A  Red Carpet

A full serving of Personal Attention

A dollop of Details

A Smidgen of Special Treatment

A Smattering of Star Power

A Dash of Love for the Entourage

An Ounce of Wrap Around

Preheat your customers by rolling out the Red Carpet – look up when they approach, make eye contact, smile and be the first to speak. Use their name whenever possible. Have a real person answer your telephone. Behave like the King or Queen of First Impressions that you are and let that person know you are glad they came.

Serve a Singular Customer by giving the person in front of you your full attention. Hollywood stars are greeted by adoring fans, attended to by personal escorts, and their every whim is catered to. You can give your customers that kind of Personal Attention by listening well to their questions, owning their problems, and sticking with them until the question is answered or problem is resolved. If you pass them on to someone else who can better help, be sure to follow up!

Celebrities have people who take care of every little detail for them, so they can relax and do what they do best – entertain the rest of us! You can WOW your customers by thinking of every detail ahead of time. Anticipate each question or concern they might have and address it before they ask.

The Tom Hanks and Halle Berry’s of this world get preferential treatment wherever they go. Limo rides, the best seat in any restaurant, free gifts called SWAG! You can make your customer feel like a celebrity by giving them a little special treatment. When they mention they love to eat blood oranges – sneak a few into their hotel room. (Personally experienced by this “cook” at the Gaylord Opryland Resort).  If you see an article they might enjoy, send it their way. Name your menu items after your regular customers. Do what you can to make them feel special.

A-list Celebrities have power – they have a voice in the projects they work on. They have influence – one word from Oprah and a book becomes a bestseller. (Oprah, can you hear me?) Add Star Power to your recipe by asking customers for their input and letting them influence the direction your business takes. You can do this by using blogs, twitter, customer surveys, focus groups, or good-old fashioned picking up the phone and talking to them one on one.

Add a dash of love for their entourage by having fun items for their children to play with available, providing treats for their pets, and being sure to address EACH person in the group with a friendly hello and a smile – not just the paying customer.

Remember the Wrap Around experience. Once your customer transaction is complete, send a thank you note or gift or call to ask for their feedback. Keep the relationship going and this customer will “feed” you for a long time to come.

Combine all these ingredients and you’ll have a very happy customer base, and a thriving business.

Calories: 0

© Donna Cutting, 2008

Donna Cutting is the author of The Celebrity Experience: Insider Secrets to Delivering Red-Carpet Customer Service (Wiley, 2008) and a full-time keynote speaker on the topics of customer experience and employee engagement.

Purchase this book here –The Celebrity Experience at Amazon

This guest post is a part of a blog tour for Donna’s book.

You can read more guests posts, interviews and excerpts by visiting the following blogs.

Dr. Sally Witt will conduct a book review on her blog.

Today you can read more about her book here:

Phil Gerbyshak / Make It Great who will run his own interview with Donna.
Becky Wyatt / Becky Wyatt Online where she will showcase Donna Cutting’s book.

Yesterday she visited:

Dr. Sally Witt will conduct a book review on her blog.

Teresa Morrow/ Key Business Partners

And tomorrow, the blog tour will continue:
Wendy Piersall / CEO of Sparkplugging,

Heidi Richards/founder of WECAI and WE Magazine for Women
Carol Deckert will be interviewing Donna LIVE at 7pm on her Ladies In Business Today

 

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Misc Topics, My Country Kitchen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.