{"id":23,"date":"2011-05-13T01:32:36","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T01:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/?p=23"},"modified":"2011-05-11T02:21:30","modified_gmt":"2011-05-11T02:21:30","slug":"break-into-a-new-market-by-providing-outstanding-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/?p=23","title":{"rendered":"Break into a New Market by Providing Outstanding Customer Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most Small Businesses have a fairly established customer base.\u00a0 Sometimes, however, it is imperative that we break into a new market, perhaps because our current market shrinks or dries up, our product changes, or\u00a0to expand our business.\u00a0 <strong>When attempting to enter a new market, you are trying to convince a group that has not used your product or service in the past that you are the best\u00a0choice and a better value for the future.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Often Small Business owners do not have the luxury of huge advertising budgets.\u00a0 Since first impressions\u00a0carry a lot of weight,\u00a0<strong>one of the ways to break into a new market\u00a0is by employing outstanding customer service.<\/strong>\u00a0 This winter I encountered a gentleman who was trying to do just that, and it really impressed me.\u00a0 I wanted to share it with you.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This past January my brothers Tom and Don\u00a0invited my parents, my daughter, and I to piggyback onto one of their legendary family vacations: this one a ski trip to the French Alps.\u00a0 It had been a few years since I had taken a vacation (sound familiar?), and I was psyched!\u00a0 It was a dream trip for me &#8211; great skiing, awesome food, and unforgettable\u00a0memories\u00a0with my family.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Tom and Don planned the trip.\u00a0 They had rented an owner-managed chalet in a small village.\u00a0 The owner,\u00a0Pascale, owns two\u00a0chalets, and he supports himself by renting them to tourists such as ourselves.\u00a0 He is a very hands-on businessman and was excited to rent to us.\u00a0 You see, after several years of renting, we were his first American tenants.\u00a0 Not only that, but we represented four households from four\u00a0different regions of the United States.\u00a0 <strong>We could give him\u00a0exposure to a lot of\u00a0previously untapped potential guests.\u00a0 He was eager to make a good impression and was willing to change his normal routine to do so.<\/strong>\u00a0 <strong>It worked.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>This is how Pascale provided exceptional customer service to cater to our group:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>He\u00a0adjusted his product to account for cultural differences.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Not to state the obvious, but<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>to Americans, France is a foreign country.\u00a0\u00a0Some customs that\u00a0may be commonplace to the French seem strange to us.\u00a0 I think this caught both my brothers and I <em>and<\/em> Pascale off guard.\u00a0 But, even though he may not have understood our reservations, Pascale was quick to adapt to our needs and comfort level.\u00a0 For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Pascale adjusted the times meals were served.<\/strong>\u00a0 The chalet package included a chef who served us breakfast and dinner.\u00a0 Before we arrived Pascale informed us that dinner would be served nightly at 8pm.\u00a0 Tom has two preschool-aged daughters.\u00a0\u00a0Clearly, trying to keep his kids awake for a late dinner\u00a0would cause a\u00a0bit of stress for Tom and his wife.\u00a0 Also, our elderly father generally goes to bed early as well.\u00a0 Pascale quickly offered to serve the children at 6:30, with a 7:30 dinner for the adults.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pascale eliminated unfamiliar foods from the menu.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I know that part of a trip abroad\u00a0is to experience new cultures, but, really, with twelve people in your group, five of them kids, sometimes taking the path of least resistance is the best way to go.\u00a0 Pascale made\u00a0equally delicious substitutions for items on the menu that made some of us squirm.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pascale adjusted our bill to account for our reduced alcohol intake.<\/strong>\u00a0 The initial charge for the chalet included one bottle of wine per adult per day.\u00a0\u00a0 (Teenagers counted as adults.) \u00a0Seriously?!\u00a0 There was no way we would come <em>anywhere near<\/em> that level of consumption, so at the end of the week he adjusted our bill for the unopened bottles, and also had on hand other beverage options, such as fruit juice and soft drinks, which were not usually made available.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pascale respected\u00a0our cultural notions of privacy.<\/strong>\u00a0 About a week\u00a0before we arrived, Pascale informed us that he and a friend would be sharing the chalet with us.\u00a0 Perhaps this is a cultural schism, but having two\u00a0men we didn&#8217;t know share a house\u00a0with our\u00a0teenage girls was\u00a0a deal breaker for Tom and Don.\u00a0 When they explained to Pascale that this seemed, well, a little weird to them, Pascale quickly made other lodging arrangements for himself and his friend.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Pascale went above and beyond what he normally does for guests by doing the following:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He brought in logs and lit a fire every day\u00a0before we returned from skiing.<\/li>\n<li>He adjusted the time of breakfast each day to our daily schedule.<\/li>\n<li>He hung out with us after dinner each evening, informing us of interesting things to do, great trails to try out, and generally attempting to make us feel like we had some cool local mojo.<\/li>\n<li>Without being asked, he went to the town tourist office and picked up some bumper stickers for me after I asked him where I might find some for souvenirs for friends.<\/li>\n<li>He researched the things we wanted to do and made arrangements and reservations\u00a0before our arrival.<\/li>\n<li>He dropped us (and our equipment) off at the lifts each day and was waiting for us after the lifts closed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure that Pascale went to a lot of extra work for us in an attempt to garner future referrals.\u00a0 He probably feels he lost money that week and worked harder than he usually does.\u00a0 However, he is a smart business man.\u00a0 His efforts to set a good impression worked.\u00a0 If I have any friends wanting to take a ski trip in Alps, I know right where to send them.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Tom and Don are planning <em>their<\/em> next trip &#8211; to Thailand.<\/p>\n<p>In what ways have you tried to gain a foothold into a new market by providing outstanding customer service?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most Small Businesses have a fairly established customer base.\u00a0 Sometimes, however, it is imperative that we break into a new market, perhaps because our current market shrinks or dries up, our product changes, or\u00a0to expand our business.\u00a0 When attempting to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/?p=23\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiefcookandbottlewasher.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}