Customer Service 101
Excerpt from “Why Knot?” Buy the book at Amazon
Takis, a Greek immigrant, owned a Shell franchise in West Roxbury. Before I met him, I never paid attention to where I bought gas or who sold it to me. It was a commodity, and the people who did the pumping or handled the cash register were faceless. You might feel loyalty to a church or to an Elks Club, but one gas station was the same as another.
During the oil boycott of 1973, gas became scarce. When we needed gas, my wife and I took turns waiting in line for hours, and sometimes, despite the wait, got nothing. One day my wife got in line at Takis Shell, and the owner came out and told her, “You are a regular customer. You are special. We take care of you.” We hadn’t been regular customers before. But we were ever after that, benefiting from his special treatment during the boycott, and returning to his station and only his station for nearly 30 years.
When other gas stations automated so customers could pay at the pump and never see or talk to anyone, Takis taped over the credit card slots so you had to walk into his office to complete the transaction. He knew you by name, talked about himself and his family, and asked about you and your family; and he followed up on conversational details from one time to the next. Sometimes his wife or his son was behind the cash register. You weren’t just buying gas; you were touching base with old friends. While in the office, you might buy snacks or ask for advice about a noise your car was making. And if your car needed fixing, that was where you took it for repair. Although you could have spread your buying power anonymously among a dozen local stations, you concentrated all your purchases there; and, without even considering price, you felt you benefited from this business relationship. Going to this gas station was like going to a general store a hundred years before — it was both social and business.
About 20 years ago, Shell put Takis out of business. Apparently, Shell decided to shut down franchises and instead to sell through company-owned stations. A few days before Takis turned over ownership, a reporter from the local newspaper was talking to him in his office when I happened to walk in. Takis pointed to me as an example of a loyal customer. And talking to the reporter, I realized how much I had learned from Takis over the years and that I had put those lessons into practice in building my Web-based business.
In the short run, automation may save you time and money; but in the long run, it could cost you dearly — making your operation the same as many others, putting you at the mercy of larger companies that sooner or later will price you out of business. It’s well worth the time and trouble to talk to customers, to get to know them, to go out of your way for them. And if there’s any kind of a glitch so you need to spend more time with a customer, that’s an additional opportunity to build a relationship. The more what you have to sell is perceived as a commodity, the more important it is to build relationships with customers, to give them good reasons, both tangible and intangible, to return.
Today’s company-owned station uses pay-at-the-pump automation. The air pump, which used to be free to all, is coin-operated. They do car washes but handle no repairs, not even flat tires. I don’t know the people who work there. I never go there. Few people do. I miss Takis.
