Don’t eat that cookie – or else!
Did you ever make a New Year’s resolution that you couldn’t keep? Well – I have, and it didn’t matter how small but usually by mid February my resolution had fallen off the rails.
So how do we set ourselves up for impossible failure? We set up a failure proof environment and when we’re talking reputation marketing a failure proof environment means that we need to be simply asking the question, “How are we doing?” to all of our customers.
Think about that. If you, and all your staff, knew that every client that walked through the doors of your business was asked how was the service, you likely would foster an attitude of I-better-make-this-count.
This failure proof concept is known as precommitment, and successful athletic trainers or nutritionists use this tactic all the time to dramatically increase results to motivate their clients. Precommitment is the process of shaping an environment or situation that forces you to succeed. An example would be making a bet with your spouse or friend that every time you eat a cookie, you owe them some amount of money, or going on to Facebook and announcing to all of your network that you are going to run that half marathon in 3 months.
If you build a system that forces you to succeed, you will be able to transform any bad habits that may have caused some customers to leave negative reviews about your business. If you perform a service, but consciously know that once your customer leaves they will automatically receive a very short questionnaire about how you performed, you WILL perform your task better.
This is what we’ve found with almost immediate results from customers that started tracking their customer’s satisfaction level on a daily basis, and not just the good customers. Every customer.
The good news in all this? Well, the response and change that you’ll see in your employees attitude will happen very quickly. Especially, if you start seeing any trends in negative comments about a particular employee or aspect of service. You’ll also start to take more pride in receiving those raving reviews from you customers, and you’ll thirst and try harder to get more.
So start today, and start asking your customers – How was my service? Was it good or bad? You’ll know soon enough what areas to work on, and the results will happen faster than you think.
