Skip to main content

Exceeding Customer Expectations

Yesterday I bought some sardines from a local fish market near where I live in Portugal every summer. The lady selling the fish had a display of sardines in front of a box of them. I felt one or two of the sardines in front of the box to test how fresh they were. The stiffer they are, the better. The flavour of fish changes dramatically after a day or so. These were fresh. They were also large and plump (not like the pathetic version we see in the UK). I asked for 2 kilos (enough for 10 people we were entertaining at the villa that evening). Instead of picking the fresh sardines on display, she picked them from the box. I assumed they would be the same. But when I got home and started to prepare them, I discovered that the ones she had sold me were a couple of days older than the ones on display. She had deliberately deceived me, and presumably all her customers until she had emptied her box and then had to sell her display fish.

A couple of years ago I was in a French market. Spying a seller of wild mushrooms who had an impressive variety on his stall, I joined the queue. The mushrooms I was after are known as pied de mouton, or 'sheep's feet'. Delicious fried in butter. These also deteriorate with age. The fresher they are, the firmer. He had a large pile and plenty of people in front of me were buying them. When it got to my turn, instead of randomly scooping up the half kilo I had asked for, he very carefully picked the biggest freshest examples on display for me. It's easy to see which are the freshest from the colour. Older ones go a bit orangey. I paid him and thought what a lucky chap I had been to personally get the best he had. I had 'beaten' the people behind me to those larger fresher mushrooms. I was special.... Until I realised that he does this with every customer. The next customer also got the very best examples on display and so on until he had sold the last one. Every single customer would believe they were special. 

Both sellers sold me what I had asked for. Only one of them will get my custom again. Exceeding customer expectations is the single most important thing a company can do. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking an interest.

Popular posts from this blog

Phillips screws - yes I'm angry about them too

Don't get me wrong. They're a brilliant invention to assist automation and prevent screwdrivers from slipping off screw heads - damaging furniture, paintwork and fingers in the process. Interestingly they weren't invented by Mr Phillips at all, but by a John P Thompson who sold Mr P the idea after failing to commercialise it. Mr P, on the otherhand, quickly succeeded where Mr T had failed. Incredible isn't it. You don't just need a good idea, you need a great salesman and, more importantly, perfect timing to make a success out of something new. Actually, it would seem, he did two clever things (apart from buying the rights). He gave the invention to GM to trial. No-brainer #1. After it was adopted by the great GM, instead of trying to become their sole supplier of Phillips screws, he sold licenses to every other screw manufacturer in the world. A little of a lot is worth a great deal more than a lot of a little + vulnerability (watch out Apple!). My gromble is abo
7 comments
Read more

To kill or not to kill.

Had an interesting discussion with a Muslim friend today about the ethics of killing. Could it ever be morally justifiable? Abrahamic scriptures, especially the old testament, are awash with murders and killings, some sanctioned by the prophets and assorted mouthpieces for god. Some killing is even mandatory. For example all Jews are instructed in the old Testament to kill everyone belonging to the 7 Canaanite tribes for example - Deut 20:17 , or to slaughter Amaleks, especially their children - Deut 25:19 . So accepting for a moment that these draconian instructions were written in times when tribal leaders had fewer options available to them with respect to managing miscreants and maintaining some sort of law and order, I suspect that most people today would agree that killing people is a bad thing and should not be condoned except under extraordinary circumstances. My friend and I then proceeded to try to list those circumstances. We started with self-defence or perhaps protecti
1 comment
Read more

Successful Entrepreneurs Don't Aim to Make Money

Of course all entrepreneurs want to make lots of money. Who doesn't? But the difference between entrepreneurs who do make money and those who don't, is that successful ones don't focus on making money. They focus on building their businesses. And that relies on having an attitude of pouring any money their businesses do make, back into them, rather than rubbing their hands and taking it out as soon as they can. True entrepreneurs are gamblers and thrifty by nature. Given the choice of a holiday of a lifetime versus the chance to create a great business, they'll always choose the business - and take it for granted that if the business does eventually make surplus money, they can have that holiday - although entrepreneurs can become so hooked, holidays become a guilty wrench away from the businesses they need to protect. I didn't have a single days holiday, or off sick, for 10 years after I started my first business. I probably could have afforded it (in fact my wif
1 comment
Read more