How do so many companies miss the need to provide their customers with the most basic deliverable during the business transaction ?

Shopkeepers through the ages understood that the customer is not only buying the product or service that their shop was selling, but they are purchasing the experience and all that comes, or should come, with it.

A smile and a welcome. An offer to assist with the shopping process. A willingness to go the extra mile —  to reassure the customer, to offer advice on product use, to be grateful for the transaction and to say the two simple words that every customer deserves to hear — thank you.  Simply, thank you.

It is completely beyond my comprehension that a customer can complete a transaction at a retailer like Wal-Mart or even buy tickets at the movie theater, and the “thank you” never comes. With all the training and management levels, and all the dollars spent trying to attract and create a customer, how can they let even one person walk away without a meaningful and heartfelt ” thank you”?

Perhaps the “associate” should think of it this way:  “Thank you for finding your way in here today and deciding, against all the on-line and off-line options at your disposal, to actually make a purchase. That purchase contributes to the profit of my employer, allowing them to continue to fund my salary week after week, and even though I live for the day that I can get out of this lowly position behind this counter, I truly appreciate your pushing that money across to me.”

It is even more difficult to comprehend the independent store owner today who misses the opportunity to provide a superior experience for their customers by developing a positive relationship that might just lead to a lifelong customer. When the big guys fail at treating customers well, an opening exists. Store owners that enhance that opening by delivering unexpected and superior service will reap the benefits.  They should not emulate their gigantic competitors, they should just be nicer.  And it’s easy to be nicer than people who are not nice in the first place!

The very real opportunity that the independent shop owner has today to survive is to revive.  Bring back simple respect.  Treat the customer like a friend, and they will come back for more.