Last night I spent an hour or so replying back to very kind people who had bothered to send me a comment on my blog. I was humbled by some of the comments because I simply hadn’t realised that my posts were being appreciated so much! Thank you again to everyone who bothered to comment and provide me with additional service. Thanks also to all the other people who read my blog but who were either too busy or who just take these things in their stride and move on with their own life and business.

By commenting you obviously made me happy that someone found it worthwhile. Secondly, do you realise just how much of a service you are providing not only to me but to all the others who will benefit from my revived spirits? I will probably create more posts to reflect on your actions and to dig out a lot more information stored away in this old head of mine.

Additional service is something we can all give if we realise the value of it to our customers and ultimately back to ourselves. It’s not rocket science to understand this concept of giving before receiving; many of us do it out of pure pleasure. It seems to be the proper way to live and behave rather than to be giving only to get something back. That’s not to say there is anything wrong with giving of any kind, giving is a noble gesture if it helps other people… well, that’s my excuse anyway! Added service is when you go that extra mile, as we say; something we don’t have to do but it will help someone anyway. My example of this is when you go to a shop and ask for a specific product but the shop doesn’t have it in stock. The shop keeper appreciates your need and makes the decision to spend time describing where else you can get the product, even if is from a competitor… that’s additional service!

However, additional service in my own situation with a post on my blog could be when a reader bothers to give me, what’s called in the trade, ‘constructive feedback’. This could be negative feedback in the eyes of some but it is called ‘constructive’ feedback because the comment(s) will almost certainly help me in some way. It might stop me from upsetting some people, albeit unintentionally! The feedback might show me that I have left out some important points so I need to include them at a later time. Whatever the feedback, I am bound to benefit so I really do like to see your comments.

Applying this principle to the wider business world, we can all learn how to help someone who is expecting (and paying for) a quality service. It requires a little bit of extra thought around the provision of the service – not much thought and not much extra time. Perhaps we could put this additional bit into the category called ‘CARE’. Now care is something we all need at some times in our life. But how can you generate that precious feeling of care when you are simply doing your job of work? What is it that triggers the ‘care button’ inside you to activate that additional nice and meaningful behaviour? The answer must be INTEREST!

Taking an Interest in your customers costs you nothing and can bring you huge results in the long term. The interest you show in your customers, and we are all customers of each other, will definitely pay you high dividends. It comes right back to the old story of ‘people buy from people’. If you can show an interest in the person that you are connected with, that person will feel better and will more than likely buy from you instead of buying from the person who shows little or no interest. But that’s all common sense isn’t it?

Is it common sense to look at someone when they are talking to you? Is it common sense to show an interest by asking a person (customer) a courtesy question such as “Can I do anything else for you?” Is it common sense to use a little energy to smile when you are talking to the customer? Surely it is ALL common sense and we are all born with common sense… but how many of us use this powerful skill when we need to differentiate our own business from that of our biggest competitors?

This is such a simple skill to adopt; so simple that it can be associated with the instinct of survival, something we may have lost over time. I have learned that in 68 years of living on this planet Earth, to survive you have to get on with people whether in business or in everyday life. The stakes are too high to upset anyone when life is so short and there are so many new products on the shelf!