“It’s a pedometer. It shows when you’ve gone the extra mile to satisfy a customer!”
I was helping a client write a blog about patient satisfaction in healthcare and it got me thinking. As a PR professional, what are the things that my clients expect from our firm? Then I started thinking about my own expectations of some of the vendors I work with to provide superior service levels to my clients.
In my 25 years of working in PR, there are just a handful of experiences that truly stand out in terms of people that have gone the extra mile to provide exceptional customer satisfaction. The first was a rep from PR Newswire who was trying to win my business when I was handling PR and IR for a large public corporation who had a history of doing business with the leading newswire service at the time, BusinessWire.
Her name was Susan McPherson. She met me for an introductory meeting, candidly told me that her company was working hard to try to earn the IR business of many companies and that she knew they had their work cut out for them. In the weeks preceding our first meeting, Susan took the initiative to send me competitive news and industry info that she knew would help me do my job better. What she didn’t realize was that I was building an important PowerPoint roadshow presentation, which made her info invaluable. Her initiative earned her our business and I continued my loyalty to PR Newswire for the next 20 years.
Most recently, Brendan McCloughin in client relations at Meltwater Press has mirrored Ms. McPherson’s initiative and desire to not just win my business, but to keep it. I have a yearly contract with Meltwater to provide our firm with a media database to find relevant contacts to send news to on behalf of my clients. Brendan has taken our contract up a notch by regularly sending me emails and voice messages to ask if he can help boost exposure for news coming out on my clients. I recently renewed my contract with Meltwater Press, not because I think their product is superior, but because I receive an added team member for Eye-To-Eye with Brendan. He is on our team, extremely responsive to our clients’ needs and always thinking ahead.
That’s great customer service in action and what sparks loyalty!
