This is an excerpt from my book: Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless.

“Best Practice” Benchmark:
A response, practice or function that, by peer consensus, has been designated as “BEST” when interacting with a customer or coworker. The purpose of a Benchmark is to create a uniform, superior response to situations that occur daily in the workplace. The objective of a Benchmark is to raise the level of service and performance to its maximum and maintain that level every day.

Is that the best way you can say it?
Is that the best way you can do it?

Benchmarking best practices can turn an everyday situation (greeting, responding, asking for payment, voice mail message) into WOW!

Here’s an example.

Present situation. Customer drives up at a hotel. Doorman greets the customer, takes his bags, puts them on a cart and waits for the customer to check in. The customer checks is, comes back, claims his bags and a bellman takes them to the room. Standard operating procedure at 99% of Americas full-service hotels.

Benchmark opportunity to take the service to a memorable level. We’ll call the practice, “Name Pass,” and here’s how it works…

New Benchmark Standard:  Customer drives up to the hotel front entrance. Doorman runs to the car door, opens it and says, “Welcome to the Downtown Marriott, my name is Marvin, how can I serve you today?” A stunned customer says, “I’m here to check in.”

“Great!” says Marvin. “And your name is…?” “Jeffrey Gitomer,” says the customer. “Mr. Gitomer, follow me, you’re about to have a great stay here.” Marvin leads me to the front desk. He walks up to the desk, leans over and says to the front desk clerk, “Amy, I want you to take special care of my new friend, Mr. Gitomer. He’s here to check in.” (Gitomer, still dazed, hands Marvin $5.00 as he walks away)

“Great, Mr. Gitomer, we’ve got a great room for you, you’re going to have a great stay here,” says an exuberant Amy, “If you’ll just give me your credit card, I’ll have you taken care of in no time flat.” (front desk person completes the task and calls over the Bill, the bellman). “Bill, please take our special guest, Mr. Gitomer, to his room.”

“Hello. Mr. Gitomer, I’m Bill, the best bellman this side of the Potomac River. Let me show you to the elevator. As we pass the water fountain, watch out for the alligators.”

Gitomer, smiling, puts his hand in his pocket to make sure there’s tip money readily available.

Get it? It’s so simple to change daily grind into fun for everyone AND create memorable experiences that will be told to others after they have taken place.

Here are a few examples of turning the ordinary into a retold story:

• Nordstroms Department Store never makes you stand in line to pay. The clerk who waits on you takes your credit card and returns with a slip to sign and a bag for your stuff. WOW!
• Freedom Animal Hospital in Charlotte changed their telephone after-message to animals barking in the background and speaking as though they were a pet.
• Omni Bank in New Orleans took down their “no soliciting” sign on the front door and put up a “WELCOME” sign in its place.

Here are a few ideas of areas you could benchmark an ordinary practice into a talked-about best practice…

• Phone greeting
• Receptionist greeting
• Taking a message
• Your office or factory tour
• The customer greeting
• The customer follow-up after a sale
• The initial response to a complaint
• The customer goodbye

Question: What are you doing that’s a BEST practice?

Answer: Not enough.

Question: How often are you treating your customers the BEST way you can each time they call or visit?

Answer: Not enough.

Question: Is your competition?

Answer: Uh oh.

FREE GitBit… There are three options a customer has to talk about you when the transaction is over. Want to know what they are? Just go to www.gitomer.com, click Access GitBit, register, and enter the word OPPORTUNITY in the Search box.