I’m continuously amazed by the number of conversations that start off with lines like “I know that this isn’t much, but…” or “This may be too small for you…”. I can go on on on, but they all pretty much sound the same…like the prospective customer’s needs are minuscule in nature and they expect that their need will be overlooked or put on the back burner. In fact, several people have given us nightmarish stories about being treated less than optimally.
At Sign Mine, our policy is to treat the $10 project like the $10,000 project. We view each customer’s need as if it were the only thing we have in our queue and we try to have each customer walk out feeling like they had some presidential-like presence at Sign Mine. We’ve been told by several people in different industries that the small stuff is an annoyance. Well, we’ll never subscribe to that kind of thinking. We tend to look at it from a slightly different angle, that being “This person has a need that must be fulfilled and it is our honor to be selected to be their choice, out of several, to get that help.”. A need is a need and we feel that it is not our place to assess that need based on the merits of the size of the price tag.
Of course, we do have a work queue (and hopefully will always have one) and projects come in order…and that order is not dictated by the price tag but by the date the need must be fulfilled. Our first best responsibility is to know WHEN the customer needs must be fulfilled and do our best to adjust things for that date. Our pleasure is to under-promise and over-deliver. And we ask our customers to let us know when their experience is anything but exemplary.
Help PEOPLE first…and the rest will fall into line
Michael L. Hague
President / CEO, Sign Mine, Inc.