Your Customers Love Hearing These 4 Words

After having lunch on Monday with my aunt Ginny in a local shopping mall, we walked to Dillard’s Department store because she wanted to buy a pair of Clark’s shoes. Ginny wears a size 7 wide, and it is not always easy to find shoes to fit.

We walked into the shoe department and after seeing what she liked, Ginny asked the clerk if she could try a pair in size seven wide.

The store employee went into the back room, then brought out three pairs of shoes, but apologized because none of them were the exact size Ginny needed. My aunt tried them on, anyway. They did not fit well.  The clerk apologized again and recommended another shoe store – a competitor – in the Mall that also carried Clark’s shoes.

How often does that happen? Recommending a competitor – JUST to help the customer? Very rare. But this was not the end of our good customer service experience on Monday.

We left Dillard’s, looking for the other shoe store. When we couldn’t find it, we returned to Dillard’s and something surprising happened.  Just as we walked back into the shoe department at Dillard’s, the same clerk who recommended the other store walked out of the back room carrying four more boxes of shoes.  She looked at us and said: “Oh, I am so glad you came back.”

Then she said those four magic words customers love to hear. (By the way, these words are also extremely effective over the telephone.)

Words We Love to Hear

Millions of dollars have been spent on marketing research to find out which words consumers react best to.  What words get our attention? Which words do we love to hear?

What the employee at Dillard’s said was impressive because she sounded like she CARED.  Cared about finding exactly what the customer (my aunt Ginny) needed.

After saying “Oh, I am so glad you came back,” her next words were:  “After you left, I went into the back room and I thought of you because I found these Clark’s shoes in your size.”

I wish I could tell you this employee’s name, but I was so stunned by her positive attitude and excellent customer service, that I forgot to ask  for her business card.  It would not be hard to find her, though, she is six feet tall and there are not many women that tall.  She works in the shoe department at Dillard’s in MacArthur Mall in Norfolk, Virginia.

How Can You Use These Words?

When you learn that a product is on sale – that you know one of your customers uses – you can call her/him and say:

“I thought of you when this item went on sale, because you use three of these every month.  Because the price is reduced now, would you like to stock up?  You will save twelve dollars when you buy three, or even more when you double your order.  Shall I place an order for you?”

Something good happens when you say “I thought of you.“   The customer feels that you care more about helping them, than about selling to them.  These words go a long way toward building and maintaining a good business relationship.