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A Simple Lesson
posted: Friday, February 24, 2012
The holidays are over and everyone is back to the daily grind. However, something happened over the holidays that left me impressed and I wanted to share it with you. We talk from time to time about the power of thank you notes.
We started taking our cars to a local service station for all of our repairs a couple of years ago and have been completely satisfied each and every time. After every trip to the station, we have received a thank you note for our business. In this day and age, a thank you note after every interaction is impressive enough, but not as impressive as what happened right before Christmas. We received a Christmas card, which again is far above the current standard of customer service that we see in most companies. Inside the card was a coupon for 20% off of our next oil change. The idea of a company actually sending holiday cards to their customers represents a level of customer service that very few reach these days. Then to throw in a coupon on top of that, this just blew me away. This is a small garage, but it has been there forever and now I know why. They may not have the volume of customers that a large chain does but they certainly have a loyal customer base.
The story speaks for itself, but I do want to emphasize a couple of points. The first is how simple it is to do what they did. It maybe took 3 or 4 hours to get the cards sent out, but the return on the time investment was probably huge. We will never go anywhere else for any work on our cars and we will continue to refer our friends and family to them. By simply sending out holiday cards, they have done two things that we crave in the field of sales. They have established a repeat customer base and they have people referring their friends. That's a recipe for success for any business, big or small.
The holidays are over but the lessons from a local auto repair shop maybe the best gift of all!
FINAO - Brad Huisken
We started taking our cars to a local service station for all of our repairs a couple of years ago and have been completely satisfied each and every time. After every trip to the station, we have received a thank you note for our business. In this day and age, a thank you note after every interaction is impressive enough, but not as impressive as what happened right before Christmas. We received a Christmas card, which again is far above the current standard of customer service that we see in most companies. Inside the card was a coupon for 20% off of our next oil change. The idea of a company actually sending holiday cards to their customers represents a level of customer service that very few reach these days. Then to throw in a coupon on top of that, this just blew me away. This is a small garage, but it has been there forever and now I know why. They may not have the volume of customers that a large chain does but they certainly have a loyal customer base.
The story speaks for itself, but I do want to emphasize a couple of points. The first is how simple it is to do what they did. It maybe took 3 or 4 hours to get the cards sent out, but the return on the time investment was probably huge. We will never go anywhere else for any work on our cars and we will continue to refer our friends and family to them. By simply sending out holiday cards, they have done two things that we crave in the field of sales. They have established a repeat customer base and they have people referring their friends. That's a recipe for success for any business, big or small.
The holidays are over but the lessons from a local auto repair shop maybe the best gift of all!
FINAO - Brad Huisken
