Last night I had a fun (and lengthy) text conversation with one of my nieces. She’s in college and 5 hours away so we don’t see her as much as we’d like. And being a busy college kid, phone conversations with her are not very common.

In fact, our “kids” (12 nieces and nephews) are the primary reason my wife and I both upgraded our cell phones and plans to make it easier (and affordable) to do a lot of texting. Other than live visits, text message conversations are the most common way we can stay in touch with them.

Think of the last time you had your eyes examined. At some point, your eye doctor (or optometrist) probably asked you to read some letters on an eye chart. If you wear glasses or contacts, you got to look through a lot of different lenses. This typically involves you comparing two different lenses against each other. He or she asks you which of the two is clearer.

For this process to work, you get asked a lot of questions. And you give a lot of feedback. Without your feedback there is no way your eye doctor can give you a complete description of your eye health. In this business, it’s understood there will be a lot of back and forth communication between you.

Smart companies today are connecting better with their customers. Rather than focusing on how to cut costs they are focusing on giving their customers a better experience. When you do this you’ll increase customer loyalty which should lead to higher revenue, more profits and a healthier company. (Cutting costs can never do this.)

And you can only do this by

While traversing the Web recently I found a site I’ll be visiting again frequently.  It’s called Not Always Right.  It’s full of funny customer service examples as told by the employees.  Most of them involve challenging (and often unintentionally funny) customers.

Here’s one I especially like:

Amazing Customer Service Rule #3

When talking with a new customer give them your full name and get theirs right away.

This makes your conversation more personal and enables you to better connect with your customer.

Think of how much better it feels to talking with someone when you know their name. It feels more personal. People develop a faster and stronger connection with others when they know their name. This sets the stage for trust to develop which is required for a long-term loyal customer relationship.