Kirt,

Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. I’m with you 100%. Working in the CX/CS space, we can get so focused on the benefits of great service that we can often forget to keep that service in the context of a profitable business model. So for purposes of this post, let’s say this… treat customers like guests in your home and make sure to pay the power bill too! 🙂

Thank you for your article. Your words, “Without great customer service, you cannot have a great business.” are right on. As is your excellent advice “…send your customers thank you notes. But make sure you call your accountant once in awhile.” Delivering amazing customer service is so much easier when you hire for attitude and train for skill. Businesses need to do many things right to prosper. Treating customers like guests in your home gets you one huge step ahead of the competition, and makes your customers smile and come back for more.

Agreed Jens! We need both systems to provide great service to existing customers and to generate new ones.

If you have not seen businesses with great customer service fail, then you are very lucky. Perhaps it has to do with the differing economic environments in our countries, and I think that would be an interesting discussion. The U.S. is littered with companies, particularly small businesses, that provided great service but failed anyways. Restaurants with bad, expensive leases. Independent bookstores that did not adapt to consolidation and technological changes. And don’t even get me started on the independent coffee shops.

Great service is my mission — and still, I am one to say that by itself, it is not enough.

Thanks for commenting!

Enjoyed it too Jeff! I would say that we should do a he said, he said thing one day, but we agree on too much. 🙂

Have a great weekend!

Thanks for the shout out, Adam! I like our “scripting” show-down.

Jeff, nice quote, and a sad tale. I used to love Borders. Even wrote a post about them on the old blog.

PS. Good timing. I mentioned you in today’s post.

“When Borders declared bankruptcy in February, more than 200 of its 400 outlets were still “highly profitable,” says its final chief executive officer, Mike Edwards.”

They had many stores that did well, but they were ultimately undone by cashflow problems that made it impossible to pay their suppliers.