When I was in col­lege, I par­tic­i­pated in stu­dent life and lead­er­ship. While I was train­ing to be an ori­en­ta­tion leader, I was intro­duced to the Fish Phi­los­o­phy. This is a series of four prac­tices cre­ators of the Fish Phi­los­o­phy say will “…build stronger rela­tion­ships with…the cus­tomers [you] serve.”

The phrase I took to heart and still see and prac­tice today is “make their day.” When you’re in the busi­ness of serv­ing peo­ple, you need to fig­ure out what you can do to make your customer’s day. There are no direc­tions or guide­lines you have to stick to. It’s a mat­ter of under­stand­ing your cus­tomers, what they are look­ing for, and what you can do to make their expe­ri­ence with your busi­ness out of this world.

When I was an ori­en­ta­tion leader, I was con­stantly try­ing to prac­tice the “Make their day” phi­los­o­phy. Now, I observe oth­ers show­cas­ing this phi­los­o­phy in their own unique way. The fol­low­ing are exam­ples of what you can do to “make their day!”

Do Some­thing Out of the Ordinary

Just the other day, I was get­ting take-out for lunch. I don’t nor­mally tip for take-out, but this par­tic­u­lar restau­rant is so friendly I always leave feel­ing like I should have tipped some­thing. This spe­cific day, I did not leave a tip. When the worker handed me my food, he gave me a lit­tle coin purse as a gift. I couldn’t believe it. Then I felt ter­ri­ble. Not only did I not tip extremely friendly ser­vice, but he went above and beyond to make me feel spe­cial. It may sound corny, but that coin purse meant a lot. The cus­tomer ser­vice expe­ri­ence was unlike any other and I will keep that coin purse as a reminder of what a cus­tomer ser­vice expe­ri­ence can look like.

Sur­pris­ing your cus­tomers can leave a last­ing impres­sion. Read about another great exam­ple of the “make their day” phi­los­o­phy in action in this blog post.

Make Con­nec­tions

Cus­tomers go through their same rou­tine day in and day out. When they reach your busi­ness, whether it is in per­son, over the phone, or even in writ­ing, you are just one stop in their day. I chal­lenge you to take that inter­ac­tion and do some­thing with it. Star­bucks talks about the impor­tance of mak­ing emo­tional con­nec­tions with your cus­tomers in this video. You have an oppor­tu­nity to break through to peo­ple going through the motions and make a con­nec­tion. Once that con­nec­tion is made, you will not only increase your base of loyal cus­tomers, you have the poten­tial to reach a whole new net­work through those loyal cus­tomers. Imag­ine the impact you can make!

What expe­ri­ences have you had that left you feel­ing like the cus­tomer ser­vice had made your day? I would love to hear your stories.

We are advo­cates for pro­vid­ing cus­tomers the best expe­ri­ence pos­si­ble. Impact Learn­ing Sys­tems is the leader in cus­tomer ser­vice skills train­ing and con­sult­ing. Cus­tomer ser­vice is all about the pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence you provide.

Sarah Hedayati

View all posts by Sarah Heday­ati