Customer Service Might Be All That Matters.

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Diana Ross: There’s A Small Hotel

As I write this I am in a vineyard in Traverse City, my wife and I along with a couple we love to travel with are sharing a bottle of wine and taking in the sunshine.

5 minutes before this serene moment, we nearly left the winery.

When we arrived at the winery there were two employees behind bar one of which growled at us when we walked in, the other — she rolled her eyes. Now normally I would have simply left, there are a lot of wineries I could spend my time and money at — this one however, is my favorite (although clearly not for the customer service).

We ignored the lack of service and slid the bottle across the bar took our glasses and walked outside to enjoy the moment. But I cannot help wondering, why do you have this job?

If the mid-afternoon drunk crowd who likely buys more than the sober morning crowd is enough to ruin your day, pick another line of work. The world is so full of choices for the customer and the employee you need not waste time in a place where you don’t fit or maybe don’t care to.

I think about customer service a lot because it is the easiest thing to fix in the same way it is the easiest thing to overlook. The paradox of the modern customer experience.

With the market in constant flux and your customer constantly on the go they make it hard to get to know them, but not impossible.

So when I meet a person who takes a customer facing job for fun because she loves people, or the coffee barista at Pour in Cleveland who remembers my name when there are 60 or more days between visits, or even the boss remembers your children’s birthdays without the use of Facebook, I wonder what the marketing world would look like if people got up every day with the express purpose of making others happy. The “why” of putting others first or the art of creating a life much bigger than yourself.

Sure, that might seem pollyanna but snark, sarcasm, and indifference are the easiest emotional gears to operate — I am interested in the people doing the hard stuff, actually caring about the people who depend on them in whatever sense of the word that means.

Go get to know your customers before they get to know your competition.

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