Customer Experience
Last week I had an appointment with a person who called me looking for ideas. We met, along with a colleague of his, for coffee at a wonderful downtown, non-franchised locally owned, establishment by the name of Caffé Aroma (CA). CA has been a fixture in downtown Bismarck for nearly 15 years. I believe it predates Starbucks arrival to Bismarck, has had two, maybe three owners, no drive up (Stella Liebeck would have to get out of her car, walk in to order, walk back to her car – she’d skip CA and hit Mickey D’s) and lastly, CA is in a Loren Galpin redesigned historic building in our Renaissance Zone district. Loren is one of those visionary developers slash designers that has been spearheading beautification and re-development projects in Bismarck for about 25 years. This building, Logans on 3rd is unique. CA is a place for the casual coffee drinker or connoisseur, a place couples meet to flirt, old friends sit to catch up or reminisce and movers and shakers gather to move and shake. We met to visit.
We ordered our beverages of choice and sat down to a nice 45 minute conversation. During that time, we talked about our kids, work, were we worshipped, local music icon Richard Torrance, what our companies were planning and how we might collaborate on some business development ideas. Again, we had met at the request of one of the two gentlemen. We left with the understanding we might continue our discussion at a future date.
Friday I was going through my mail at work and noticed a smaller than average envelope. I instantly knew of its contents. This was a thank you card. It was a hand written thank you card in a hand addressed envelope. I send them out and have been doing so for almost all of my business career. Tom sent me a hand addressed envelope which contained a hand written thank card. It was only the second such card I received during the course of the last year. How do I know this timeline? All of the hand written thank you notes I have received during the last four years are sitting on my desk – all eight.
Do you want to be memorable?
Customer service and the hand written: “ Thank you for your time and consideration. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and look forward to serving you. Have a terrific day. Mike.”
So simple even a caveman could do it – heck even I can do this!
(Moved)
I, very much, agree. My grandmother always made me sit down and write “Thank You’s”. I hated doing it at the time. Now, I understsand and appreciate it. Even then, before she could have possibly known about today’s technology and how “impersonal” things could become with email, texting, etc., my grandmother made sure that I learned the importance of saying thank you for a gift or if someone did something nice for me. To this day, I will still leave a short note with a tip when I am given exceptional service at a restaurant. Having been a server, myself, I know that its nice to hear that you did a good job. Most people will only voice their displeasure with anyone in the service industry.
If more people knew how good it felt to make others feel good…..well, I believe it would be contagious.
Thanks for sharing Dena. I appreciate your input and the graphic you sent via email.
Take care.
Mike