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	Win Your Customer Over with Simple Courtesies

	by Kit Lum

Walk into any store any day and there’s probably a LESSON in customer service waiting for you. You could learn a great deal about how to treat your customer just by observing how YOU are treated as the customer!

MY OWN EXPERIENCE

Just the other day, I went to a food court at a shopping mall for lunch. Food courts are a popular self-service concept in Asia of food cubicles arranged usually in circular fashion with tables in the middle where you can sit and eat your choice selection. As I was checking out the vast selection of lunchtime fare, I noticed the servers behind the counters were all stone-faced. Maybe it’s been a long day. Maybe Asians take their business seriously and seldom volunteer idle chit-chat with their customers. But as I was walking past the Chicken Rice counter, the kindly SMILE of a middle-aged man lit up the stone wall. Chicken rice, a delicious one-dish Asian meal of fragrant rice served with roast or steamed chicken, is my favorite but I think it was that friendly smile that CONVINCED me what I wanted this time.

LESSON 1

A simple five-letter word that should really be at the top of your business to-do list. Smile. Not a likely business lesson that you’ll come across very often. But it’s one I trust will take you far. Smile in person. Smile on the phone. Smile in your emails. It doesn’t hurt, I promise, I do it all the time when I ‘talk’ to my customers. It’s pretty amazing really. When you smile, people lighten up and WARM up to you. You instantly connect. It builds a BRIDGE to a business relationship.

BACK TO MY FOOD COURT...

On another afternoon, I went there again for lunch. Got my tray and walked away without noticing that one of Mr Kindly’s assistants had given me the wrong order. She’d given me the barbecued pork instead of roast chicken. Until a few years ago, many businesses in Asia practised the no-exchange no-return policy, and many still do. This means when the transaction is completed, you’re STUCK with your purchase, no matter what. If it was the the wrong order, the wrong size or defective, you couldn’t return or exchange it. These days, businesses are gradually becoming more customer-friendly. So I decided to try my luck with Mr Kindly. Well, guess what? He APOLOGIZED profusely, took my plate and heaped the roast chicken on top of the barbecued pork, and charged me not one cent more. I was bowled over by his exceptional customer service.

LESSON 2

Surely the lesson to be learnt here is to acknowledge when a MISTAKE has been made. We’re all human. It’s okay to make mistakes. What’s important is that you accept RESPONSIBILITY for it and try not to let it happen again. Acknowledge the mistake, fix it and go the extra mile to make up for it. Give them a discount for their next purchase. Or offer them something on the house. In other words, leave your customer with a sweet aftertaste in spite of the little mess-up and they will be back!

ONE MORE STOP AT THE FOOD COURT

I thanked Mr Kindly. I was IMPRESSED at how he’d chosen to handle the situation. Just before I was jostled out of the way by a long line of impatient customers who’d formed behind me, he smilingly told me he APPRECIATES my business and hopes to see me again soon.

LESSON 3

Find the time to THANK your customer and tell them how much you appreciate them, no matter how busy you are. Make each one feel like they are the most important person in the world. People like to know they’re appreciated. It makes them feel especially good to know they’ve made the right DECISION to do business with you.

GOING OLD SCHOOL

The Chicken Rice Man sets himself apart from the competition by using some good old-fashioned honest-to-goodness business tactics. You come across other entrepreneurs and you can’t help but wish they were all like him. Indeed, we can all be like him. These simple courtesies are not that hard to do. They just take a bit of PRACTICE. Go get started now.

Kit Lum brings five years of online business experience into Go Get Global and its ezines -- helping small/home businesses profit from growing globally. Quality advertising and business services, and business and cultural resources are only a click away at www.Go-GetGlobal.com.

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