The little things count

JOHN Maxwell, an author of leadership books wrote, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

That is true whether it is in life or in business. It is always about how you or your product or service makes a person feel or what it does for them. And these can be the small touches, the little things.

There was this restaurant near my home that I patronised regularly. During a recent visit, I was disappointed after being kept waiting for almost an hour before being told the item I had ordered was not available. I ordered something else but, after another five minutes, was told that item was not available as well.

Suffice to say, I was not a little angry and I pulled a long face. I left the restaurant without any food that day.

Most people would immediately add the restaurant to their list of banned places and would never visit again. I would, naturally, do the same.

But, several weeks later out of neccesity as the place was near my home, I was at the same restaurant again.

A few minutes after taking my order, the waiter approached me. Oh no, would he tell me the item I ordered was not available again?

In a surprise twist, the waiter placed a drink in front of me and said, “This is complimentary for you.”

In all my past visits to the restaurant, I had never had a complimentary drink while I waited for my order and it was a surprise.

Perhaps they remembered my disappointment when I left several weeks before?

I do not know, but in that simple, inxpensive act, the restaurant has redeemed itself and made it back to my list of favourite restaurants.

When they are small or just starting out, most companies and brands are able to practise this.

They are personal to their customers — they know preferences, normal purchases and some even know names.

When I was a child, my mother used to order her monthly groceries from the sundry shop near our home.

The owner of the sundry shop, who knew us by name, would personally deliver the orders to our home using his tricycle. How I miss that type of service instead of the impersonal transactions we have these days in supermarkets.

How a company makes its customers feel is perhaps the best advertising of all, especially for SMEs that do not have a huge advertising budget.

Your product and service may probably not be able to compete with the bigger brands yet you can still win customers when they know you treat them as a person.

For example, you can have people instead of machines attending to calls. If you offer services, how about having a practice of surprising a random customer once in a while with a simple complimentary service?

Is that not a better marketing tool than a billboard advertisement?

In my own company, we have a project called ‘5 Fish 2 Loaves’ that has been running for the past two years.

Basically, it identifies several customers every quarter that we want to pleasantly surprise with something simple yet meaningful.

For example, it can be a box of chocolate with a note saying “Remember to take a break” to a customer who we know works extremely long hours.

Or a small green plant to another customer who we has just moved into a new office.

I need to add that people behind the product or service are important, too.

In the case of the restaurant I visited, it was that particular waiter who noticed I was unhappy during my last visit that served me with the complimentary drink.

Not many employees will pro-actively do this so this type of culture has to be inculcated into the whole company to be effective.

At the end of the day, what make a difference can be the little things that make people know you care.

Jeanisha horrified her team recently when she suggested instead of going around singing Christmas carols at customers’ offices, they should instead go clean their office toilets during the holidays. If you are an advocate of personal touches in business, talk to her at [e-mail].