Client service tips from Paul Alisauskas – Pace Law Firm: Roger Staubach is a legendary NFL Hall of Fame quarterback, among numerous other accomplishments and distinctions, both sporting and in business. As an article of what his success was based on, he coined the following saying:
“There are NO traffic jams on the extra mile.”
To extend the ‘road’ metaphor, with all the talk about service we are subjected to in virtually every area of commerce, the plain reality is that business is populated with “first milers,” the sort of service providers for whom “good enough is good enough.” Obviously, if it were easy to go the ‘extra’ mile, everyone would already be there. Yet the general state of client service is so poor that there is plenty of Dilbert material to last a couple of lifetimes out there.
When one resolves to join the ranks in that sparsely-populated extra mile, there is a piece of comforting news: On the extra mile, because there is almost no one there, the bar is set very low; small things yield disproportionately large benefits. Accordingly, once you’re traveling on ‘the extra mile,’ it takes very little additional effort to make a truly memorable impression. These memorable impressions create the bond of loyalty that insulates your relationship with the client from the competition.