You never know what’s going to come at you in your day. For example, you could be taking a friend to the airport, letting them get out of your car, and have a Lexus whip around and take out your passenger door (and almost your passenger too) – like this:
My poor car… beat up by a really crummy driver speeding in a loading zone. 
But, thank God, my friend was not hit.
And, interestingly enough, a business opportunity came from what would have normally been a slow, irritating, claims process.
My car (not drivable because she took my door from being partially opened to pushing it beyond it’s opening radius) was towed to a repair facility near my home, and I had to rent another car two weeks of repair time. The collision center had Enterprise come pick me up.
I travel a lot. I’ve rented cars from many companies, but never Enterprise. And I have to say, it was one of the best customer service experiences I’ve had in ages. Picked me up from the facility, great staff, a great deal of follow-up to make sure all was okay with the car they gave me – and when there was a problem with my rental (strange noise), an immediate upgrade was given at no additional expense.
In a difficult situation, they made a difference.
In fact, it was such a positive experience for me that it led me to ask to speak to a regional manager to set up a corporate account for Piranha, and make them a Preferred Partner for Piranha where we create a partnership agreement that gets our Piranha Members negotiated rates on any rental needs they have.
The lesson here isn’t simply that I had a car accident… but what was able to be created out of an event I had no control over.
Someone else’s mistake, became my opportunity – because I CREATED it.
And if Enterprise in Tempe had given me a horrible customer experience, I would have simply complained rather than created. (Dan Sullivan talks about how in trying times people have two coping mechanisms, they can either create or they can complain… so this was a perfect example of this truth in action.)
The other lesson is that you NEVER know what opportunity you can create by delivering a great customer service experience.
If they would have seen me as just some woman with a beat up car, and a rental at a low insurance negotiated day rate, this could have been much different.
But, because they treated me as their best client of the day (as they seemed to with every client), this simple single “transaction” has the possibility of becoming a large source of on-going revenue for them.
All of us, in every business, have this opportunity to create “gold” in our business day. By treating every opportunity to connect with a client as valuable, you literally can uncover possibilities you didn’t even know existed.
Keep it ELF!
- Lisa Wagner
Comments (0)
Jan 13 2010