Q: As the owner of a small retail business, there’s just no way I can match the lower prices my customers can get at the giant retail outlets. I’m feeling the squeeze, and don’t like the thought of losing a business that’s been in my family for two generations. Can you help?
A: In most towns you can find at least one business that’s famous for always having lines of eager customers. It’s the kind of place residents always proudly show off to visiting family and friends.
Paul Levesque, author of “Customer Service From the Inside Out Made Easy”, describes these as “flash-point businesses” — ones where employee motivation and customer satisfaction fuel each other in a chain reaction of contagious enthusiasm.
These businesses do it by encouraging workers to come up with their own ideas for improving the customer experience, and then by helping the workers implement their ideas. Positive feedback from delighted customers has a profoundly motivational effect on the workers involved.
In short, flash-point businesses don’t set out to “fix their employees.” Their focus is on fixing the culture of the business, so that workers are motivated to always go the extra mile for customers — not because their boss demands it, but because the raves they get from delighted customers make it all seem extremely worthwhile.
Photo by tellgraf.
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