{"id":30907,"date":"2013-07-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/focus-on-the-customer-not-the-money\/"},"modified":"2023-10-18T19:44:15","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T19:44:15","slug":"focus-on-the-customer-not-the-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-loyalty\/focus-on-the-customer-not-the-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Focus on the Customer, Not the Money"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hyken.com\/customer-loyalty\/focus-on-the-customer-not-the-money\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"image-preview-3758\" class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Shep Hyken Customer Experience Speaker\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hyken.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Focus-on-the-Customer-Money-Follows-Low-Res.jpg\" alt=\"cusotmer-loyalty\" width=\"333\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a>Deliver the Best Customer Service<\/h2>\r\nDon\u2019t worry about the sale.\u00a0 Just take care of the customer.\u00a0 Give the customer the best customer service you can deliver, even if the customer isn\u2019t buying, and eventually the sale will come.\r\n\r\nThis idea actually goes back to a concept I\u2019ve been writing about for almost 30 years. Dr. Ted Levitt, senior professor at Harvard Business School, once said, \u201cThe function of a business is to get and keep customers.\u201d\u00a0 However, when I ask many people what the function of a business is, most of them say, \u201cTo make money.&#8221;\r\n\r\nMaking money is not the function of a business, it is the goal.\u00a0 If you confuse the function of the business, getting and keeping customers, you don\u2019t always reach your goal, which is to make money.\r\n\r\nDr. Levitt\u2019s comment is brilliant.\u00a0 Focus on getting and keeping customers, and eventually you\u2019ll make money.\u00a0 Simply put:\r\n<h3>You need customers to make money.\u00a0 Without them, there\u2019s no money \u2013 and no business.<\/h3>\r\nOnce again, I\u2019m bringing up Ace Hardware, which is the feature of my upcoming book, <i><a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/book\/amaze-every-customer-every-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Amaze Every Customer, Every Time<\/a>. <\/i>\u00a0They are a role model case study for this concept.\u00a0 Here is a \u201cGood Samaritan\u201d story.\r\n\r\nMaria lives in Mesa, AZ.\u00a0 Her eight-year-old daughter, Lisa, saw one of those color-changing Mood Rings in the mall and pushed it onto her finger.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the ring was too small and wouldn\u2019t come off her finger.\u00a0 After struggling for an hour, she was showing signs of circulation problems.\u00a0 What did Maria do?\u00a0 She went to the local Ace Hardware store.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 They help with everything.\r\n\r\nFloyd, one of the Ace associates, came to the rescue.\u00a0 With a special pair of pliers, Floyd carefully maneuvered the ring and eventually, it came off.\r\n\r\nOnce the ring was off, Maria took a picture of her daughter showing off her newly liberated finger at the store.\u00a0 She was smiling and posted the photo on Facebook and told everyone how Floyd at the Ace Hardware store had helped her.\u00a0 The post received a great response.\r\n\r\nMaria bought nothing that day.\u00a0 But, that didn\u2019t deter Floyd from delivering the amazing customer service Ace Hardware is known for.\u00a0 While Ace didn\u2019t make an actual sale, they made a customer very happy, so much so that the customer <i>evangelized <\/i>on their behalf.\r\n\r\nAce knows that the customer is more important than the money.\u00a0 Once customers recognize this, they reciprocate with business and loyalty \u2013 and that leads to profit.\r\n\r\n<em><a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shep Hyken<\/a>\u00a0is a customer service\/CX expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Learn more about Shep\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/speaking\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">customer service and customer experience keynote speeches<\/a>\u00a0and his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/training\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">customer service training workshops<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hyken.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.Hyken.com<\/a>. Connect with Shep on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/shephyken\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em> (Copyright \u00a9MMXIII, Shep Hyken)<\/em>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deliver the Best Customer Service Don\u2019t worry about the sale.\u00a0 Just take care of the customer.\u00a0 Give the customer the best customer service you can deliver, even if the customer isn\u2019t buying, and eventually the sale will come. This idea actually goes back to a concept I\u2019ve been writing about for almost 30 years. Dr. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6798,6792,6794],"tags":[4871,4951,4952],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.5 (Yoast SEO v22.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Focus on the Best Customer Service, Not the Money<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Give the customer the best customer service you can deliver, even if the customer isn\u2019t buying, and eventually, the sale will come.|\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-loyalty\/focus-on-the-customer-not-the-money\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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