Keeping the Right Customers

I would like to thank the old people, with diminished faculties, driving behemoth RV's dragging passenger cars behind, for making my trek up I95 from Richmond such a harrowing journey.  I would especially like to thank them for pulling into the middle lane at 55 mph to pass another RV doing 54 mph.  They have given me the solution to two major national problems I can solve with one prescription.  People, who own RV's, should be ineligible for Social Security and Medicare.  With one law, we can get amateur, recreational RV drivers off the road and fix the solvency of two major federal entitlement programs.  My name is Frank Stitely, and I approved this message.

In my last post, I wrote about the danger of spending time satisfying difficult customers at the expense of good customers.  This time, let's talk about keeping the right customers for your business.  To do this, I'll use the example of Pawan, the amazing IHOP waiter.  Here's how my day starts out two or three times a week.

At 6 AM sharp, the alarm jolts me out of my a passionate lovemaking session with Jennifer Aniston.  I only hope it's as good for her.  In my dreams, it is.  I won't bore you with my morning routine.  I did that in a post a couple years ago.  Sometimes when I go downstairs, I am disappointed to find other human beings in the kitchen.  Anthropologists call these people family.  I call them obstacles to my getting to work and billing somebody.  When I find these primates, I flee the house and drive to IHOP for breakfast instead of dining on a fine banana with a glass of orange juice, hold the vodka, most mornings.

I battle the usual group of idiot drivers heading down 28 South from Sterling to Chantilly and pull into my normal parking space along the side of the Chantilly IHOP.  As I enter the front door, I see a booth with two diet cokes waiting for me.  More importantly, I see Pawan, the amazing IHOP waiter smiling at me, menu in hand.

I have known Pawan for four years.  He works at two IHOP's in Northern Virginia, Chantilly and Gainesville.  I have also seen him working out at Lifetime Fitness in Centreville.  One of us is a stalker.  I'm not sure whom.

Pawan always smiles.  He never seems to be having anything other than an amazing day.  As you know from previous posts, I play a spy when I visit restaurants.  I listen for employees bitching about customers and bosses.  At the Chantilly IHOP, I sometimes hear this sniping, but never from Pawan.  I feel like Pawan is a trusted friend, who gets me in a good frame of mind to do battle with my work day.

Then one day, while finishing my Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity pancakes, I learned that Pawan was cheating on me.  He greeted another IHOP regular with the same cheerful attitude with which he greets me.  I sadly understood that I wasn't special to him at all.  He was just using me.  I felt so cheap.  No, not really.  I'll feel cheap when Jen Aniston dumps me.

Pawan treats me the way Pavlov treated his dogs.  Pawan gives me friendly excellent service, and I salivate.  Actually, I do better than that, I tip him well.  I see lots of people leave buck fifty tips on ten dollar checks.  Yes, that's fifteen percent (I had my staff check my math).  But the effort required of an IHOP waiter is no less than for a waiter on a fifty dollar check.  The tip shouldn't be solely defined by the size of the check.  It should be defined by the waiter's effort to make my morning bearable.  I won't tell you what I tip Pawan each time.  That's proprietary information.  Get your own Pawan.  But, you can assume it's better than a buck fifty.

Pawan, like any good psychologist, knows that positive reinforcement is the key to encouraging repetitive behavior.  He makes me feel special, and I, therefore, repeat my tipping behavior.  I wish Pawan were an accountant.  I would hire him first thing tomorrow morning.  He gets customer service.  Reward the good behavior of your best customers, and they will repeat that good customer behavior that we crave as business owners.

Between this post and my last, you have the two keys to customer service.  Rid your business of crazy customers and reward your good customers.  It's the stick and the carrot.  Beat your bad customers over the head with a stick, and feed your good customers your absolute best efforts.  Of course this is exactly the opposite of what most business owners do.  They prostrate themselves in front of customers, who will be forever lousy, and take their best customers for granted.  Pawan knows better.  So should you.

Thanks for reading!  As always you can find me on the How To Screw Up Your Small Business page on Facebook.  I promise to be snarky two to three times a day.  For real tax and accounting advice, please visit the main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com.

Until next time, let's do it to them before they do it to us.