Is Good the New Great?

I was recently astonished by my experience at my new dentist. I was referred to the practice by a friend who raved about it.

• They had a creative and updated website that invited me to make inquiries electronically.
• They were responsive to my online request for an appointment.
• They were thorough and friendly.
• The bills were easy to understand.
• They did all the legwork to make sure my insurance would cover as much of the work as possible.
• The dentist remembered key details about me and my family when I came back for more work three weeks later.

I thought to myself, “This place is SO great! Everyone should be coming here for their dental work.”

And then I really got to thinking about why they were so great. Then, I got sort of sad. Because the truth is, this dental practice did nothing more than what ANY successful business should be doing. So why was I so blown away by a company doing all of the things that should be just par for the course?

The sad truth is, it’s because it’s pretty rare today for a company to behave like this. Our expectations have been spectacularly lowered lately, haven’t they? We now routinely expect to be kept waiting. We expect to be treated coolly or as if we are an interruption of someone’s work and not as a welcome friend. And we expect to have to fight over bills and insurance claims.

So now I want you to turn this concept inward and look at your own company’s practices and ask yourself, “How do we rate on these issues?”

If the answer is not A+, maybe it’s time to make some changes so that your customers feel that “WOW!” feeling every time they interact with you. It will go a long way toward getting you more referral business and building the kind of loyalty that is a MUST today. I’d love to hear your results and thoughts.