Making Customers Feel Important

During part of my time in college, I served as an office assistant in my school's College of Business Administration. A handful of other student workers and I took shifts organizing paperwork, printing mail lists, ordering supplies, and - perhaps most fun - greeting visitors at the front desk.

On one of my first days at the front desk, a visitor walked in and asked directions to the office of some professor or other. As per my training (our dean was a businessman, and big on customer service), I was friendly, courteous, and ensured that she found the person she needed to find.

However, one thing was missing from my otherwise brilliant customer service: attentiveness.

I had been working on a clerical project on the computer when the visitor arrived, and I continued to be distracted by it while I "served" her. Certainly, I greeted her with a warm smile, but then I resumed reading my computer screen while she spoke. True to the culture of my Texas school, I responded courteously ("Yes, ma'am! Of course, I'll be happy to help you..."), but then I clicked the mouse button once more before I served her. Absolutely, I gave her directions to the appropriate office, but I turned my gaze away from her even before she said "Thank you."

What was wrong with my customer service? I did not honor her. I did not attend. My body language drowned out my polite words and warm smile with a louder message: the message that another task was at least as important - if not more important - than serving my guest.

If you want to build relationships, to delight customers, to cultivate their love and loyalty, you cannot act that way. When you serve customers, you honor them with your full attention. You look them in the eyes. You let nothing distract you from what they are asking you to do.

When you serve customers, you adopt the mindset that serving them is the most important thing you could be doing at that moment.

And when you make customers the most important part of your business - and show them by your actions that they are - then you're taking the first (and often missing) step at building the relationships that will lead to the fan-based marketing and the sales you desire.