The Second Most Important Customer

A few days ago, we returned home to see a person putting a flyer on our door. As we pulled into our driveway, she walked right past our car.

She didn’t make eye contact. She didn’t smile. Our window was down but she didn’t say “Hello”.

She didn’t leave a good first impression of the business that she represented.

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The business was a new restaurant in our area. Now she’s probably not an employee of the business. She may work for a vendor that was hired by the restaurant to distribute the flyers.

But she didn’t understand that the second most important customer is the customer’s customer.

After all, where does the money come from to pay you? From your customer’s customer!

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I remember taking the flyer and putting it on our fridge. But then I took it down. We had no connection to anyone there. And the person who had the opportunity to make a connection blew it.

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3 tips for better customer’s customer service

If you understand how important your customer’s customer is, you have an opportunity to stand out from your competition.

If your people come in contact with your customer’s customer, train them in customer’s customer service!

Let’s talk about 3 tips you might give them.

1. Be friendly
Be just as friendly to your customer’s customer as you would be to your own customer. Just because you’re not an employee doesn’t mean people don’t see you as a representative.

The woman who was putting the flyer on our door could have said something like: “I just put a flyer on your door for a great new restaurant. I hope you’ll stop by sometime soon.”

She could have at least made eye contact, smiled and said “Hello”. We would have been happy with any form of recognition by someone who was at our door, essentially trying to get us to spend money at a business she represented.

2. Be helpful
If your customer’s customer happens to ask you a question, the correct answer is not: “I don’t work here.” The correct answer is: “Let me find someone who can help you with that.”

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When I worked in radio, I did a lot of remotes – broadcasts from an advertiser’s business. Their customers would often come to me with questions. I always went out of the way to find an employee who could get them the answer.

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3. Stay out of the way
This is critical but often easy to forget. For example, let’s say your customers are small businesses. The decision makers may also be the doers; they take care of customers, too.

What’s their busiest day of the week? Their busiest time of the day?

Try to avoid calling them on those days at those times so they can serve their customers better. In other words …

Don’t call on restaurants over the lunch hour!

And the same goes for actually doing the work.

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I used to own a retail store. I had hired a guy to take care of our tile floor. One day, around Christmas, I stepped out for a meeting. When I got back, the aisles with our seasonal Christmas goods were blocked off. This guy was leaving on a trip and the floors needed to be waxed. So he did it. While I appreciated his diligence, I was upset that he kept our customers away from some of our hottest merchandise!

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Thinking about your customer and your customer’s customer leads to BIGG success!

What tips do you have about customer’s customer service?

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00599-062210.mp3

(Image in today's post by thadz)