Desire transcends logic: Just another day at work

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Just another day at work

"Very informative, nice to know of Citibank's effort in providing more better and efficient services, Bryan is good, know what he is promoting on this demo. Keep it up!"

A customer wrote this remark in the feedback column of my Customer Acknowledgement Letter. It's not an official written letter or E-mail, so no $50 Tangs voucher. Damm.. heh.. No issue though, the monetary rewards are meaningless to me. The remarks keep me in check - So that I know that I'm still doing my job well. The customer is applaudable also. He was patient, he asked me questions, and he served me a drink! The works! Complete with ice, coaster, and straw. Yes! Straw! I've always appreciated it when customers treat me like a guest, instead of a salesperson.

It's no denying that the persuasion and convincing skills involved are sales-like - Customers tend to think that we're trying to sell them something. It just takes a little bit of effort on our part to guide, while the customer has to be a little more open to listen to us. 80% of the time the message is sent across - Today was an ideal situation.

Everyone has their style - I'm different from my colleagues. In fact, we're all different. "The key is identity." A customer once told me that. He is in the shrimp business and made his first million at 26 - He fell short of his plans by a year. With just 1 product, shrimp, he boasts that the business is too much for him, "Diversity is necessary, but with identity, people will think of you first." And he quoted some brand names to support his claim. I had a 1-hour conversation, but failed to get him to take up our services.

I put some thought into the crux of the conversation and it does make sense. Once you've established the identity in your product, people would think of you first because of reliability and the confidence in it. I hope the same can be said about a service.