A few weeks ago, my husband and I were in a car accident in which our 1997 Saturn SL2 sedan unfortunately met a bad end.  As a result, our plans to purchase a hybrid had to be moved up a year.  

We visited several dealerships in the Chicagoland area, and it continually amazed me when we’d walk in and stand unattended for a few minutes while salespeople meandered lazily across the show floor.  Some dealerships just don’t seem to take customer satisfaction particularly seriously, despite the fact that you could be spending tens of thousands of dollars with them in a matter of days or even hours.

This, however, was not the case at the Toyota dealership we visited in Elmhurst, IL.  Our salesperson, Tom, greeted us and shook our hands right as we entered the dealership.  He answered the dozens of questions we fired at him about the 2007 Prius and sat patiently in the backseat while we took a lengthy test drive.  He never tried to pressure us, and his approach to negotiation was balanced and fair.  We’d gotten a few online quotes that were a few hundred dollars lower, but at the end of the day decided to buy the car from Tom because he’d generously given us his time guiding us through the purchase process.  And we liked him.

(Never underestimate the importance of relationships.)

After we finished signing all the paperwork, Tom sat down with us at his desk once more.  He told us that we would be receiving a Toyota satisfaction survey, and asked us if there was any reason we would check an option besides “Excellent” when responding.  “If there was anything he or Toyota could improve on, or any aspect that didn’t meet our expectations,” Tom said, “he wanted to know about it so that he could fix it right then and there.”

The statement really struck me, because customer service is not just about asking people what they think after the fact, it’s about making sure clients have a positive experience before they walk out the door.  We would have rated Tom’s service as "Excellent" anyhow, but this small action on his part made me want to put an exclamation point on it.  This lesson, by the way, applies to job performance too.  Don’t wait for your official review to talk with your boss about how you could do better – proactively seek out his or her feedback along the way, and then incorporate it immediately.

I’m giving props to Seth Godin because this reminds me of a story he would tell – and everyone loves Seth stories.