Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Making the customer feel special

This morning, I got a call from Asia in a Box. The lady at the other end of the line said she was calling to let me know that A.i.a.B would be closed for renovation for the next 6 weeks.

This call blew my socks off for a couple of reasons:

- I am definitely not their most valuable customer. Anu and I possibly provide them with our custom once a month, if that. And our average order is between Rs.600 and Rs.1000, depending on whether we have guests over or not.

- Though I tip the delivery guy quite generously, I have never taken the trouble to call A.i.a.B after a meal and commend them on the outstanding Satay or Pad Thai. A.i.a.B would therefore have no reason to believe that we love them as much as we do.

- They aren't starved for customers. Our friends who live within their delivery radius call them more frequently than we do. Those who live outside their delivery radius keep telling us how they are prepared to move in to East Bangalore, just so that they can get order from A.i.a.B. Ergo, pretty popular.

The call this morning isn't a big deal. For all I know, they could have outsourced it to a couple of college kids wanting to make some extra dough (of course, the afore-mentioned college kids would have then had better luck at a pizza place, what?). But it leaves me feeling special. I know that when we have guests over any time in the next 6 weeks, I won't look stupid for promising them the best Thai food for dinner. I also know that I will definitely call them on the first day they re-open.

Small gesture, big payback. There's a lesson somewhere in there.

1 comment:

guffawer said...

completely agree with you bro..... small things like this goes a long way. Hmmmm.... so what do we eat the next time I come over... papa john's?? :P