I went out for a drive the other night and decided to take my wife’s car because she has the sunroof and it was a beautiful evening.
I noticed she was running low on gas and decided to pull into a “full service” station.
Remember those?
Note: With today’s gas prices I think they should not only pump your gas for you they should give you a back rub, tell you a story and quite possibly do your income taxes but I digress.
I asked the guy to fill it up and check the oil and he refused.
Not to fill the car but to check my oil.
No apology.
No sugar coating.
Just a “I can’t we’re too busy”
I stared at him waiting for the “Just kidding” but I decided to stop the foreplay before he patted me on the head thinking I was stupid.
I told him to pull the nozzle out of the tank and I drove off into the sunset sticking my middle finger up through my wife’s sunroof.
Not really but I think I’m going to tell the story that way from this point on. Makes me seem both rebellious and inappropriate.
I took my business 3 blocks up the road where I bought $65.00 in gas and 2 quarts of oil.
I don’t think the first dude will lose any sleep over it but he should because he didn’t just lose $65.00, he lost about $4,000 over the next year in lost sales to the Castain family.
But wait . . . there’s more!
Let’s say I would have only gone to him for 5 more years before he sold the joint. That’s a $20,000 loss all because this guy is a dumbass.
Meanwhile, the dude 3 blocks up the road will become $20,000 richer over the next few years.
Multiply both behaviors by multiple clients and you’re talking about things that can and will make or break a business!
It made me think about something that has to do with you and me and our businesses.
We all love the nice profitable sexy projects.
As sales professionals we love the nice fat commission check (can I get an AMEN on that?) but . . .
Are we willing to do our own equivalent of “checking the oil”?
Sometimes we forget that our customers have choices and might in fact reward the person who’s willing to out work, out care and out perform us!
Your turn . . . In your quest as an aspiring sales rock star . . . are you willing to provide your own equivalent of “checking the oil” as part of the service you provide your customers?
Paul Castain works with individuals and organizations to achieve higher levels of what experts refer to as “awesomeness”. For more information on Paul’s services, download his cool PDF
Hi Paul,
The Gas guy, realy had a skewed reality, otherwise he would have realised that he was killing his business with his own hands/mouth, however, in the B2B sales world we see this kind of behavior also a lot. I have adopted a concept I picked up from Don Hutson, he quoted somebody else, however the message isn’t less powerfull: “In order to get more business than you ever had, make more friends in the market place than you ever had, you have to get into your customers’ faces and serve them to death” (great wordpicture by the way). He added to that that it might be needed to perform an occassional customer sevice miracle,
I love every part of what you’ve shared here Bart.
The problem is that we have way too many people spending energy on complaining about business, the economy, their company, their pay structure etc . . . instead of putting that energy into something that yields a superior ROI!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Bart!
Wishing you a fantastic weekend!
great article and very poignant, not sure there are many
that do ‘check the oil’ any more from a sales perspective the trends is to move
on to the next one, regardless, I don’t think it’s right. Loyalty is earned through actions…
“Loyalty is earned through actions” I believe this sums it better than my 300+ words my friend!
Well stated!
Thank you Jonahtan!
On target Paul. Even more so as you try to build business. It will often take 2-4 years of “checking the oil” and “filling the tires” to get to a portion of a client’s business. And, with “checking” and “filling” as they do business, the next level becomes available. For example, it took 3 years for me to close on one ad agency account. In less than a year, 2 of their clients do business with me. “Checking” and “filling” are what I do to “prime the pump!”
“Checking” and “filling” are what I do to “prime the pump!” = Brilliant. I love that!
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!
Service sells! I emailed this to everyone in my company…
Thanks, have a great weekend.
Absolutely Richie!
Thanks for passing this along and enjoy your weekend too!
A very good point. I absolutely give value-added service to my customers.
I’m glad to hear this and I bet your clients are lucky to have your attentive service!
Thank you so much for stopping by!
First, this post is hilarious. I have never even thought about pulling in to a station and asking for them to check my oil. I forgot that full service stations did those things. I took an honest look at my offerings recently and how I check in, service, and follow up and made some changes for the better. Thanks for posting!
Paul, thanks for another great article. My customers can find what I sell everywhere. What they can’t find everywhere is an attentive salesperson who will will service the heck out of them and thank them for their business after the sale. It isn’t enough to have a great product. You have to make it easy to do business with your firm, from order entry to collecting on the invoice.
“What they can’t find everywhere is an attentive salesperson who will will service the heck out of them and thank them for their business after the sale.” Now that’s the spirit Jon! Way to competitor proof your business!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You are appreciated!
wow ~ I just read this discussion thread from the bottom up. I agree with Alisha; the article is funny. The content is sad. I got to zipping through your post Jon, and I thought you wrote “What they can’t find everywhere is an attractive salesperson who will service…”
Time to call it a day. Local time at 659 means I’ll be the last one to happy hour again.
Have a great weekend every body and, Uncle Paul… thanks again for you advice and your wit. If your buddy was driving you probably would have shined a moon at that knucklehead at the station…
wow ~ I just read this discussion thread from the bottom up. I agree with Alisha; the article is funny. The content is sad. I got to zipping through your post Jon, and I thought you wrote “What they can’t find everywhere is an attractive salesperson who will service…”
Time to call it a day. Local time at 659 means I’ll be the last one to happy hour again.
Have a great weekend every body and, Uncle Paul… thanks again for you advice and your wit. If your buddy was driving you probably would have shined a moon at that knucklehead at the station…
Love your analogy! We at Quebec Pet use yet another car analogy to qualify our service for our customers.
Mercedes class service! Have you ever been in a Mercedes-Benz dealership for an oil change? It’s just WOW!
I haven’t but I’m about to ask my big brother about this because he works in one of their dealerships!
Thanks Michel!
Paul, super article and always right on point. My question for anyone else that is here in California — are there any full service stations remaining anywhere on the west coast? Oh too funny!
You know Lynda, I recently told someone that I would pump gas if I had to to feed my family. They replied “Where? It’s all self serve!”
Go figure 🙂
Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!
Awesome post Paul! People so often forget that one bad instance of customer service can lose a customer for life! And yes, the mutliplier effect can really cause issues over the long term!
Great post Paul. I worked on one prospect/client for 9 months and just printed our first live job. Instead of having our shipping dept. deliver their samples, I am taking them out personally this afternoon. Great opportunity to thank them for working with our company.
Paul, great article. Unfortunately, this type of service seems to be the norm, and not just at gas stations (and no I don’t know of any “full service gas stations in SoCal). The retail clerks are more interested in texting than helping the customer. No wonder we’re all going on-line to shop!
That’s a great point. Many of the same people who are complaining about this have provided us with little choice but to go online or simply take our business elsewhere.
Always, Always, if you must say, “I don’t know”, immediately follow with “But I’ll find out”. So wonderful to hear someone say this- shows they care!
Thanks Anita.
Wishing you an awesome weekend my friend!
Paul,
I just love your little side note in your post…makes me giggle 😉
The only reason that I’m successful in sales is because I actually give a damn about the Customer. I will go out of my way to help a Customer even if I don’t benefit. I have this goofy insatiable need to please people…
I have this little theory. If I can make someone’s job easier by providing a solution to a challenge they have, they appreciate it and want to have their job made even easier. They think “I need to speak with Larry more often because I like how he makes things easier for me”.
Instead of just a job you actually have to care about a Customer’s needs.
Happy Friday the 13th Paul!
Cheers,
Larry
Congratulations for this well deserved victory Jeff!
To me this epitomizes the old “If I worked this hard to get your business, can you imagine how hard I’ll work to keep it!”
Rock on Jeff . . . this is fantastic news!
“People so often forget that one bad instance of customer service can lose a customer for life!” . . . fantastic point Tim and with the power of the internet, we all have a tendency to tell our networks.
Now there’s a multiplier for ya buddy!
Thanks Tim . . . Have an awesome weekend!
I’m glad someone appreciate my humor Elisha 🙂
” I took an honest look at my offerings recently and how I check in, service, and follow up and made some changes for the better.” I want you to go ahead to put your palm up to your computer screen for a virtual high 5 for doing that. This is what we all (myself included) need to be doing regularly.
An all caps ROCK ON to you Elisha!
Thanks!
Wanna bet the owner of the station had no idea one of his service reps didn’t want to provide service? The owner might want to spend a little time in trenches to see what customers are asking for. Another great article on a long line of them.
Always be nice and ask if there is anything else you can help them with when the conversation is about to close, sometimes you jog the persons memory on another service that you provide.
Paul…two quarts low..that poor car ;—)
Another great post Paul. As you know, the customer experience is near and dear to my heart. First as a customer myself, and second as a customer service trainer.
I often talk about employees and whether they are thinking and acting like “owners” or if they are thinking and acting like “renters”. Unfortunately, many businesses have renters working in their organizations. These are the employees that do the bare minimum (if that), don’t care whether the customer becomes a customer or stays a customer, because at the end of the day, they are still getting their “XX$ per hour paycheck”.
The good news is that you don’t have to be “the” owner to think and act like an owner. You just have to care and have a vested interest in the outcome. Renters hurt your business, and to your point, they hurt a business’s pocket.
You know, the owner might have actually instructed this guy to only pump gas. When I run across a situation like this (and we all do), I make sure and write a note to the owner letting him know how this has hurt his business. Changes do get made. btw – I also write for great service.
Thanks for a great article, Paul. Unfortunately we live in a society where many businesses have forgotten what it means to provide service to their customers and “service” them instead. Those that put forth the effort will reap the greatest rewards.
The company that I work with sells and fulfills incentive products. While we are considered a medium-sized business, we get a lot of competition from websites (some run from home garages!)that allow the customer to print as many certificates as they want for $99 a year, while we are selling a similar offer for $3 each. I get a lot of calls from businesses who tried these sites and got burned when they could never reach a customer service rep, their calls were never returned, and their customers never got their promised gift even after following all stipulations.
Long story short, we now get a lot of business because of these websites and their lack of service. With us, each client receives a hand-written thank you card with their first order, a dedicated client services manager to handle all of their needs, a series follow-up calls at pre-determined intervals to make sure that the client is taken care of, as well as a friendly and knowledgeable customer service staff for their customers.
This is also an example of how businesses who put the extra effort on the customer service end earn the right to charge a little more for their product. Going back to the gas station example, I know that on a nasty, rainy day I would be willing to pay $3.85 a gallon for someone else to pump it than $3.65 a gallon to do it myself!
Paul nice story! And just as easy as it was for you to drive off it is even easier for a client to upload their next project to your competitors FTP site because you didn’t call back soon enough to answer the “can you get this done by tomorrow” question. When we relax and forget the small details we loose the big ones.
Great post, U.P.
In today’s hyper-price sensitive world, I think it is ever more important to ingratiate your clients with small acts of kindness. I try to help them in ways that don’t enrich me directly, but in ways that I hope they will appreciate. Some do and some don’t.
I do it anyway.