Isn’t it interesting how much time we spend on the next promotion, the next great sale, the next ingenious idea to get people to visit our store or call our business. And invariably we always wonder if we will have to discount our product and service and by how much.
But when the consumer is asked what is most important about buying from a small business, 78% answer “excellent personal customer service.” The discount, or great ad or promotion might have gotten their attention, but the success of the floor covering store and carpet cleaner is and will always be dependent upon “excellent personal customer service.”
Make no mistake about it the word of mouth generated by your business for doing a good job will always bring in more customers than all the ads you ever run. And the negative word of mouth generated by your business for doing a poor job is more hurtful to your business than an IRS audit!
But it is the customer who defines “excellent personal customer service” and for a long time she has asked the floor covering retailer, “Who should we get to clean our carpets?” What she wanted the retailer to say is, “We do it; we take care of you after the sale to be sure your carpet stays clean.” But most flooring retailers have not added carpet cleaning to their company.
If the flooring retailer wants to give exceptional service, they should be in the carpet cleaning business because the customer defines excellent service that way. But if that just isn’t possible, they should form a strategic alliance with a carpet cleaner.
When a hotel offers dry cleaning service (but they don’t do it themselves), that’s a strategic alliance. When a hotel doesn’t want to run their own restaurant but makes arrangements with a restaurant chain to open a restaurant right next to the hotel, that’s a strategic alliance. In both cases, the hotel improves their customer service without running the business themselves.
But having some business cards of the cleaner somewhere, if only you could find them, is not a strategic alliance. That’s laziness and ill serves the customer.
It will take very little effort to find the Bane-Clene carpet cleaner in your area and put together a simple program that helps both companies. The Bane-Clene carpet cleaner could share their customer lists, especially those with older carpet and the retailer shares their list of recent carpet purchasers.
Now the retailer is giving the consumer great personal customer service by directing her to the most reputable carpet cleaner, and both the cleaner and retailer are helping each other.
That’s smart business, the Bane-Clene® way!
Mr. Trivers is Past President of Abbey Carpets. He is author of “The One-Stop Marketing Book,” published by John Wiley & Sons, and is a Jonathan Trivers, a regular contributor to Floor Covering Weekly.
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