My 83-year-old mother had surgery on her leg this week.
As I sat with her preparing and waiting for her surgical procedure, I got the sense that the hospital staff didn't care all that much about her or her experience. Everything was very routine, very bland, and very "procedural."
The second nurse that came in to her prep are and started putting stuff on her and taking her temperature and so on. What was missing? How about a nice, friendly, greeting? How about, "Good morning! It's so nice to have you here!" or "Marjorie, my name is so-and-so, and I'm here to help you get ready for your procedure this morning!". How about a smile (with direct eye contact)?!?
All of us in business (or customer service, or healthcare, or hospitality) must fight Routine Customer Experience Syndrome (RCES). What might very well be routine for you as a service provider, may very well not be routine for your customer. So please treat your customer (or subject or patient or guest) accordingly.
The only thing that should be routine in your business is how your fulfillment systems work flawlessly and with no errors (delivery or installation or checkout or surgery or whatever is the fulfillment system in your line of work). Your human interaction with your customer should be overflowing with personalization, sincerity, and fun...not routineness.
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Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers, a B2C sales training and consulting
company specializing in sales training in retail, in-home selling, and services. Subscribe to the
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