As the saying goes… “the world goes round,” its very true and neither anyone has the time and patience for anyone who is not related to their frame and taste. This philosophy is sometimes very much evident in today’s business world which is growing and shooting skywards. Most business markets believe that time is money and money is time and they don’t want to waste any of it, its true in a way if one values his/her priorities and commitments by the arm of a watch. This is a good practice and should be disciplined and preached in every business establishment around the globe. Though all the big business establishments have their own practices and ways to serve the customer or their final consumer, but many are not aware of this and have a little uneasy feeling when they have to answer any queries about their business. The knowledge about business, running a business and keeping your customers satisfied are all separate from each other, though they all lean towards one common goal.

A visit to any business market searching and hoping for courtesy form the owner of the establishment will probably leave a bad taste taste in your mouth, many business men and women are so obsessed with their profit making techniques that they tend to forget the basic rule of business – customer is king. They should know that a happy customer will be a good cut no matter how less he shops at their store. A we-read and learned customer will always enquire about the deals which are at your end and would be delighted if you can cut a little more on that too. Its a simple policy and practice which has really helped transform a mediocre business house into a giant, or a giant to a Goliath, take Maruti Udyog for an example, the simple advertisement saying ‘For Maruti, I Am The King’ did delight a lot of owners, who had even purchased the car before they ever came up with this advertisement.

Having a tunnel-vision just focusing on ‘profit’ is not always good, and it has its ramifications too. Any business man or woman who is just sitting on the counter to earn profit will never draw customers again and again, but a person who tries to sell with a little common-sense and courtesy will improve on his prospects and lift-up his name in the market too. A recent visit to a sweet shop made me realize how much you can add in your services, after choosing and placing the order for sweets the person puts the box over the measurement scale with a lot of sweets, the measure exceeds more than what I had ordered for. He then starts to pick pieces of sweets form the overloaded box and tries to bring back the measure to scale. This didn’t add any value as I felt psychologically that the person is taking instead of selling. I dropped the order there and then moved to another shop, this person was happy to see me and greeted me with a ‘how can I help you?’ I asked him about the price and he gave the details while pointing his fingers at all the different sweets. There again I ordered the same quantity of the same sweets, after confirming the order he puts the box on the scale and lets me know about the weight of the box too, then he starts to add the sweets to the box and exceeds the level a little to compensate the weight of the box, then packs and puts it in a poly-bag for me with a computer generated bill. I gladly paid the man and he hands over the poly-bag to me with the words ‘thank you.’ I was certainly delighted with the attitude of the shop-owner who had just served me better and not known to his knowledge, just poached another customer from his competition.

In a nutshell, service orientation in selling products is integral part of the package, you cannot take away service from a product. The customer does not look for a product per-se, he looks for an experience out of it. And that experience begins right when the customer drops in at the doorstep.