On our recent visits to a local restaurant, my wife and I noticed a customer service pattern that you can apply in your business. That is to systematically compliment your customers.
During our first visit to this restaurant, I heard the hostess compliment my wife on how she liked her shirt. My wife was rather pleased with that compliment and noted it to me. It set the tone for a wonderful meal.
My wife and I recently returned to the restaurant for a second time. We had enjoyed the service and food on our first visit and looked forward to similar treatment.
As we were walking to the table, the hostess complimented my wife on her skirt.
The compliment came from a different person and was about a different article of clothing.
Nevertheless, something was consistent. That was giving a compliment from the female hostess to my wife.
This restaurant clearly has a policy or training in place that the hostess is to find something about the female dinner guest and compliment it.
There is enough liberty in the policy to allow the employee to be creative and even sincere in the compliment. However, the experience is engineered to delight the customer.
The experience is also targeted at the person most likely to feel great about the compliment.
Of course, once we noticed the pattern, we started to question the sincerity of the compliment. However, most customers will never see the pattern and will leave with a warm and fuzzy feeling after being complimented.
Look at the example set here and see where and how you can compliment your customers:
- Give employees a framework for giving compliments
- Make sure employees set the tone with a nice compliment
- Allow employees to be creative in their compliments to customers
- Be sincere or customers will note that something isn’t right
- Compliment the customers most likely to benefit from it
Have you complimented your customers today?