My wife just purchased our fourth cast iron bed.

We have four.

Or we own four beds.

Between two houses that’s not so bad…

You see, when we bought the farm, we needed to furnish it, so we needed to have *double* the furniture.

And we love our cast iron King Size Bed so much that we thought it would be great to just have another one.

Now the remarkable thing to this story is that our bed at home, along with a single bed that belonged to my daughter, were both made in the nineties some nineteen years ago by a chap who came highly recommended…

And both those beds have stood the test of time.

So when it came time to buy for the farm, well it was just a matter of calling up Phil, who made those two beds way back then, and to see whether he was still in the business?

And he was…or is.

So last year Phil made up bed number three for us. Another king size bed. For the farm.

But more remarkable than that, was the fact that when it came time to take delivery of bed #3, Phil personally came to the farm and installed and assembled the bed frame himself.

The reason this is so remarkable, is that Phil’s operation is probably about an hour’s drive from our Sydney home. Which probably means that he’s about two and a half hours at best from the farm.

Each way!!

So last year, when he came to the farm to assemble bed #3, Phil was surprised to see the single bed that he made for my daughter some nineteen years ago. And I think he was impressed with what great condition it was in…

So fast forward from last year to now…we’re sitting here [at the farm] Sunday afternoon before Christmas. And a car, or more specifically, a wagon pulls up in our driveway.

It’s Phil. With bed #4.

Now the remarkable thing about this was, that Jayne and Phil hadn’t arranged a specific time for the delivery of this bed.

No. Not at all.

All that Phil knew was that we needed it before Christmas and that we’d be arriving the Saturday before.

Seems that on this Sunday, Phil had decided that would be the day he’d make the two and a half hour trek to install and assemble our new bed.

But unconfirmed!!

Apparently he’d been ringing Jayne’s phone on his way down, but for some reason, on a Sunday, she’d not thought to check it….

So Phil had arrived at the town, but he still wasn’t sure of the exact location of the farm. After all, he’d only been here once before…

So he stopped at the pub and asked….and directions were given.

And the bed was delivered.

And so endeth the story….

Lessons learned from this story:

Customer-seller relationship.

How’s that for a buyer-seller relationship? How strong are your relationships with your customers? Even on an item that you would think would be a one off sale, the strength of the buyer-seller relationship was so strong that it encouraged repeat business.

Is your business front of mind? When it comes to buying Dental Services, is your product the only one that your customers and clients think of exclusively?

Go the extra mile.

Would you personally drive a five hour round trip to personally deliver your product?

Are you such a great customer that you would have one of your suppliers do the same?

Are you such a great dentist that your patients would drive such a great distance to see you?

Blind faith, or trust?

Would you drive two and a half hours to an unconfirmed appointment, the way Phil did?

Is your buyer-seller relationship strong enough to create such faith?

How well are you known in your community?

Even as newbies to a small country village, we were easy to find. Phil had no trouble locating us.

Flipping that, how well known is your business in your local community?

Hopefully we’re not considered the Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert of our community…

Merry Christmas!!

As 2013 draws to a close, I’d like to take this opportunity to say Thank You to all my loyal readers and visitors, and to wish you all a safe and joyous Christmas…. and may 2014 bring you renewed vigor and enthusiasm as you continue down life’s journey.

Learning the art of how to Build Strong Relationships is just one of the benefits of using The Ultimate Patient Experience, 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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