Settling down to getting myself back into work mode after a lovely weekend. 3 of the pups went to, I can happily say, excellent homes over the past 2 days. This makes the whole thing of handing them over much easier as we have nurtured them closely for 7 weeks. Work mode started early this morning with a visit to the practice to prepare for a presentation I am doing on Tuesday night for the study club we run for the other dentists who kindly refer some of their clients to us for treatment. We are expecting some new faces and I look forward to welcoming them to Blueapple. The week ahead is crazy for us on a personal and business level and I am quite enjoying this little hour of calm.
Some of you will know that we pride ourselves on the level of customer service that we provide and that it is this that helps set us apart. I had an interesting conversation with the owner of my local shooting supplies shop at the weekend who told me that many similar businesses were closing in Northern Ireland due to the ‘recession’ but that for him he could not see any downturn in sales. I simply asked why he thought this was, and having been a client for several years was ready for the answer as i know first hand why I return time and time again….. CUSTOMER SERVICE….. Now the owner I refer to, I dont think fully realised what it was, that he had, that many in similar positions did not… comments like ‘well I fill the forms in for the guys buying guns’, ‘I will take back a waterproof coat that might leak and replace it’, ‘I take the time to help give the people new to the sport an insight and information’….. just spoke volumes as to why this guy continues to do well. He is adding value to your experience as a customer, he is removing obstacles that otherwise would make a purchase difficult ie: the form filling and gives you as the customer time. It was fascinating to hear that when I told him this was why he was successful he simply had not really linked the 2, he ‘just did it that way’. What makes it more remarkable is that the business is operated out of a converted garage at his house that people only know about through word of mouth. I felt that it was a great example of how certain businesses will survive in difficult times when others won’t.
On the line of my past time I was also chatting to a client who is a local farmer about his experience in Blueapple recently when he had a ‘Cerec’ crown and root canal filling carried out in one visit. He was delighted, no pain and eating was comfortable once the injection had worn off. I was of course happy about this but I was delighted at his next comment ‘you know you have fabulous girls in that place’…. I could feel myself quietly nodding in agreement with this and a feeling of pride. Here we had a client who on the face of it was there for a dental service but it was not this that he was raving about, it was how he was greeted, dealt with and approached by the team members…. perfect!!
