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Since the economy took a real nosedive 3 years ago, service in some business’ seemed to have taken that same nose dive. Service seems to be like the classes, the rich and the poor. Today it is great service or poor service, and why is it that the businesses that seem to have poor service are the ones talking most about how bad the economy is.
We (Paradux Media Group) are looking to expand, into a new location. we see many ‘for lease’ signs but A few months ago, saw one on a building that looked to fit our business needs. We called, left a message, nothing. A week later called left another message, nothing. A month later called left a message; at that point, someone finally called back. With all the crying about real estate, I would think that someone would be all over a solid inquiry. No wonder this particular building has been for lease for over 3 years.
Do you ever get the feeling that you are in a Seinfeld episode standing in line for soup. Take into account the year that episode was filmed was in the rising tide economic scenario. It was easy then to say “No Soup for you, NEXT!”
By contrast, we have a butcher shop where we live, that lives by service. They exceed in product and they even hustle your purchase to your car. You would never tell that it’s a slow economy when you step into his shop, they are always slammed. They were having some Maine Lobster brought in and taking pre-orders, I signed up on the spot. When going to pick-up the lobster I forgot he is all about fresh and of course, the Maine lobsters where live.
Having thrown lobsters into a boiling pot of H20 before and hearing the screams my enthusiasm for lobster had dampened. His response, come back at 5:00 and I will have it already for you. Came back a couple hours later and lazy man Maine lobster was had that night, no extra charge, just part of what they do.
I like to think that we are in the position of expanding because of our service. Many of our clients work on weekends, if they call, need an adjustment or shoot an e-mail they get a response. I like to think that we are all in this together and working harder than ever for less to make it all work. That is why when I see poor service, horrible response time on inquiries etc I scratch my head and wonder, are things that good for you.
There are very few monopolies out there and we all have lots of choices about who and why we do business with someone, and in a bad economy price will trump service many times, but its service that will propel into a good economy even if it is down. Do you go the extra mile? Today great service is more noticeable; separate yourself from your competition by stepping up the service a notch… If you want to be the soup Nazi today, you had better make damn good soup.