a customer may encounter when interacting with you. Couple that with going the extra mile for your customers, which doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming as the above example illustrates, and you will be putting your business on the fast track to success.
What did you do to go the extra mile for your customers today?
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Not usually the kind of posts I read, but this was the best damn post I’ve read in a long time.
I guess because it’s something I can really relate to.
Another bad thing a business can do? Put all of their call-in support help in another country. Like India, where you don’t understand a darn thing they’re saying.
Unfortunately many business owners do not pick up the phone to perform customer service like this for fear of being pushy or inconveniencing their customers when just the opposite is true! You are probably a customer for life, and who can’t use more of those? Great post!
Karen Clark
Story Time Felts
@Steven
I totally agree regarding call centers. I understand the economics around outsourcing those functions, but I wonder how much more business a company would do if you could communicate with tech support, or had a better customer service experience. Not to take anything away from the people on the other end of the phone, they’re usually knowledgeable, but language is always a barrier.
Glad you liked the post,
Matt
@Karen
As businesses owners we need to get out of our own way sometimes…if a follow up phone call or email is the right thing to do, we can’t let ourselves talk us out of it! You’re right, I’ll continue to frequent this restaurant, and tell my friends about the stellar service.
Matt
Great post – and great blog! I think one reason that many small business owners are hesitant to make those follow up calls is that there is no guarantee that the customer feedback will always be favorable. But as a mentor of mine told me years ago, “Embrace criticism – it’s the best way to make your business better.”
Enjoy the entrepreneurial journey!
Kim Washetas
http://scoutforsuccess.com