In today’s competitive markets, smart companies strive to “stand out” from others in the crowd. Low pricing is one approach, but it eats away your profit margin. Super-high quality is another approach, but can be hard to deliver if your product is a commodity item, easily available from other sources or vendors.
Fabulous service can help a great deal – and it can be done in so many ways! Customer service leadership simply makes sense as a way to deliver distinction.
Here’s one approach to customer service leadership that delights me from a web-based CD store with an attitude of customer adoration. Read the cheeky message I received recently, and see if it doesn’t make you smile, too.
Dear Ron,
Thanks for your order with CD Baby!
Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized, contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 devoted employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle, and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office, where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you in our private CD Baby luxury jet.
I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure had a wonderful time taking care of you. Your picture is on our wall as ‘Customer of the Year’. We’re all exhausted, but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!
Thank you once again,
Derek Sivers, President
CD Baby, the little CD store with the best new independent music,
I had such a great time reading this note and sharing it here with you as an example of customer service leadership that works.
Key Learning Point To Customer Service Leadership
To stand out from the crowd, find a style you like and take it to a whole new level. Customer service leadership will get you noticed. Consider the wisdom in this magnificent quote (I live my life in part on its guidance): “Be outrageous. It’s the only place that isn’t crowded!”
Action Steps To Customer Service Leadership
Decide what you want to be known for and find a way to do it, be it, say it, give it, live it and share it more outrageously than ever before to demonstrate customer service leadership. Go ahead and shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll still be among the stars because of your customer service leadership.
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Copyright, Ron Kaufman. Used with permission. Ron Kaufman is the world’s leading educator and motivator for upgrading customer service and uplifting service culture. He is author of the bestselling “Uplifting Service” book and founder of Uplifting Service. To enjoy more customer service training and service culture articles, visit www.RonKaufman.com.
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