Anticipate the Need

Sept. 22, 2014

Have you heard the now over-used cliché phrase that every company wants to “exceed customers’ expectations?” It completely makes sense. It’s what every business should be trying to do, but the phrase is now being used so much you go to the corner convenience store for a quick bottle of water and they want to know if they’ve exceeded your expectations.

Anyway, I was thinking about the concept recently and I was reminded of the service I generally receive from the car dealership where I take my car for servicing, and this particular dealership actually does exceed expectations, without, thankfully, ever mentioning the phrase. I usually bring my car in on the way to work and then walk to a nearby coffee place for a quick breakfast and plug in my laptop to check e-mails and do a bit of work while I wait. At the dealership they always give me a time estimate.

Sometimes they’ll find a couple of additional repair items and they always call me for my authorization. Once given, they’ll offer, if necessary, a revised time estimate. “We originally estimated 9 o’clock, we think more accurately the time will be 9:30.” If there is no additional work, but they think it will take longer than originally stated, they’ll still call me. “We’re a little busier than we thought,” or “a couple of cars before you are taking longer than expected, we think it will be ready at 9:45 instead of 9 o’clock.” Once when a repair was more significant, resulting in a delay of a couple of hours, they asked me if I wanted a ride to my office.

I probably just took this for granted and didn’t realize it was particularly remarkable until I brought it up at a casual social event recently and the people I was talking with all wanted to know the name of the place because they found it so unusual, especially in a big city that tends to be more impersonal. The others all complained of long waits and indifference while getting their vehicles fixed, as well as what they felt were inflated charges, something I never felt at my car dealership (well, maybe once.) They all complained of lack of communication.

And of course, this dealership always called me as soon as the car was ready, or even a few minutes before, so I wouldn’t have to come back and wait around in their waiting room, nor would I have to waste my time or theirs on phone calls inquiring on the status.

I talked about this experience recently with a manager of a rental company who said that was exactly the kind of service philosophy he was trying to instill at his rental company.

“If we get a phone call asking if the machine is ready yet, in my opinion, we’ve already failed,” he said. “It’s our job to keep the customer informed. If he’s calling and asking, there is probably already a level of anxiety that I want us to eliminate. He’s already concerned about getting his job done and we’re holding him up. I want to make sure he knows what’s going on before he thinks to ask.”

Neither that rental company nor my car dealership ask their customers, “How can we exceed your expectations?” They just put it into practice by taking care of the customer’s need before he even picks up the phone. It works for me, and I think it can work for you.