The phone rang yesterday and out of that brief call comes a business thought. The person on the other end was calling a bookstore that used to have the same telephone number that my business now has. Obviously since I’ve had the number for over two years it’s been at least that long since the book store has had it but I get a call or two every month for them. It’s still in business, by the way – I’m not sure why they changed their number other than they moved to the next town. You’d think the search engines and phone books would have caught up by now. But that’s not the lesson.
No, the lesson came from the question asked of me after I informed the caller that no, this was not the bookstore. She then posited this:
Are you a person or a business?
Hmm. Now, I know what she meant – is this a personal phone number or that of a business – but the question stuck with me. How do people think of your company when they do business with you: are you a person or a business? We’ve all had the experience of the latter – the endless time on hold, the nameless response to an email begging for some help solving a problem, the ticket agent who simply repeats the rules and tells you they can’t help. Are those people with which you’re dealing? I don’t think so.
Contrast that to the experience of customer service at Zappos or local store manager who runs across the store to get you what you want instead of just pointing you to the right aisle. Those are people and they make all the difference.
So ask yourself the same question: are you a person or a business? If you’re trying to do the latter, you’d better be the former! Thoughts?
Consult Keith 