Customer Service-how important is it?

As a business owner, I'm very conscious of how other businesses handle customer service. I can't help it. I'm constantly comparing my standards to theirs, or how I would handle the same situation if it had happened to me.

I'm always shocked when I see an obvious way to make a new client, when other businesses throw the opportunity away.

Like for instance, a couple of Saturdays back, I cracked a tooth. My dentist doesn't see patients on Saturdays, so I decided to check out some dentists that were open on Saturdays. I had been thinking about changing dentists since my favorite dentist in the group moved away and I really didn't care for the other dentist. So, I figured that if they could squeeze me in, maybe I would end up liking them and become a new patient.

I called around and found a dentist that was open on Saturdays and asked if they could possibly at least look at it. I mentioned that I was looking for a new dentist and one that was open on Saturdays would be perfect for my schedule as well. She put me on hold for a couple of minutes and when she came back on the line, she said that they didn't have room.

Hmm.

My entrepreneur brain was horrified. If I had the opportunity to make a client for life, I would make the room. I would stay open later if needed, or at least met to get that initial meeting. Maybe that's just me and maybe the dentist didn't need anymore clients, or maybe she had important plans after lunch.

I ended up waiting until Monday and made an appointment with another dentist and now that dentist will be my new dentist. Score for new dentist. Too bad for that other dentist who lost a potential client.

Now, on the other side, I've seen great customer service from our favorite fast place we go to on Sundays. We have two in our city; one that's close to our house (and more convenient) and another one that's on the other side of town (way out of our way).

We would go mostly to the one closest to us and to the farther one when out that way. We found that we would get rude service and wrong orders at the place closest more often than not, and when we went to the inconvenient one, we got excellent service. The manager even remembered us and started giving us VIP discounts for coming.

So, where do you think we go when we want to eat there? Even though it's out of our way, we go there because they go out of their way to keep us as a returning client.


Customer service is the soul of a successful business-remember that!