Your customers might swear BY your customer service while at the same time swearing AT the customer service offered by other retailers. But unless you continue to remind them why to shop with you, they might end up FORGIVING the others and FORGETTING to give you their business. In Making Money Is Not Illegal, Immoral or Fattening, here's a story my coauthor Art Freedman tells to illustrate the point:
"A customer comes into the store with a whole bag of plumbing fittings, throws them out on the counter, and looks very frustrated. He says, 'What am I supposed to do with this stuff?' I ask, 'What are you trying to do?' He says, 'Well, I've got a half-inch compression, and I need to go to half-inch iron pipe.' And I go, 'Oh, okay,' and I walk over to where I have that stuff, show it to him, and show him how it works, and that's it right there. Then he walks back to the counter again and says, 'How about all this other stuff? What am I supposed to do with it?'"
Art spots another retailer's name on the customer's bag, so he says, "'Why not take it back over there and ask them?' The customer says, 'I am not ever going back.'"
Two weeks later, Art's over at the other retailer's store, and who does he see but that same customer. "And this is what that customer says, 'You know, they are so big here, and they don't have very many employees in the store because they're trying to keep the costs down, and I just thought I'd give them another chance.'"
So when something like this happens to you, what words will you say to the customer to remind them why to shop at YOUR store?
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