Travel Agent Musings

By Rhonda Stanley

I want to share with you a recent personal experience, one that really reinforces what I have been saying in my entries about building customer loyalty. My story involves a grocery store.

Where I live, I have a choice of 6 grocery stores within a 3 km radius of my house. I do the majority of shopping for our household, and I have a personal favourite store. My husband and kids, on the other hand, do not. They’ll go wherever is most convenient at the time (on the rare occasions I can harangue them into doing my shopping for me!). I am sure you are thinking, “what’s the big deal? A Royal Gala apple is the same regardless of where you get it, so why be loyal to a grocery store?”

 Surprisingly, my choice is not the biggest grocery store with the widest selection, but the one with the best quality of fresh fruits and vegetables. My kids only like their grapes firm, pineapples sweet, apples crispy, et cetera. I have to say after living here for 9 years, my grocery store never disappoints. I find the other stores inconsistent. Who wants to pay $3.99 for a little container of moldy raspberries? Not me…

 So on a Sunday, about 2 weeks ago, I was picking up groceries for the week. I had finished paying and was about to leave, when this man approached me and said, “Hello, Mrs. Stanley.” He introduced himself as the store manager, Mr. Green.

 Imagine my surprise that somebody there actually knew my name! Mr. Green proceeded to say he had seen me shopping there regularly, and wished to recognize me as one of their ‘elite’ customers. Boy did he have my attention. He thanked me for my business, and gave me a card outlining the benefits I will receive as an elite customer. But most impressive of all, he gave me a card with his personal cell phone number, in case I should ever need anything. If you could have seen the look on my face, I was absolutely wowed. I felt like a celebrity.

 When I recounted this story to my husband and children, they were so surprised and of course impressed. My husband’s first remark was, “you know you buy too many groceries when you get this recognition.” (That’s beside the point and a topic for a totally different story!)  But what has this done for my ‘choice’ grocery store? Well, it’s made my previously fickle husband and kids loyal to them too. They now go to my favourite grocery store in the hope that they will be rewarded too.

 Of course, I will likely never call the store manager’s cell. But that’s irrelevant; he singled me out for my loyalty and made me feel special. Knowing he appreciates my business will keep me loyal. All it took was a simple greeting and thank you from a store that I have been shopping at for almost 10 years.

 So if you haven’t taken the time to thank your clients lately, there is no time like the present. Any schmuck can just sit there and sell Royal Gala apples, but it takes a thoughtful salesperson to make the customers want to come back for more.