What is that on your head?
Last week at the end of a cycle I popped into my local bike shop to get a quick tweak to the gears on my mountain bike, whereupon the owner, Craig, exclaimed “What the fcuk is that on your head?” I'd recently lost my cycle helmet on a trip to Northumberland so thought I could just wear my canyoning helmet instead. (Apparently not!)
Craig - mountain bike enthusiast and bit of a dude - clearly didn't think it did anything for my image. “You can’t go out looking like that” he said and promptly marched me to the display of new helmets. “What do you think of this one? Try it on”. Being sweaty from a two hour ride I was reluctant, but he was insistent. It actually fitted perfectly and before I had a chance to say anything he said:
“Have this on us, we can’t have you out improperly dressed!”
Three ways to be valuable
Craig's act of generosity highlights three things you could do to genuinely
be valuable to your customers.
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Interestingly, I don’t think Craig had any ulterior motive in doing what he did and it certainly wasn’t planned or schemed. He simply saw something and responded to it in a completely open and genuine way. In addition to being a spontaneous gesture, what Craig did highlights three specific points:
- Be bold with your questions and responses. If you want to stand out from the crowd you sometimes have to go out on a limb. If you don’t ask, you may never upset a client but you may miss an opportunity to add value or differentiate from your competitors
- Focus 100% on a customer and their needs, not short term gain or profit. Craig could have used this as an opportunity to get me to buy a new helmet but his primary motive wasn’t to sell, it was to make sure I looked good on my bike
- Give away things that are low cost to you and high value to your client. I’m as pleased as punch to have a new cycle helmet given to me as a present. How would your customers feel if you gave something to them?
The result – a customer that was already loyal is now super loyal and telling everyone he can to go to Cycle Kingdom - www.cyclekingdom.co.uk