Who should you service first?  The customer who’s phoning or the one standing right in front of you?  There’s a real double standard here among customers.  When you’re the one calling, you expect the employee to answer promptly and assist you right away without being put on hold.  However, when you’re the one standing in line waiting to be served you may expect that you should take priority over callers.

There’s a take and bake pizza store in my neighborhood that receives lots of phone orders.  Customers then arrive at the store and wait in a line to pick up the pizza order they phoned in.  Eventually they make their way to the front of the line where the employee working the register finally acknowledges them.  At this point customers are at the mercy of the phone.  If it rings, as it often does, they will have to wait another couple of minutes for the employee to take a phone order or two before their pizza is rung up.

On a Wednesday afternoon, it’s not so bad but on a Friday night?  The line of customers waiting to pay coupled with the volume of customers calling in their pizza orders creates tension.  I mean, really, you can sense it when you enter the store and can see it clearly in the body language of customers and employees alike.

Once, after waiting an inordinately long time to pay for my order, I actually considered using my cell phone to call the store and when they answered, saying something like, “Hello.  Hey, do you see that guy standing in front of the register holding a $20 bill?  Uh huh, right—the guy on the cell phone.  That’s me.  And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop answering the phone and ring up my pizza so I can get out of here.”

I’m sure the frontline hourly employee who faces this dilemma likely feels frustrated himself.  Chances are he hasn’t been trained in how to properly handle such situations.  Sadly, this fosters an adversarial relationship with customers who are then viewed by employees as impatient and unreasonable—as opposed to the source of their livelihoods.

Some employees have a penchant for delivering service heroics that become the subjects of many positive customer testimonials and even company lore. This is an effective way for these employees to express their uniqueness while making it memorable for customers.

For our tenth year wedding anniversary, I bought my wife an anniversary ring from Tiffany & Co. We had planned to stay at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, about an hour and a half from our home in southeast Denver, and I had made arrangements for the ring to be shipped to the hotel from the Denver location of Tiffany.

Well, as it happened, Denver was hit by a major snowstorm the morning of our anniversary and we chose to cancel our plans to drive down to Colorado Springs. Meanwhile, the ring had already been shipped and was in the process of being delivered to the hotel by United Parcel Service.

I contacted the Tiffany store in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center with my dilemma and my salesperson assured me that she would take care of it. What happened next was legendary. The store arranged for one of its security guards to drive two hours south of the store to Colorado Springs where he located the UPS truck transporting the ring, provided the paperwork necessary to claim the package, and then drove the ring another hour and a half to my house.

He arrived around 9:00 pm and would not even accept a gratuity for his extra effort. Of course, I wrote Tiffany’s president in New York City about the service heroics and committed to “never purchase a significant piece of jewelry from a jeweler other than Tiffany and Co.” He wrote back in acknowledgment of my letter—and in appreciation of my loyalty.

I’ve heard similar testimonials from others when presenting customer service training around the country. Without exception, the one element that each of these stories has in common is the customers’ unconditional loyalty to the company involved.

There’s no coupon or incentive program out there that’s strong enough to lure these customers—and their future spending—away.

Conveying authentic enthusiasm that adds a bit of a spark to an otherwise predictable transaction is an effective way to express one’s uniqueness while making it memorable for customers.

Three years ago, I ordered an omelet from an omelet maker at a Marriott hotel in Atlanta, GA.  He was wearing an apron that he meticulously pressed an accordion-like pattern into each morning before work.  It was so remarkable that you had to ask him about it.

And the personality that he put into his outstanding uniform carried over to the personality in his service as an omelet maker.  I still recall his name, Ulysses.  Seriously folks, how many of you can recall these types of details from an interaction you had with an omelet maker three years ago?

Ulysses is genuinely filled with enthusiasm and authentically conveys this enthusiasm to customers in a way that is unique, perhaps even singular, and matches his style and personality.

Authentic enthusiasm may be animated or may be reserved, but it will be real.

Offering a sincere and specific compliment is an effective way to recognize customers and make the service experience memorable.

For example, you might say, “That’s a gorgeous watch. Is it a Tag Heuer?” And then, assuming you have a genuine interest in and knowledge of watches, demonstrate your enthusiasm by adding something like, “Have you seen the new Link Calibre S that Tiger Woods endorses?” This customer will appreciate that you recognized his watch and, if you’re talking with either a watch or golf enthusiast, your interaction is bound to be memorable!

Just the other day, a Starbucks barista complimented the customer ahead of me in line by saying, “I love your necklace!” The customer smiled, picked up her beverage and said, “Oh my gosh—thank you!” in the most delighted tone. It was only 8:00am and yet I believe the employee had already made her day!

I’m not suggesting that you should manufacture compliments in order to better serve your customers. The opportunity to offer a sincere and specific compliment will not present itself during every customer service interaction—and insincere compliments are awkward. Just be on the lookout for those opportunities to genuinely recognize a customer’s attire, hairstyle, jewelry—even the behavior of their young children.

Customers will appreciate the recognition and you will be memorable—which certainly beats the alternative!

Expressing genuine interest in the customer that exceeds the functional requirements to complete the transaction is an effective way to express one’s uniqueness while making it memorable for customers.

For instance, a bilingual employee who speaks Spanish may say, “Bienvenido. ¿Cómo está usted?” to a customer she overheard speaking Spanish to a colleague. Or perhaps a well-traveled employee could ask a specific question based on where the customer is from that communicates his interest in the customer. If the customer is from Kauai, for example, and the employee recently vacationed there, then he might say, “Kauai is amazing! I recently traveled there and explored the entire island from the Waimea Canyon to the Na Pali coastline.” This customer will likely smile and engage in some conversation about his homeland, perhaps sharing a local’s perspective on a place this employee should be sure to visit during his next trip to Kauai.

But you don’t have to be bilingual or well-traveled to express genuine interest in your customers. To me, when Nordstrom employees walk around the counter to hand me my purchases—while smiling, making eye contact and sincerely thanking me for my business—they are expressing genuine interest in me as a customer.

The opposite of expressing genuine interest is to ignore or express disinterest in serving customers. Have you ever felt ignored as a customer? Have you ever felt like an interruption in a service provider’s day (i.e., “If customers would just stop bothering me, maybe I could get some work done around here!”).

Customers can easily detect when employees are genuinely interested and engaged versus apathetic and merely going through the motions. According to one study, 68% of customers quit doing business with a company because of perceived indifference toward them as a customer. They didn’t say that the service provider was blatantly rude or obnoxious—the word was indifference.