Are You Building Long Term Relationships

We had a recent experience with a Toyota dealer in a smaller town. When we had ordered the car, we had very positive feelings about this dealership and our relationship with them. The first time we encountered a problem with the vehicle, the service department "blew us off". They implied that we had somehow caused the bulge in an exterior panel of the vehicle.

Frustrated, we stopped at American Toyota in Albuquerque. They wanted to investigate what had caused the bulge and volunteered to have one of their technicians remove the interior panel and see what had happened. Turns out, when the smaller town dealership had installed a subwoofer, they had to remove the interior panel. In the process, the smaller town dealership had used a tool and caused the bulge. When American Toyota discovered this, rather than have us go through the hassle of contacting the smaller town dealership and having them fix the problem that they had created, American Toyota volunteered to pay for the repair. We were elated!

It's clear to me that American Toyota is trying to build a long term relationship with their customers. They could have diagnosed the problem and sent us back to the dealership we purchased the vehicle from. But they didn't. They offered to fix the bulge at their expense. That's customer service!

As a result of the service we got from American Toyota, we have purchased another car, only this time we purchased it from American Toyota!

Think about whether or not you are building a long term relationship with your customers. It doesn't take a lot of money to take care of your customers and the goodwill it creates is tremendous.

Katie Wacek is the President of Sandia Mountain Marketing, a marketing consultancy that provides strategic and tactical marketing expertise to small- and medium -sized companies, professional service firms, and thought leaders throughout the United States. Learn more.