It appears that common courtesy is not all that common.

How else can you explain the following phenomenon?

It’s bizarre to think that in this day and age, that we need to reward our customers for displaying the courtesies in themselves that they expect from us, or those others that serve to do business with them.

As a result of this “state of play”, it’s so easy to see that any businesses providing above average, and consistent *Above and Beyond* Customer Experiences and courtesies are going to stand out head and shoulders above those businesses offering only mediocrity when it comes to customer service.

An article from October last year came across my desk yesterday.

It fascinated me, because of the simplicity of the idea it described.

A coffee shop in regional New South Wales, a little over an hour out of Sydney, made Australian mainstream Television and Australian and International Newspaper headlines because of a simple chalkboard sign outside of its front entrance.

The board read simply:

Welcome to the Seven Mile Beach Kiosk.

“A coffee..”    $5.00

“A coffee please…”   $4.50

“Good morning, a coffee please…”      $4.00

Have a friendly day! =)   -ta Liz-   =)

The article read that the coffee shop was offering its patrons a discount for engaging more pleasantly with its team members.

I’d like to say that the coffee shop was extending a professional courtesy, or offering a saving.

I find the use of the word “discount” abhorrent.

My point though, is that in today’s society, we are forgetting to display common courtesies to those all around us.

In this kiosk’s case, the owners have attempted to restore some civility and decency to their day of business, by incentivizing their customers to think before they grunt.

How are you grunting at your Dental Office?

Are you saying things, or not saying things, to the detriment of your own business and its well being?

At my Dental Practice, we went out of our way to make sure that we designed every step of our patients’ experiences and visits around maximising What’s In It For Them.

What this meant was that we looked at every interaction to make sure that we as an organisation could maximize our “Please and Thank You” exchanges with our clients and customers each and every time.

Not just now and then.

Not just sometimes.

But every time.

And we went out of our way to eliminate computerised automations and other forms of non-human communication that were, by stealth, creeping into our business under the guise of making us more efficient, but at the same time were only achieving in making us less personable.

And in so doing, reducing our connection.

Our connection with those who matter most to us.

Our valued clients.

I urge you to look at your own office.

Are you over-automated?

Are you allowing computers to interact on behalf of humans, when human interaction would be far far more beneficial to your desired outcome?

And that outcome is a *Point Of Difference*.

Don’t let common courtesies slip out of your office unnoticed.

Because Common Courtesy just ain’t that common any more…

And there’s your Point of Difference.

The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.

Email me at david@theupe.com

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