Most businesses understand the basics of good customer service.
Be responsive.
Be helpful.
Treat people well.
Deliver what you promised.
If someone checks into a hotel, they expect a clean room.
If a customer has a problem, they expect someone to help solve it.
If they pay for a product or service, they expect the experience to match what they were promised.
But some experiences stay with you long after the transaction is over.
Usually, there was something unusually specific about them.
Someone remembered something you said.
They noticed a moment that mattered to you.
They solved a problem before you had to ask for help.
Those experiences require a different level of attention.
And I think that attention is one of the most powerful things you can build into the way you serve people.
Pay enough attention to make the experience personal
John DiJulius has probably influenced my thinking about customer experience more than anyone else.
One of the concepts I learned from him is what he calls “Secret Service.”
The idea is that great service becomes more meaningful when it is tailored to the person receiving it.
You can give every customer the same gift.
You can send everyone a birthday card.
You can create a standard experience that is thoughtful, positive, and generous.
There is nothing wrong with any of that.
But something different happens when the experience could only have been created for that particular person.
One of our clients, Kier Weimer, has an incredible story.
After a tragic boating accident in his twenties, he went to prison.
When he came out, having a criminal record closed a lot of traditional doors.
He struggled to find work and had difficulty getting accepted back into school.
He eventually built a very successful career in real estate, and years later, he was accepted into NYU and went back to finish his education.
When we saw him celebrate that achievement, we sent him an NYU sweatshirt.
It was a simple gift.
But we knew enough about his story to understand what getting that degree represented.
He had spent years trying to regain access to something that had once seemed closed off to him.
So the sweatshirt was connected to a moment that carried a lot of meaning in his life.
That is what makes personalization powerful.
The person realizes you were listening.
Watch for the moments that matter
There are important moments happening in the lives of the people around us all the time.
A client finally reaches a goal they have been working toward for years.
Someone loses a parent, a friend, or even a pet.
A team member quietly achieves something they are incredibly proud of.
The challenge is that most of us are moving so fast that we miss a lot of those moments.
We miss them too.
Sometimes we are busy.
Sometimes we find out too late.
Sometimes money is tight, and we cannot do everything we would like to do for everyone.
But we try to pay attention because our clients matter to us.
When Amy Porterfield became a New York Times bestselling author, she posted a video of herself calling her mom and telling her the news.
It was an incredible moment to watch because you could see how much the achievement meant to her.
Amy had already worked with us at that point.
We were not trying to sell her anything.
We sent her a giant congratulations balloon because we had played a small part in her journey and wanted to celebrate the win with her.
Her win felt like one of our wins too.
That is the kind of relationship we want to have with the people we serve.
At Brand Builders Group, we have always talked about building a community of a thousand messengers.
We want to know our clients.
We want to understand what they are working toward and be involved enough in their lives that we recognize when something meaningful happens.
When you care about people that way, customer service starts to feel less like a business function and more like a relationship.
You see the person going through a difficult season and think, “How can we show them a little love?”
You see them accomplish something enormous and think, “How can we celebrate with them?”
That level of attention is hard to fake because it requires you to actually care.
Thoughtfulness has very little to do with how much you spend
One mistake companies can make is assuming personalized service has to be expensive.
Some of the most meaningful gestures cost very little.
If you hear someone mention that they love yoga and later send them a pair of yoga socks, the price of the gift is probably not what they remember.
They remember that you heard them mention yoga in the first place.
This is also why I think there is a meaningful difference between a promotional gift and a personal one.
We have beautiful Brand Builders Group pens.
If we give somebody one, they may genuinely appreciate it.
But our logo is on the pen.
Part of what that item is doing is promoting our company.
Now imagine receiving something connected to your family, an interest you mentioned, or an accomplishment you have worked years to achieve.
That tells a different story.
It tells you someone remembered.
One of the simplest ways to think about this is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time.
The timing itself can make the gesture more meaningful because the person was not waiting for the obligatory birthday card or Christmas gift that everyone else sends.
They simply realize that somebody was paying attention.
You can do this with customers.
You can do it with employees, prospects, friends, your spouse, or your kids.
The principle is the same.
Listen closely enough to learn what matters to someone, then look for a natural opportunity to show them that you remembered.
Think about the problem they are going to have next
There is another part of great service that has shaped the way we build our business.
You learn to anticipate the need.
Most people are pretty good at responding once someone tells them what they need.
The customer asks a question, the employee requests help, or the client runs into a problem, and then we react.
Anticipation asks you to think ahead.
Imagine someone arriving at a hotel late at night after the airline lost their luggage.
They mention what happened while they are checking in.
You already know what problem is waiting for them upstairs.
They probably do not have a toothbrush.
They may need shaving cream or basic toiletries.
So instead of waiting until they get to the room, realize what they forgot, and call the front desk, you can solve part of the problem before they even encounter it.
That kind of experience makes people feel taken care of.
Someone thought about what their next few hours were going to look like and made those hours easier.
That same question can reshape the way you serve customers:
What are they going to need next?
How much of the work can you do for them?
We ask ourselves some version of this constantly at Brand Builders Group.
How much of the work can we do for our clients?
Our clients come to us because they need strategy, so we teach them frameworks for building their personal brands.
But once you teach someone the strategy, another set of problems appears.
They have to implement it.
If we teach someone how to write a sales page, we know they are eventually going to need help turning that copy into an actual page.
So we build templates and tools that can help them move faster.
If someone develops a keynote, we know there is a good chance they will eventually need slides or a speaker kit.
If they begin building intellectual property, questions about trademarks, copyrights, contracts, and other legal needs may eventually show up.
We try to look down the road and ask what problem is coming next.
Then we ask whether there is something we can build, create, recommend, or prepare today that will make that problem easier when they reach it.
That thinking has influenced the evolution of our entire company.
Of course, there is work we cannot do for people.
At some point, they have to take action.
They have to make the call, write the book, deliver the speech, or do whatever behavior their goal requires.
Our job is to keep asking how far down the field we can help advance the ball before they have to take it from there.
That is what anticipating the need looks like at scale.
This can change the way you show up at work
You can apply the same thinking even if you do not own a business or work directly with customers.
If you want to become more valuable to your boss or your team, start looking ahead.
If you have access to your boss’s calendar, look at what is happening next week.
They are probably consumed with whatever is happening today.
What meeting is coming up?
What presentation will they need?
What information could you gather now?
What work could you complete ahead of time so that when they finally turn their attention to next week, part of the problem has already been handled?
That is incredibly valuable.
You may not need to learn an entirely new skill.
You may simply need to take something you would eventually have done anyway and do it earlier, when it can make a bigger difference.
I believe value is derived from helping other people succeed.
When you train yourself to anticipate what someone will need to succeed, you naturally become more valuable to them.
The reputation comes after the service
There is obviously a business benefit to all of this.
People remember remarkable experiences.
They talk about the companies and people who made them feel important.
Those experiences shape reputation, and reputation always precedes revenue.
So yes, this can grow sales.
But I would never want the sales calculation to become the reason you do it.
We do not track the financial ROI of sending someone a gift after a loss or celebrating one of their accomplishments.
I do not know how you would measure that accurately, and I do not particularly care to.
There is always an ROI on service, even when that return never appears neatly on a spreadsheet.
Sometimes the return is a stronger relationship.
Sometimes it is the meaning you get from the way you use your business and your resources.
Sometimes it is simply the joy of doing something that makes another person feel seen.
If revenue follows, wonderful.
The starting point is caring enough to pay attention.
Notice what people tell you.
Pay attention to what they are celebrating and what they are struggling through.
Think about the problem waiting around the next corner and what you can do today to make it easier for them.
You will not catch every opportunity.
We certainly do not.
But every time you slow down long enough to really see another person, you have an opportunity to serve them in a way that is difficult to automate, standardize, or forget.
That kind of service builds relationships.
And over time, those relationships build a reputation.
