I want you to go to a pet store. Not just any pet store, though. Go to the Petland store on Bethel Road in Columbus, Ohio. At this store, you can buy just about any kind of pet food or pet accessory you might imagine. Do you know what else you can do at this pet store?

In a recent post, I wrote about my friend’s experience at Beau Jacks, a suburban Detroit restaurant. Their experience was exceptional; so, I decided to interview the owner, Gary Cochran. I wanted to learn what he does to keep his customers coming back 3 or 4 nights a week. His restaurant is so successful that patrons are willing to endure long waits, because it’s worth it, even in Detroit’s depressed times. Beau Jack’s is also one of Jay Leno’s favorite Detroit restaurants.

Recently, at our weekly breakfast club meeting we were treated to one of the better dining experiences I have had in a long time.

It didn’t happen because the food was spectacular. It wasn’t. It wasn’t because the restaurant team did everything right. They didn’t. And it’s not that our server was overly funny or charming or entertaining. He wasn’t.

There are many ways any business can (and should) improve customer service. Here are a couple that stand out and can be done without spending a ton of money.

1. Make service a priority

This means your reason for being in business is to help your customers. So everything you do needs to be held up against this standard. Your actions decisions, policies and procedures need to show this. This creates a culture of service in your company. (Your customers know if you DON’T operate this way!)

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Let your customer lead

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

I can’t seem to sit down in a restaurant anymore without being offered something I have no interest in. Take sweet tea for example. Everywhere I go a server offers me sweet tea. Yet I don’t drink sweet tea. I have never liked sweet tea. I probably never will. If one more person offers me sweet tea, someone’s going to need a paramedic.

So why

One of the biggest mistakes business people make is thinking they know what their customers want, but not really knowing. This is easy to do. And it happens more often than we like to admit.

A few years ago, Krispy Kreme stormed the the Minneapolis-St. Paul area like a blizzard in February. Their little donut factories popped up here and there. Not on every street corner but enough that should the urge grab you, you could get to one without disrupting your entire day.

In the world of customer service improvement, we talk about the need to ask questions and listen. Let the customer tell us what they want. And we should do this.  But helping customers get what they want takes more. We need to be their coach.

Our customers can and should tell us where they want to go. But we need to help them find the best way to get there. That’s where our skills come into play. (If they already knew the best way, they wouldn’t need us.)

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Make customer service fun

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

I was reading a book by Stevie Ray and I came across a perfect example of how to have fun while serving a customer. And the example is from an organization that’s not exactly known for having a zany culture: The Minnesota Department of Revenue.

Here’s the example:

“If you make customers unhappy in the real world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”

-Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com

The days of ducking down and hoping nobody will notice when things go awry are over. These days, if customers get a bad experience, they are likely to share their story with the whole world. Internet review websites are here to stay. So, rather than ignore them or hope they’ll go away, it’s better to deal with them in a positive and proactive way.

Here are three ways you can improve online customer reviews:

1. Get in front of it

Bad online reviews from customers come from bad customer experiences. This happens when

Hot off the presses today is a brief note from our friends at dslreports.com. They tell us T-Mobile remains the customer service champion of the big wireless carriers.  On the other hand, AT&T didn’t do so well.

“Our in-store experience left us with one question out of three unanswered and we were shocked that one representative couldn’t help get our email up and running (though another rep at a different store was successful). Our trial of AT&T’s web support turned up similar results when one online associate told us they don’t support Slacker software, and one of our phone support calls lasted 45 minutes without resolving the last of our issues.”

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Forget scripts and steps

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

General George S. Patton liked to say: “Don’t tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” And he was right. In the world of customer service, this produces much better results. Because every person is different and will find a different path to the outcome for which they are responsible.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Serve your customers their way (not your way)

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

One of the fast food industry’s best known ad campaigns tells us we can (and should) “have it our way”.  Nutritional issues aside, BK got it right with this one. Every employee in every business should learn and live this. It should guide all customer employee interactions.