The 'Get-Real' Factor
Your service builds or destroys your business

Customers don’t make up stories about you or your business – it is you who create them. The customer simply retells them. How the story is told and what it tells is up to you.

These stories create the basis for the most powerful form of advertising known to mankind – word-of-mouth. It is estimated that more than 50 percent of American business is based on this ad form.

When people ask each other for a referral or a business reference, it’s given based on their past personal experience – or what they “heard” from others.

Here’s an example: “Hey Jeffrey, you fly all the time. I’m going to Dallas – what airline should I fly?” Three options will occur. You will either get:

1. A referral, such as, “USAir is the greatest!”
2. Nothing – “Well, I don’t know, they’re all about the same.”
3. A reverse referral – “Anyone BUT USAir.”

Here’s an example of the whisper-down-the-lane version: “Hey Bill, I’m going to Dallas – do you know which airlines I should fly?

1. A referral – “You know, my friend Jeffrey says USAir is the greatest and he flies all the time.”
2. Nothing – “Well, I don’t know, they’re all about the same.”
3. A reverse referral – “I’ve heard all kinds of bad stories about USAir, I’d say pick anyone but them.”

NOTE WELL. If the an experience was good, the customer may not pro-actively say something, but if the experience was bad – you can bet your last dollar they’ll bring up the story in the first five minutes of a conversation – maybe in the first five seconds.

This lesson of customer service is the most real (and valuable) I have found. First, because it shows how one front-line person can speak volumes for a multi-billion dollar company by creating an experience worth talking about. It is certainly more powerful than a bunch of rhetorical ads on TV. Second, it creates a classic opportunity to examine how customers can make or break a business after a transaction has taken place.

So what’s the word on you? The only way to “get the word out” is to create memorable situations. Excellent service is not what you believe it to be, it’s what your customer perceives it to be (and what that customer tells others).

How are you taking advantage of your service opportunities? Here’s what happens if you do. I call them the eight advantages of great service:

1. It’s free. Great service costs little or nothing – but it’s worth a fortune.

2. It builds goodwill. Consistent service creates and builds reputation.

3. It builds customer loyalty. People will actually look forward to the next time they will do business with you.

4. It creates memorable experiences that will be retold time after time.

5. It makes your customers salespeople for your business. And they are a thousand times more effective than any employed salesperson on your team.

6. It leads to referred business. People are guided and influenced by the success, satisfaction and happiness of others.

7. It makes it harder (impossible) for competitors to steal away customers, even at a lower price.

8. It creates a clear distinction between two companies engaged in the same business. Yours and your biggest competitor.
   

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, and Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless. He can be reached at 704/333-1112 or e-mail to salesman@gitomer.com.

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