"Wowing" Never Goes Out Of Style

As a seminar presenter, I always enjoyed using real stories to illustrate my points. However, some of them are so unbelievable that I’m sure there were some seminar attendees who must’ve thought that they were made up.

For example, there was a story about a man who drove all the way down from New York to come to Lancaster County for his friend’s seminar. He made it the entire 4 ½ hours trip without incident, only to arrive at his destination and learn that his brakes were failing. Naturally this occurred at 6 PM at night. Now what is he supposed to do? He’s going to be at a seminar that starts at 9 AM the next morning and he was supposed to drive back home that afternoon so that he could be at work the next day to open up his godfather’s delicatessen on Long Island.

To make matters worse, even after the two friends left repeated messages for the local automotive shop right down the street, all they got was an answering machine for a few hours. Finally, as time was getting critical, the pair once again called the repair shop. This time, a woman answered and explained that there was a serious problem with the car, but that the head mechanic was doing everything he could to get the parts to make sure the car would be roadworthy for the drive home. The mechanic even agreed to stay after hours to make sure that the car was done properly. He also took the driver underneath the car to show him exactly what was wrong so that when he got back to Long Island, he could show it to his own mechanic.

I know it sounds far-fetched that an auto mechanic would go through such lengths for a customer he might never ever see again in his life; however, this story did in fact take place in August of 2023 when my best friend, Peter drove down from Long Island for my 65th Birthday Bash seminar. Fortunately, Carl & Scott’s Automotive in Elizabethtown, PA is only about a mile from my house, and they have never let me down. They also didn’t let my best friend down when he needed them most. The moral of the story is this: If you’re going to “wow” customers to the point where people may not even believe the stories are real, you might want to get a written testimonial from your customers so that people will believe you. If you can’t get that, at least see if you can get them to write a blog about it. 

“To ‘wow’ a client is to win a client.” – Richie Norton

Let me hear from you.

(This excerpt is taken from the seminar entitled Legendary Customer Services III: How to Wow.) I encourage you to click here to register for the Legendary Customer Services III: How to Wow, Hall of Fame seminar on Thursday, November 14, 2024, at Lancaster Bible College in Lancaster, PA from 8:30 AM to 12:00 Noon Eastern Standard Time.  This seminar is also available for live streaming.