In Business, the 'Olympics' Never End

by: Tracey Paradiso 

The athletes have gone home. The media coverage has returned to its usual fare. Soon we'll start seeing pictures of the 2004 winners in endorsements for everything from sneakers to cereal. While athletes spend nearly every moment in the years leading up to the Olympics focusing on and preparing for their performance, their performance itself is only the briefest moment in time, often not much longer than a few clicks of a camera or a song.

Not so in business. Organizations today that intend to build and maintain a profitable competitive edge must practice and perform at the same time, with excellence, all the time. The customer is always watching, continuously rating what you do and how you do it based on the feelings with which they walk away from each experience with you.

Don't believe it? Think of the last time you got angry with a company and stopped giving them your business. If you're like most customers, you may have already put up with a lot of 'little' annoyances that you were willing to overlook. But at some point after another error, crisis or disappointment, we're willing to bet the combined 'weight' of those moments tipped the scale and became "the straw that broke the camel's back."

That's when you connected the dots, all the little moments you'd overlooked, and saw the whole picture; you realized that the company was not providing enough value for your time, money, energy and any other costs involved in doing business with them. Suddenly, you were an ex-customer.

The idea that customers are always keeping score makes sense when you consider that as soon as we begin kindergarten, we learn that everything we do is graded - the world operates on a rating system. When you do what's socially acceptable, you get an "A." When you don't, you get a lower rating. As a teenager at your first job you learned that when you did your job "right" you were rewarded and recognized; those who don't are penalized or fired. And so it continues through all of life. Calibration – or continuous scoring, if you will - is an integral part of the world we live in, and the business world is no exception.

The bottom line: Never underestimate the customer's ability to keep track of all the experiences they've had with you. If you want to keep customers and create profits, make peak practice and peak performance an integral part of your organizational culture.

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©2004 JoAnna Brandi & Company, All rights reserved.  

JoAnna Brandi is the author of Winning at Customer Retention, 101 Ways to Keep 'em Happy, Keep 'em Loyal and Keep 'em Coming Back and 54 Ways to Stay Positive in a Changing, Challenging and Sometimes Negative World. She’s the publisher of the Customer Care Coach®, a weekly email based training program, and of a free, bi-weekly newsletter. Sign up now at http://www.customercarecoach.com  

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