Overheard: Listen to customers to find opportunities to wow them

“I tell my employees, when our customers go home at night they’re going to be sitting around the dinner table and they’re going to [be asked], ‘How was it when you took the car in today?’ They’re going to have a story to tell about you. It’s either going to be a good story or a bad story. So we try to make it a great story. We buy birthday cakes for customers; we always have our antennas up and our radar on. Anybody mentions [a special occasion] I’ve got all kinds of cards stacked in my office. We’ve already all kind of pre-signed them and then I’ll write a message in there. If they say they’re having a baby — or we can tell they’re having a baby — or they say they’re having a birthday — they say, ‘I need my car back by five because I’m going out to eat tonight.’ [We’ll ask], Oh, really? What? ‘Well, it’s our anniversary.’ They’ll get an anniversary card. We surprise them with all kinds of different things. And [the] few times when we do mess up I’ll get a stuffed animal and seat belt in the passenger side so when they get in there, they can look over and go, oh yeah, they’re human.” — Eddie Campbell, aka “Eddie in Service,” service and parts director at Forest Lane Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in Dallas, on the “WTF: What the Fixed Ops?!” podcast hosted by Russell B. Hill and Charity Dunning.

Overheard: Listen to customers to find opportunities to wow them

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