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.
