Pre-Walk Thoughts

Talking to a friend yesterday the concepts of purpose and value came up. We were discussing a marketing piece and the value of testimonials. The personal statements from known or unknown individuals attesting to the value of the service or goods offered. I remembered when my brand new car was in an accident and nearly totaled. The dealer was responsible for repairing and restoring the vehicle to like new quality. The car would be in repairs for weeks, as the parts had to come from Japan.

During the repairs, I had a replacement car and my service representative became someone I called regularly. He was always courteous and friendly. We took my call or got back to me promptly. We found the answers to my questions and kept me informed of the progress on the repairs. Somewhere beyond three months, my five-month-old car was repaired and returned to me looking like new.

When I would bring it back with issues or items that were not working correctly, my service rep smiled, took the car, gave me a substitute and got to work on the problem. When we were both satisfied that the car was repaired to its original standard I decided to write a letter to the owner of the dealership. I showed it to my service representative because it was mostly about him. He blushed from my praise but agreed with the facts and said it was all right for me to send it to his boss. Not much later, he was promoted to service manager for the dealership. My letter was not the reason he was promoted. It was additional quantitative and qualitative value when he was being reviewed for the position.

When someone does something well, it is important to recognize them for their effort and the value they was added to you. Quality is appreciated by everyone and an important purpose of appreciation is helping others recognize their own worth. Magic does happen when we use the magic words "please" and "thank-you" and even bigger magic happens when we live the concepts.