Some relatives of mine, Dick and Lucille, own and manage a hardware store in a small town in Michigan. The hardware store they own is part of a chain of hardware stores that specializes in serving small communities. When Dick and Lucille moved to this community twenty years ago, they became part of it. They lived there, their kids went to school there, and they went to church there. When they opened their store, as people came in, they welcomed them warmly, eventually got to know them, and each time they came back, treated them as friends. Dick and Lucille never tried to sell them anything. As a result of this honest, sincere, and friendly treatment, these customers came back time and again, and Dick and Lucille’s business blossomed.
About eight years ago, a competing hardware store chain built a new and much larger hardware store about a half-mile south of town by the freeway. Needless to say, Dick and Lucille were very concerned that they would lose many of their customers to this new and much larger store.
As it turned out, many of their regular customers did go to that new store—but all they did was look. Yes, the store was larger and much more modern than Dick and Lucille’s store and the prices on some items were a little lower. But there was no warm and friendly greeting as these customers walked into this new store. There was no old friend to chew the fat with while he was custom-cutting a piece of plastic pipe for you. And there was no resident expert whom you could ask what the fish were biting on that week. In other words, this new store may have had any piece of hardware or appliance you could possibly want, but it didn’t have Dick and Lucille.
None of Dick and Lucille’s regular customers switched their allegiance to this new store and several years later it closed. On the other hand, Dick and Lucille’s business is better than ever. What killed this new store is that the people who ran it assumed that people went to a hardware store to buy hardware, and that they would go where they could get the best possible deal, even if it were a matter of only a few cents in price. At Dick and Lucille’s store, however, customers came in to visit with Dick and Lucille; and while they were there, they picked up any hardware items they happened to need. What this proves is that if you make your customers to feel special, you literally lock out the competition!
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