Douglas Adams To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity. Douglas Adams
Customer service – Vinyl records, cassette tapes or streamed content.
Doing business differently these days is about going back in time, it is taking the time to understand requirements, and it is about respect for the people that have allowed you to do business with them, It is about being part of the conversation when your customer is thinking of doing something differently, it is about being a real person to them. There are those of us that are old enough to remember the cassette-tape, the terrifying sound of your favourite tape being eaten by the boom-box you have on your shoulders, feeding the machine D-cell batteries like they are going out of fashion all whilst wearing something indescribable in today’s language. This was the next step in media evolution…the step up from the old vinyl records. This was to be followed by the CD then iPods, now streamed content with the current generation not having ever seen a cassette-tape. There is a similar evolution with customer service – the local provider that knew you (and your family), moving to the super-store environment that was all about volume and price, now those stores offer self-serve registers and the latest offering… you simply walk out and what you have taken is charged against the app on your phone, not needing to talk to a single person. So why is vinyl making a comeback? People love the warmth that comes from the slight crackle in the sound, the closer alignment to the human ear (analogue to analogue), the moving away from the sanitary digital recordings that don’t have a soul. For this warmer, more human touch, consumers are willing to pay a premium, perhaps due the ‘more human’ connection vinyl brings to the user. Customer service is starting to move back similarly like vinyl. Why? Because people like to deal with other people. To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity, through real communication. Doing business differently may take a little more time however the rewards for your customers are huge. They get what they want, in a way they need it and they feel respected and needed by your business. The reward for you is a long term, commercially viable relationship, a collaboration between parties as an extension of your business that gets deeper and more beneficial to both parties year on year.
