A Great Customer Service Message and Example on How to Exceed Customers’ Expectations
If you want to build a workplace culture that embraces a service-first mindset then you need to relentlessly send the message that good customer service isn’t good enough! Your customers already expect good custom service! So by only providing “good customer service” all you are doing is staying out of the customer service doghouse! Here is a simple but very effective customer service example that illustrates the point beautifully.
Full Transcript: Exceed Your Customers’ Expectations
By Walking Your Customers to the Sidewalk
Legendary ad man David Ogilvy, known as the father of modern advertising, once said that what differentiated his agency from his competitors was this his competitors walked their clients to the elevator but they walked their clients to the sidewalk!
I love that as a metaphor, as a symbol for what we all need to be thinking about when we deliver customer service because here’s the drill: As I say oh-so-often good customer service isn’t good enough! Your customers already expect good customer service, so if all you’re doing is providing good customer service all you’re doing is meeting expectations! All you’re doing is staying out of the customer service dog house or staying out of customer service jail!
You’re not doing anything to wow your customers or be even slightly memorable unless you do one of two things: Do something different that your competitors aren’t doing or exceed those expectations of good customer service!
So, what are you doing to walk your customers, to walk your clients to the sidewalk?
Use that story in your customer service training in your on-boarding with new employees. When you have meetings where you’re talking about ways to ramp up your customer service, brainstorm ways YOU can “walk your clients to the sidewalk.” What does that look like in your business, in your company for all your different employees?
Michael Kerr, February, 2021. Michael Kerr is a Hall of Fame international business speaker and the author of 8 books including, The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank and The Jerk-Free Workplace: How You Can Take the Lead to Create a Happier, More Inspiring Workplace!
