How many times have you been asked that, now that’s one thing, but how many times have you asked that from a company you like? A friend? Band? I mean, good customer service is really what keeps your business strong (and bad one is what could kill it), but isn’t it weird when customers want to help out a company? Well, no, not really. People donate money to charities. Campaign for a good cause. Give change to street musicians and artists. Buy cookies from fifth graders. These are all situations where you normally might not do business, but you do because of the special reason that makes you feel good. You genuinely want to help someone.
Someone working in customer service most likely isn’t working just because they want to help the customers, but also because it’s what they get paid for. But what about when your customers want to go out of the way to help you? I know it’s not as common as it could be, but under these rules we human beings seem to function, it’s not like it’s unheard of. And what could we all learn from it?
Such customer loyalty is not something you can buy, it’s something you earn. And when you have it, it’s one of those things that just makes you smile and feel good for the rest of the day. You can be damn proud of your business if your customers want to go out of their way to help you – and I’m betting if this is happening, you’re also going out of your way to give your customers the best you can and then some.
What sparked me to write this? There’s a company called Campaign Monitor and I recently became their customer. Their product solved a problem I was having and it did it just about as easily as I could’ve hoped. I was thrilled something worked exactly as I hoped it would (it’s weird I was so surprised by it, but hey, the inmates are running the asylum). Easy, fast and cheap. Upon reading through their site I got a really good vibe about the company. Their staff page had just the right tone, wittiness and boy do I love tiny details like the map next to a face showing the person’s location (and seems like I’m not the only one who liked the page). I’m sure I’m not the only person who wished they could work for a company like Campaign Monitor after simply browsing through their site and realizing what an awesome product they have. But that’s not all. I happened to come across an interview with the co-founder. While reading the interview I kept on thinking “Someone really GETS it! That’s exactly how I feel you should run a company like this!” I even wrote a friend and told them to read the interview as well – he shared my love for Campaign Monitor.
Not too many days after reading the interview I spotted a tweet calling for translation help. Not only did I write them immediately offering my help, but I couldn’t wait to get home later on that night to work for them for free. Let me rephrase that: I got the job description in the afternoon, but I knew I could only get to it later on in the evening after work and band rehearsals. I was hoping no one else would help them out with it during that time, just so that I could do it. That’s how badly I wanted to help them! If you run a business, please stop for a second and think about it. Think long and hard. Yes they said there might be a surprise for those who helped, but that wasn’t what motivated me (although it was a very nice surprise afterwards). Yes, it was a simple task that probably only took me 15 minutes, but I just really, really badly wanted to do something for them, because I loved their product and got a really good vibe of the way they do their business.
I swear, I’m not the only one who feels this way about some products, services, companies, people, charities, causes, musicians, artists… Someone might think how could they give off such image of their company, how could they buy such loyalty, but that’s utter bullshit. You can only earn it. As simple as that. What really interests me is to build something just as awesome myself. I’m sure when you’re doing something you love you have no problem waking up on Monday mornings and heading to work.