Jim Sterne, one of my favourite web people, got this confirmation email when he ordered a CD from CD Baby: shows you can inject a little personality into the dullest of customer communications if you try. Mind your brand, though: this kind of humour only works for some...


"Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

"A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

"Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

"We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, November 18th.

"I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.

"Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year.' We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!

"Sigh...

"Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent music
http://cdbaby.com cdbaby@cdbaby.com (503)595-3000"

From a post by Jason Cowsill in The Leadership Hub

From Chris Daffy's latest newsletter:

"When I’m in Bucharest, which is now almost once every month, I usually stay at the J W Marriott. It’s a great hotel and the people there always make me feel very welcome. Each night, after the room attendant has turned down my bed they leave a chocolate, feedback form and a card with a ‘thought for the day’ on it. During my last stay one of these thoughts got me thinking about customer service and loyalty. It was –

“The only way to have a friend is to be one” Ralph Waldo Emerson

This got me thinking that “The only way to have loyal customers is to be loyal to them”. But that’s not the way most organisations approach it. They see loyalty as a one sided thing and focus on what they can do to make customers loyal to them, but give little or attention to what they could do to show how loyal they are to their customers.

I’m also reminded of one of Stephen Covey’s 7 habits, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”. This too reflects the theme of give first to receive later. So I think I’m going to create my own First Rule of Loyalty, which is –

‘First demonstrate loyalty to customers; then seek ways to earn it back.’