Doorbell rang today which doesn’t actually happen that often. Must be Fed Ex guy I assumed as I answered it…
“Hey, I’m Mike with Des-Carr Doors!”
I said nothing but my face must have said, “Huh?”
“We installed your 3 garage doors last month…”
I quickly recovered, “Oh, hey! Sure, how are you?”
“I’m fine. I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by to see how the doors were doing and to see if everything was OK,” Mike explained.
Once again, I’m pretty sure my face said “Huh?” I mean I understood what he said and why he was at my house. But I was shocked.
He completed a job, got paid, and then with no prompting decided to show up and make sure everything was OK? Isn’t that the opposite of what most companies do? Fight like hell to make the sale and then hope you never hear from the customer again? Send out thousands of the finished product to your customer and pray that you don’t see their name on your caller ID in the days following, because it can only mean bad news. Or like my car dealer who gives me terrible service for the last 3 years and doesn’t return my calls or emails, but now that my lease is up suddenly is all nice as they try to sell me the next car.
I told Mike my new garage doors were working just fine and that it actually never occurred to me that they wouldn’t. He then took 2 minutes to show me where I should spray some WD-40 every now and then and how to make sure the tracks weren’t getting loose. I thanked him and he went on his way. I’m still amazed. I won’t need new garage doors for years (although I can refer) but he stopped by just to make sure I was happy.
Shut your browser and call a client. Say something like, “Hey, [Name] I just got 10 free minutes on my schedule so I thought I’d call you to see how everything is going with the [product/service] you got from us.”
If you’re really amazing you’ll call two or three clients. Come on! Right now! Close this browser and make the calls!
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Kevin Kruse is a NY Times bestselling author and keynote speaker. Get more success and tips from his newsletter at kevinkruse.com and check out keynote video clips. His new book, Employee Engagement 2.0, teaches managers how to turn apathetic groups into emotionally committed teams.
