ASTONISH CUSTOMERS
Providing outstanding service means nurturing your clients by consistently doing things that move the customer from mere satisfaction to astonishment. In other words, even though delivering a quality job on time may often require that your salespeople go out of their way, in most cases the client won’t acknowledge the salesperson’s extra efforts because they perceive these efforts as the salesperson’s duty. It is only when you go beyond the expected--when you astonish your clients--that you embark upon the realm of outstanding service.
Although most managers and salespeople truly believe they are providing their clients with outstanding service, our study shows that this is not the case. Seventy-four percent of the salespeople were merely doing their duty: whatever was necessary to get the job delivered on time. Nine percent did little or nothing after they landed the order, and only 17 percent actually provided their clients with outstanding service. In other words, most of us only think that we are servicing our accounts.