It is widely acknowledged that the number one reason customers quit doing business with a company is due to perceived indifference towards them as customers.

When I ask audiences to describe what it feels like to be treated indifferently, I receive responses such as, “I feel unimportant” and “I feel as if I don’t matter.”

Customers are important and customers do matter.

If indifferent treatment is the number one problem, then it reasons that it’s also the number one opportunity.

Years ago, I read The Pursuit of Wow!, an influential book by Tom Peters. In it, he makes the following comparison between bookstore salespersons, Joe Doaks and Jane Blivens:

A customer comes to Joe’s register to check out. “Hey, I saw the book Ike and Monty: Generals at War on your shelf,” he says. “I’m reading it. It’s really great.” Joe looks at him glassily, keeps working the register, and mutters, “Uh huh” in a total and final acknowledgment.

Jane Blivens is at the register. Same customer. Same line, Ike and Monty, etc. Jane responds, “That’s great. What did you like about it?” The customer gives a 45-second description, completes the transaction, and leaves.

What has Jane done? She’s lit up the customer by paying attention.

Peters concludes: “This story is aimed at retailers (hire the Jane clones, fire the Joe look-alikes; encourage clerks to be chatty, not officious, distracted automatons). And aimed at could-be Joes and could-be Janes: Regardless of the company rules and regulations, you have enormous power, on your own, to grow—or shrivel.”

Frontline employees have a choice: Treat customers indifferently or, as Peters suggests, light them up by paying attention to them.

Opportunity is knocking during every interaction you have with customers. Don’t shrivel in their presence! Make the choice to treat customers differently—as important partners in your business who matter a great deal—and marvel as you and your business grow!

Besides paying attention to them, what are some other ways to treat customers differently?

Last week, I brought my car into Car Wash Express to remove the window paint my son had used over the weekend to decorate the car for his playoff football game.

As I pulled up to the attendant’s station, I saw there were three different wash packages offered: $6 Basic Wash, $9 Super Wash, and $12 Ultimate Wash.

The attendant, Dane, asked me which option I would prefer. I responded, “Whichever one will remove this window paint.”

Dane suggested the $9 Super Wash. I agreed, paid for the wash, and pulled my car forward onto the conveyor belt that would pull my car through the automated wash. The wash began with an employee using a scrub brush to manually tackle the obvious spots—in my case, the window paint.

Since the car was being pulled slowly forward on the conveyor belt, the employee was limited on the amount of time he could spend removing the window paint. As a result, after the car wash ended and I pulled forward into the lot, remnants of window paint remained.

Now you might recall that, at the beginning of this post when Dane asked which wash package I wanted to buy, I answered, “Whichever one will remove this window paint.” And he had advised me to purchase the $9 Super Wash.

About this time, Dane appeared beside my driver’s side window and motioned for me to pull back around for a second run through the car wash. When I arrived at the entrance, there was Dane with a bottle of degreaser and a scrub brush. He personally ensured that all of the window paint had been removed before my second trip through the wash.

Let me just say that, based on previous experience in similar situations, Dane’s commitment to ensuring that the window paint had been completely removed was unexpected. Ordinarily, a car wash attendant who processes hundreds of cars each day through an automated facility, would accept payment, issue a receipt, and move on to the next vehicle—very process-focused and transactional.

But Dane chose to express genuine interest in the cleanliness of my car by following up at the end of the wash cycle to ensure the window paint had been removed. And when he saw that traces of the paint remained, he took steps to correct it.

Although my son’s team lost its playoff game, Dane’s follow up won me over as a customer.

According to a recent Accenture survey of 7,000 people from 13 countries, significant gaps exists between what consumers want from their insurers and what they feel they are receiving.

For instance, more than three-fifths (61 percent) of respondents said that it was very important for their insurer to provide prompt and effective service, or to answer requests in a timely manner, but only 32 percent of respondents were very satisfied with their insurers’ ability to deliver such service.

When you think about “prompt and effective service” or “to answer requests in a timely manner,” what comes to mind?

To me, above all else, I think about displaying a sense of urgency.

Clients notice and appreciate when a service provider hustles on their behalf. Whether a receptionist quickly answers the phone or an account representative personally delivers a policy or check, displaying a sense of urgency is a way to express genuine interest in your clients.

To express genuine interest in a customer is to go beyond that which a client typically expects from a service provider. For example, a client might expect for their phone call to be answered or to have their policy delivered. But she may not expect the phone to be answered on the second ring or to have the policy hand-delivered by her sales representative.

By conveying a sense of urgency, service providers express genuine interest in serving their clients. These actions will narrow the gap that exists between the service clients expect and the service they ultimately receive.

This will result in clients who become promoters and, as such, will be less price-sensitive, will have higher repurchase rates, and will be responsible for 80-90 percent of the positive word-of-mouth about the company.

How do you display a sense of urgency as a service provider?

Over the years, I’ve had conversations with hundreds of frontline employees in the service industry. All of these employees were passionate about something but, more often than not, their passion had little to do with their job roles.

Many described their jobs as boring, routine, and monotonous.

These conversations have inspired me to explore the question, “Why is it that frontline employees in the service industry oftentimes appear apathetic about customer service and indifferent toward their customers?”

While there are many variables including: company hiring, training, and retention practices; the existing customer service culture; the effectiveness of the employee’s immediate supervisor, etc., one key contributor that most companies miss is to clearly distinguish between an employee’s job functions and job essence.

Job functions are the duties associated with one’s job role. Performance of these functions is mandatory. It’s what the employee was hired to do. It’s what the employee is paid to do. It’s the criteria upon which his performance is judged.

Job essence is the employee’s highest priority—which, for most employees, is to create a delighted customer: one who will repurchase, is less price-sensitive, and will recommend the company/brand to others.

In contrast to job functions, job essence is frequently ignored by both employers and employees. Here’s why: Employers tend to focus on that which can be documented and measured—things like job descriptions, policies, procedures, and checklists. All of these pertain to job function. And employees tend to focus on whatever their managers focus on.

For instance, suppose a restaurant manager tells a newly-hired hostess that customer service is his top priority. (Most do.) But when the hostess’s side work (e.g., folding napkins, filling salt and pepper shakers, etc.) suffers due to her consistent presence out front greeting guests as they arrive, he questions her priorities by asking, “Why aren’t there more napkins folded?”

She will quickly learn the manager’s true priority is folded napkins (job function), not delighted customers (job essence).

You see, whereas performing job functions is mandatory, demonstrating job essence is optional—employees don’t have to do it. And most don’t. And unlike job functions for which employees are paid, there’s no additional cost to the employer for employees to demonstrate job essence. Companies don’t pay their employees extra to care, take initiative, or accept responsibility.

Both job function (competency) and job essence (passion to serve) are required to create delighted customers. Customers won’t appreciate passionate, service-oriented employees who are incompetent. Nor will they respond to capable employees whose customer service they would describe as apathetic or indifferent. In other words, restaurant guests appreciate being greeted warmly and having a clean, folded napkin.

The opportunity to create delighted customers lies at the intersection of job function and job essence.

I have identified seven customer service behaviors that are available to frontline customer service providers at this intersection. These behaviors will enable them to elevate their personal customer service from typical, routine, and expected, to unique, refreshing, and unexpected.

In so doing, they will create delighted customers—loyal customers who will brag about the company/brand to others.

Here are three of the behaviors:

1. Express genuine interest: To express genuine interest in a customer is to go beyond that which a customer typically expects during a customer service interaction. For example, most customers might expect a supermarket cashier to smile, make eye contact, and add a bit of enthusiasm to her voice. These qualities may not always occur but they are the basics of a face-to-face customer service interaction.

To go beyond the basics might mean posing a question or two to the customer.

For example, I once observed the transaction ahead of me while in line at an Albertsons supermarket. As the cashier scanned a bag of dog food, she simply asked, “What kind of dog do you have?”

With that, the cashier and the customer had an enthusiastic exchange about their mutual love of Labrador Retrievers. It wasn’t long—maybe all of 20 seconds while the customer swiped his bank card and signed for his purchases. But an impression was made. A connection was established.

2. Share unique knowledge: To share unique knowledge with a customer means to go beyond the job knowledge that is ordinarily expected of one’s job role. For example, most restaurant guests expect for servers to possess basic job knowledge such as the evening’s specials, the soupe du jour, information about food preparation, ingredients/allergens, availability, pricing, etc.

Unique knowledge goes beyond job knowledge. It is interesting, memorable, and unexpected. It has character and substance.

It’s the difference between: “Tonight, our featured appetizer is the Pâté de Foie Gras” and  “Our chef trained at the prestigious Restaurant School in Philadelphia and apprenticed at Le Bec Fin. She also traveled to France to refine her knowledge of French delicacies such as truffles, escargot, and foie gras. In fact, our Pâté de Foie Gras is our featured appetizer. May I tempt you with an order?”

Seriously, which of these two approaches would make an impression on you? Which might motivate you to order the appetizer?

3. Deliver service heroics: To deliver service heroics means to go beyond the customer’s expectations in providing him with an exceptional customer service experience. Sometimes, this will require an employee to go above and beyond the call of duty. He may be challenged to perform beyond the scope of his job description.

I won’t provide my own example here. Instead, I’ll ask you to reflect back on your own experience as a customer. Everyone reading this post has a vivid example of a time when a frontline hourly employee went above and beyond the call of duty to provide exceptional customer service.

Perhaps you wrote a letter to the employee’s boss or maybe you gave him or her a substantial gratuity? If not, I’m confident that you have at least shared the story with many others. An impression was made—one that you won’t soon forget.

Each of these behaviors shares the same set of characteristics: they demonstrate the essence of an employee’s job—his or her highest priority—to create a delighted customer; they’re optional—which is why, as customers, we don’t often experience them; and they’re free—companies don’t pay their employees extra to express genuine interest, share unique knowledge, or deliver service heroics.

By recognizing and communicating the difference between job function and job essence, then guiding employee performance by sharing and rewarding customer service behaviors that go beyond that which customers typically expect, companies will differentiate themselves on the basis of customer service quality.

While most of their competitors will be providing the customer service status quo, these companies will be providing Service Elevated!

Last week, I delivered the opening conference keynote address for an insurance association at The Mirage Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

The topic was customer service and one of the behaviors I highlighted was to express genuine interest in your customers by, among other things, engaging them with questions.

After my presentation, one of the attendees asked how to express genuine interest in a customer when you have a line of other customers waiting to be served—either in person or on the phone.

That’s a fair question.

Waiting customers may perceive employees (or other customers) to be insensitive when an interaction continues beyond that which is deemed appropriate. If you’ve ever been exasperated while waiting to be acknowledged in such a situation, then you know what I mean.

Even so, it is possible to deliver exceptional customer service by expressing genuine interest, using appropriate humor, and conveying authentic enthusiasm—even when facing a long line of waiting customers.

As I stood in the taxicab line in front of the Mirage later that morning, for example, I observed a doorman named Folk doing a masterful job of modeling these customer service behaviors while remaining attentive to the fact that there was a continuous line of waiting customers.

As I progressed closer to the front of the cab line, I observed him interacting playfully with his guests and engaging them with short questions and an infectious smile.

As the guest ahead of me was about to get into her cab, Folk put his hand up and said, “Give me a high-five!”

She high-fived him and then positioned the palm of her hand near her pocket and said, “Down low.”

Both laughed as Folk reciprocated with a low-five before securing her in the backseat of the cab and closing her door.

As soon as that cab pulled away, Folk whistled for the next cab in line at the cab stand to pull forward. Even his whistle was different and reflected his unique style and flare.

As he took my suitcase, he asked, “Are you an NFL fan?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “In the Detroit game, catch or no-catch?”

He was referring to a controversial incomplete pass ruling that went against the Detroit Lions in their loss to the Chicago Bears the previous Sunday.

I told him that I’d heard some of the chatter but had not seen the play so I really couldn’t comment.

Before closing my door, Folk asked, “Where are you from?”

I said, “Denver.”

Smiling, he said, “Oh, a Broncos fan! Come back and see us!”

He then turned his attention to the next pair of guests in line to express genuine interest and perhaps use a bit of appropriate humor, while conveying authentic enthusiasm for serving others.

Not only did Folk make his guests smile, he made many lasting positive impressions—the kind that turn passive, disaffected customers into engaged promoters like me who are responsible for 80-90% of the positive word-of-mouth about a company or brand, are the least price-sensitive, and tend to repurchase again and again and again…

And that’s no mirage.

What happened the last time you asked an employee to do something that was not his job?

Did he cheerfully accept the responsibility and work beyond his job description to fulfill your request? Did the employee begrudgingly fulfill your request—making sure you knew through body language or words that he was doing you a favor? Or, worse yet, did you hear some variation of “That’s not my job”?

Last night, I stopped by my local King Soopers grocery store to pick up a princess balloon for my daughter who turned five years old today. The floral area where the packaged mylar balloons were sold was accessible to customers but, due to the late hour, there was no employee manning the counter with the large helium tank used to fill the balloons.

I went in search of a store employee and encountered Sean. Knowing right away that it “wasn’t Sean’s job” to operate the helium tank, I prepared myself for disappointment. Based on my experience as a customer, I expected him to say something like, “That’s not my department,” or “I don’t know how to operate the helium tank,” or “That person doesn’t come in until 7:00 o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Instead, Sean accepted the mylar balloon package from me with a smile. As we walked towards the floral area, he said, “I’ve never worked the helium tank before but I’m sure I can figure it out.” Although he didn’t say it, Sean was communicating a refreshing response: “That’s my job!” A minute later he had the balloon out and followed the instructions on the packaging to properly fill the balloon.

His first attempt resulted in a large explosion as the $10 balloon burst due to being overfilled. Undaunted, he retrieved a replacement from the rack and tried again. This time, he put a little less helium in it and within minutes I was leaving the store with a large princess balloon that he had tethered to a strand of pink ribbon.

Making a lasting positive impression on customers is not hard to do. It simply requires genuine caring and the willingness to work outside of one’s job description when necessary in order to fulfill customers’ needs. Communicating “That’s my job!” is a great way to accomplish this while, at the same time, providing a pleasant surprise—because most customers won’t expect such a refreshing response.

How about you? What is your experience or example?

Let’s do a word association. You know how these work: I’ll name a word and you, off the top of your head, identify a set of words that you associate with that word. Ready?

The first word is indifference. What words immediately come to mind?

The second word is enthusiasm. What words immediately come to mind?

When I perform this activity at my seminars, participants’ associations with “indifference” are words like: apathy, don’t care, unimportant, don’t matter, etc. and their associations with “enthusiasm” are words like: lively, energetic, smile, radiant, etc.

Consider this statistic: 68 percent of customers quit doing business with a company because of perceived indifference towards them as customers.

In other words, lots of customers feel as though employees are apathetic and don’t care, and that, as customers, they are unimportant and don’t matter to the company.

What could be leading customers to feel this way? Everyone’s experience is unique but definitely interpersonal communication effects this perception. When employees don’t smile, make eye contact, or add a bit of enthusiasm to their voices, customers notice.

But here’s the good news: When employees do smile, make eye contact, and add a bit of enthusiasm to their voices, customers recognize that too. And because it’s a change from the indifferent service that most customers have come to expect, it stands out as refreshing, unique, and memorable.

Recently, I was reading the book Love Your Patients by Scott Louis Diering, M.D. and came across the following passage:

“Everyone is important. Every person you meet is very, very important. Every patient’s problem, every concern, every appointment, every minute is very, very important. Everything is important to someone. All we need do is recognize that importance. Enthusiasm is the easiest way for our patients to know that they are important.

When we act with enthusiasm, our patients will know that we truly take them seriously. We must ‘get into it.’ Many of the techniques and suggestions (referenced above) show our enthusiasm: We nod our head, make eye contact, and listen intently. We do these things to show our patients that they are our biggest concern.

It does not matter how many other more urgent problems we have to deal with. It does not matter that our last patient and our next patient are dying. What matters is, while we are with this patient, we are not distracted, bored, uninterested or unconcerned…

The best ways to show our enthusiasm are to thank our patients, to ask some non-healthcare questions about them, and to let them know that we are glad to see them…

Someone may criticize this view. They may say small talk distracts us from real patient care. They are wrong. Our business is people. The more we know about our patients, the better we can serve them.”

Many job roles, regardless of industry, become process-focused and routine over time. Service providers systematically go about their tasks and may unwittingly convey indifference towards the customers they serve.

Always look for opportunities to convey authentic enthusiasm: smile, make eye contact, add enthusiasm to your voice, ask engaging, non-routine questions and let your customers know that you’re genuinely happy to serve them.

In doing so, you will be expressing your uniqueness by adding personality to an otherwise routine and indifferent transaction. Best of all, you will be seen by customers as memorable—which certainly beats the alternative.

There is a restaurant in my neighborhood named Wine Experience Café & World Cellar. This restaurant is unique in that two-thirds of the space is used as a bar area and dining room and the other third is used as a liquor and wine store.

The owner, Eldon Larson, had a career in wine sales prior to opening Wine Experience Café two years ago. His knowledge of wines, grapes, regions, etc. is extensive and he’s always willing to share and educate in order to elevate a guest’s meal or wine purchase from a transaction to—as the restaurant’s name implies—an experience!

Earlier this year, I took a friend of mine out to dinner for his birthday at Eldon’s restaurant and Eldon stopped by our table to check-in with us regarding the quality of the food and service. Sensing by our questions that we were especially interested in wine, Eldon pulled up a chair and asked our server to bring over a flight of three unique wines. If you’re not familiar with wine flights, they are simply a variety of wines served as smaller, perhaps three-ounce, pours.

Eldon expertly paired the wines with the food we’d ordered. When they arrived at the table, Eldon led us in tasting the wines. He asked questions of us pertaining to what we noticed in the colors of the wines, the scents we were picking up when nosing the wines, and what tastes we were detecting when sipping the wines. He explained the acidity, the texture, and the finish of the wines and, again, moved the meal from transactional to experiential.

After Eldon had left our table, another diner commented, “You two must be pretty important for the owner to spend so much time at your table.” Shawn and I laughed. Then she said knowingly, “Wait until you get the bill.”

And you know what? She was right. Eldon doesn’t give wine away. He sells wine. But more than that, he fulfills experiences. If our number one priority had been price, we wouldn’t have been at Wine Experience Café to begin with. Yes, people are looking for value (in any economy) but not at the expense of fulfilling an experience.

Let’s fast-forward four weeks or so to last week when I stopped by the retail side of the establishment to inquire about a bottle of wine, Earthquake Cabernet. Although Eldon did not stock the wine, he took the time to look the bottle up and told me that he would place a call to his distributor to find out whether or not he could get it in the store.

A couple of days later I received a voice mail from Eldon saying that the wine had arrived. My first thought was, “Oh, I didn’t intend for him to order a bottle. I only intended for him to see if it was available and, if so, at what price?”

Later that day I arrived at the store to pick up the bottle of Earthquake Cabernet, hoping that it was closer to $20 than $40. When I arrived, Eldon greeted me with, “I’ve got your case of Earthquake right here.”

I said, “Case?”

He said, “Yes. You did want a case didn’t you?”

Here is where the relationship that Eldon had been building over time by expressing genuine interest in me as a customer, sharing unique knowledge about wines, and conveying authentic enthusiasm for food and wine, really began to pay off for him.

I said, “I’m not even sure of the per bottle price. How much is it?”

Eldon said, “I was able to get you a really good price from the distributor: $24 per bottle. I actually hired him into the business many years ago.”

My response: “Sold!”

The moral of the story is that, in the absence of the relationship that Eldon had forged, I almost certainly would have said, “Hey, I never authorized ordering the case. I was only inquiring as to whether or not the wine was available and, if so, at what price. My budget is $20 for wine, so that wine’s too pricey anyway.”

In that situation, the vendor is stuck carrying another $288 worth of obscure inventory and depending on how the misunderstanding is handled, could jeopardize future business with the customer. Think about it, we’ve all been in similar situations before. How you chose to proceed as a customer likely hinged on the relationship you had with the vendor.

Memorable service that is customer-focused fulfills experiences, builds relationships, and creates loyal customers who are less price-sensitive, recommend your business to others, and tend to repurchase products and services.

Transactional service that is process-focused and does not add value or build customer relationships, however, does none of these things.

Here’s a story I came across on-line. The author, Jack Bastide, gave me permission to include it on my blog as an example of how expressing genuine interest in customers translates into increased customer satisfaction and—ultimately—sales!

“About 3 years ago we bought two Jeeps. A Grand Cherokee for myself and a Liberty for my wife.  We bought them at two different dealerships. The guy that sold me my Jeep handed me his business card and I never heard from him again.  I don’t remember his name and I don’t remember the name of his dealership.

The person who sold my wife the car is Martha from Courtesy Jeep. I haven’t seen Martha in 3 years but I remember her very well. Why do I remember her?

• She sends me birthday cards
• She sends my wife birthday cards
• She sends us holiday cards
• She even sent us a happy anniversary card for the one-year anniversary of our Jeep!

So if somebody was to say to me, “Hey, I’m looking to buy a Jeep. Where should I go?” Who would I recommend? Some guy I don’t even know or Martha? Martha, of course. It’s a no-brainer!”

My take-away? It’s worth the extra time and attention it takes to express genuine interest in your customers. Aside from building relationships, it’s unexpected—a pleasant surprise—and lets customers know that you value their business, referrals, and loyalty.

Now contrast the above story with this one:  It too is a true story.  Last weekend, I stopped by an Ulta salon for a haircut.  The stylist was a good conversationalist, took her time, and did a good job.

As I was paying for the haircut, Roxanne expressed genuine interest in a cut that I had bandaged on my right thumb.  She hadn’t noticed it before now and asked, “O-h-h…what did you do to your thumb?”

I explained that I really didn’t injure it.  It was just that during the winter months in Colorado, it’s especially dry and my skin tends to crack on my thumb and one or two other areas of my hand.  I told her that I’d tried a variety of lotions but nothing seemed to help.

She then said, “Have you tried Glysolid?” as she lead me to the product.  She handed me the thin red container saying, “You should try this.  I used to have the same condition but now my hands are silky smooth—see?”  She held out her hands for me to inspect and guess what?  They were smooth and she made a $9 sale!

Think about it:  How often do you really encounter employees like Roxanne who express genuinely interest in you?  Now, consider how often you encounter employees who are apathetic—employees you might characterize as indifferent toward serving you, the customer (e.g., employees who might say, “If you didn’t see it on the shelf then we don’t carry it.  Have a nice day.”).

Would these employees demonstrate the care and concern necessary to ask about an injury you may have received to your thumb?  Would these employees really bother to take a personal interest in you?  Probably not.  Would they have made an additional $9 sale like Roxanne?  Probably not.

Memorable service drives sales.  Forgettable service does not.