Your Leadership Link by Cullen S. Gibson
Your Most Important Customer
Jerry Rice is the NFL’s all-time leader in receiving yards, with 22,895. He is also a three (3) time Super Bowl Champion. Rice attended Mississippi Valley State (MVS) from 1981-1984 where he became a standout receiver. He caught 310 passes for 4856 yards and also caught 51 touchdowns in 42 games…all college records. However, only one NCAA coach made a personal recruiting trip to Crawford, Mississippi…Archie Cooley, then with tiny MVS. Rice put MVS on the map. Coach Cooley cared. He made a connection. This singular connection convinced Jerry Rice that MVS was where he wanted to play college football.
As leaders, excellent customer service and connection skills are critical to ongoing success in recruiting and retaining talent. Please don’t underestimate the impact that an email, a simple text or hand-written note, or a face-to-face visit can have on a customer. Leaders who tirelessly practice great connection habits are those same leaders who see their employees as customers. Customers come back with more customers. Happy customers stay. Showing kindness towards any customer makes a difference. But these practices must be consistent day-in and day-out. What are three (3) connection skills that can be practiced with customers? Keep it simple. Do it consistently. Some examples:
- Handwritten notes welcoming the new
- Meet and greet new customers within 30 days as a group over pizza or Share the mission.
- Assign new customers to be adopted by senior
Finally, I would be amiss if I didn’t share with you my own customer connection experiences:
- THE REFRIGERATOR APPROACH: We do not care, and it shows.
- THE FACTORY APPROACH: You are a number, and we want to process you.
- THE FRIENDLY ZOO APPROACH: We care, but we are clueless.
- DESIRED APPROACH: We care, we deliver, we want you satisfied. We want you here.
Make it a great day!