Exceeding Expectations

Earlier this month, the dog Sugar, a boxer, and her owner went to a training session that they had been regularly attending. During the session, Sugar suddenly collapsed and stopped breathing. Sugar’s owner was totally distraught and began crying and screaming for Sugar to revive.

Ron Pace, the trainer and owner of Canyon Crest K9, hurried over to Sugar and started CPR. Since Sugar was lying on her side, this was easy to do. After several pumps on Sugar’s side, Ron thought that he saw a faint movement of Sugar’s chest and decided to try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. As he was blowing into Sugar’s mouth for the first time, Sugar stirred.

“Talk to her,” Ron encouraged Sugar’s owner. “Encourage her to wake up.”

The owner did and, within minutes, Sugar regained consciousness.

Sugar’s owner was ecstatic. Minutes earlier, she had thought that Sugar was dead and now Sugar was alive.

If Sugar had been at another training center, would she be alive? Maybe. Maybe not.

At Canyon Crest K9 Training Center, Ron Pace knew doggie CPR. I suspect that not all trainers do. In addition, Ron took action and used his training to save Sugar’s life. Sometimes people know how to do CPR but do not take action in a critical situation. Ron did. He went beyond the service that he had promised Sugar’s owner, which was to help her train Sugar. He applied a skill that he had taken the time to learn and brought Sugar back to life.

For service businesses, maintaining a consistency of the services offered is a constant challenge. Different employees deliver services differently. They have different styles, different personalities, and different levels of expertise. They interact differently with customers. They have different motivations. With all these differences, how do you ensure that they deliver a service in the same fashion?

In addition, how do you teach them to handle a situation such as Ron encountered and go beyond the expectations of your customer? While most employees will not be faced with a life-and-death situation, every day employees have unique situations which offer the opportunity for service that exceeds a customer’s expectations. How these opportunities are handled may determine whether a business retains a loyal customer or not.

Ron is the owner of his training center, and, as the owner, was probably more inclined to take immediate action. Would one of his employees have done the same? I don’t know. How do you train employees to take action, use the right action, and know when to contact the owner first?

How do you train employees to give consistent service and to know when to exceed customers’ expectations?


Inspired by this question, I have a new seminar, Internal Marketing, which I will be offering after April 26. Watch for more information on it next week.