There I was, standing in the Burnsville Post Office, staring at a pile of work. I had 21 books to mail that each required 5 stamps. (Yes, that’s 105 stamps total.) It was 5:36 pm and the deadline for pickup that day was 5:45. The clock was ticking so loud I could barely think straight. I felt dizzy and unsure of myself. There was no way I was going to get these stamped and in the mail slot in time. Arrggh!

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Focus on solutions for your customer, not dead ends

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

When you fail to help a customer, you’re giving them a dead end. When all you do is quote policy or simply tell them “we’re all out” of whatever they want, you’re giving them a dead end. Dead ends give customers only one option: Go somewhere else to get what they want.

Dead ends push customers away. On the other hand, if you focus on solutions, you’ll build customer loyalty. Your customers will see that your goal is to help them. So they’ll keep coming back.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Serve your customers

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

We’ve all dealt with people and companies that try to sell us what they want us to buy. They try to fit our need to their solution. They send us away with no help if what we want is something they cannot quickly and easily do. Their entire focus is on what they want to accomplish. They are not delivering customer service. They are only serving themselves and their company.

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Be interested in helping your customers

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

It’s easy for us to get distracted. We all have many things to accomplish in addition to helping customers. And we know if we don’t do them, no one else will!

But we need to stay focused. When we are helping our customers, that’s where 100% of our attention and energy should be. Our intent should be

Yesterday a massive fire engulfed a large apartment complex in my city. While fire fighters from 6 communities fought the blaze, residents shivered in sub-zero temperatures. It was three days before Christmas and everything they owned was going up in smoke.

It was a miracle nobody was injured. But the tragedy is still monumental for the people who lost their homes. And, for a business, it’s hard to imagine a more difficult situation to be in.

“Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

-Brian Tracy
Author of:  Reinvention: How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life

I saw this on the KSAX TV website. An unemployed contractor donated a custom trailer he owned to a nonprofit agency that provides service dogs for people who are deaf or disabled.

A week ago (on Thanksgiving) someone had stolen the trailer owned by the nonprofit. Without it

Kevin’s Amazing Customer Service rule# 22:

Help your customers get the outcomes they want.

Our customers come to us for something. They want to prevent something bad from happening. Or they want to make something good happen. Either way they’ve come to us for help. So we need to help them get what they want.

Too often I hear people give bad advice to others about how to talk with new potential clients. Rather than focus on what the customer is trying to accomplish now, they try to get their foot in the door for a long-term relationship with the company.

It’s like talking about marriage, kids and and the white picket fence before the other person has even committed to a first date.

I know why they do this.

Amazing Service Rule# 13:

“Ask open-ended questions.”

One of the most important ways we serve our customers is to help them get what they want, even if they don’t know exactly what that is. They rely on us for knowledge about our product or service. They come to us for expertise they cannot get anywhere else.

Referrals are a hot topic. And they should be. Many businesses rely more on referrals than any other source of new business.

But many people get it wrong when they think about referrals. They see referrals as something they can “get” or produce. They try to build systems and plans to generate referrals.

The reality though is different. Referrals are an outcome of doing things well. When you take care of your customers and you do it better than anyone else, referrals should come your way.

This morning Minnesota is in shock. A major bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. No warning. Nothing unusual happened prior to the collapse. It just dropped 64 feet into the Mississippi River. At least 50 cars fell into the river. As many as 60 people were injured. Nine people have reportedly died.

Our governor rightly called it a “catastrophe of historic proportions”.