“Good morning!  Welcome to our USA Today route.  Now, if I should go completely brain dead and miss you, please don’t hesitate to call me at the number below.  I will personally re-deliver your paper as soon as possible.  If you have a complaint that you and I can’t solve, you may call my district manager directly.  His name and number are also below.  Thanks a lot.  We really appreciate your business.”

My husband teaches an evening class at a local college. On Friday night, he took me to his school’s holiday dinner party, where we sat at a table with the president and her husband, a couple of distinguished teachers, and the school’s librarian. During the meal, one of the professors praised the librarian, “I have been teaching for thirty years and she is by far the very best librarian I have ever met.”

Have you ever been upset when a company makes a promise that it doesn’t fulfill?  This is one of the easiest ways to lose customers.  Otherwise known as “Over-promising and Under-delivering”, this demonstrates the company’s lack of commitment to follow through and satisfying the needs of their customers.

I was in New York City for a business trip a week or so before my 10-year wedding anniversary. One afternoon, I stopped by the Tiffany & Co. flagship store on 6^th Avenue to look at anniversary rings.

A thoughtful representative named Duncan showed me several rings as he explained some of the nuances of color, cut, clarity, and carat weight.

I recently received duplicate copies of an e- newsletter. The arrived within  minutes of each other and it was obvious they were the identical. It was a computer glitch with the email server that distributed the email that was out of the distributors control. I am sure we have all experienced a similar situation where the tech gremlins seemed to operate with a mind of their own. I simply deleted 1 and continued on with my day.

11 Ideas* for Companies and Customers (*An extra idea because times are tough!)

In these economic times, when our nerves are raw and we are stretched like a rubber-band ready to snap…we all need a kinder hand, a kinder voice…just plain more kindness in our life.

Recently, I had an epiphany. It occurred to me that the most important aspects of my job (and likely yours) are nonessential.

Think about it. Most jobs consist of a set of essential job tasks that define a job role. These tasks might be described as mandatory job functions—the bullet points that make up a job description.

A few service experiences in the last few days remind me how the little things matter.

My daughter and were I shopping at Target and had a 44 pound bag of dog food loaded on the bottom rack of the buggy. As we were cruising down the aisle, it started to slide a bit forward and drag the ground. We both leaned over to push and shove it back when an employee stopped what he was doing and took care of the shoving for us. It was such a simple thing but memorable.

Managing the customer experience requires just a little effort and very little cost to make a big difference.  It could even make someone’s day.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I attended a luncheon honoring the 50 Most Influential Women in West Michigan held at the JW Marriott in Grand Rapids, MI.

Now, all JW Marriott hotels are renowned for the excellence in every way.  They are truly centered on their guests and do everything possible to ensure a positive experience.

Making the mundane memorable is the key ingredient in customer experience management.

I had the good fortune to attend a luncheon today held by the Grand Rapids Business Journal honoring the 50 Most Influential Women in West Michigan. It was wonderful to see the efforts of so many women pay off and be recognized for their leadership in our business world and in our communities.

I am continually amazed how when I ask a company to do something for me and they say yes, how satisfied I feel as a customer.

These usually are simple requests that cost the company little or nothing by granting them. For example, I rented a Zipcar yesterday and it was not in its assigned parking space. I called the company and they transferred my reservation immediately and let me take the more expensive BMW sitting there. This costs them nothing. I had rented the car for an hour and the BMW was just going to sit there non rented. In the process, they created a happy customer with an unused asset (the car).