Over the past several years, noted television personality, Dr. Phil, has flooded our media waves with advice on everything from Weight Loss to Eternal Happiness.  Like him or not, you have to give him credit for building a legion of followers.

Although I am not quite ready to drink the cool-aide yet, I am constantly amazed at some of the “Pearls of Wisdom” that he strings and the applications that can be made from them to many facets of our marketing lives.

One such “Pearl” is embodied in the phrase; “You either get ‘it’ or you don’t!”  It’s a short sentence that can pack a wallop if you dig deep enough into your own application.

Case in point:  Over the summer holidays, I trotted into a local hardware store in search of an American Flag for the 4th of July weekend.  Call me patriotic, I guess.

As I surveyed the flag shelves, I found the perfect choice, noted the price and marched to the check-out counter.  As the young man began to scan the price, I noticed that the price that flashed was almost double the price that I thought I had read on the sale sticker.

Innocently, I asked the young clerk to verify the price for me.  He looked happy to accommodate, until an older Associate nearby overheard the conversation and began to chastise me for asking even the question. I mean rude! Really rude! You would have thought I had just put on my shoes and taken the wagon into town.

Although the final analysis proved that the flag was, in fact, priced correctly; with hat in hand, I took a deep breath, ignored the older Associate’s crappy attitude and began to pay the bill. It was then that I noticed the young clerk roll his eyes as his older Associate walked away.

“How does that guy keep his job?” I asked the young clerk.  “Doesn’t the owner know that he is bad for business?” Then, to my utter dismay, the young clerk responded, “He is the owner!” Needless to say, I rolled my own eyes and walked out the door, vowing never to return...unless I really needed something.

I know we all have our own collection of consumer horror stories that we share, but it seems the more I conduct seminars and workshops on Customer Care Initiatives these days; the more I think that Dr. Phil may have tripped upon the root cause of most of our consumer problems in America today. No matter what the industry, even Healthcare, it seems like we still may have people in important positions: owners, department heads, supervisors, and staff…”That just don’t get ‘it’!” Well, for those who still may “just not get ‘it’” yet, let’s see if I can explain “it” in a way that might help.

In fact, let’s see if I really get “it”?  Here goes…

• Profits are usually derived from revenues minus expenses.
• Revenues generally come from customers who pay for products or services from us that fill a need that they have.
• Customers choose our products or services because they have an expectation that we will fill their needs better than our competitors.
• Customers often judge whether our company has met or exceeded those expectations by the level of satisfaction that they have in dealing with us.
• The more positive the experience with our company the higher the level of satisfaction the customer has.
•  The happier the customer is with the performance of our products, services, and people, the more positive the experience and the more satisfied the customer becomes.
• Satisfied customers will continue to use our products or services if they have same positive experience each time they deal with our company.
• New customers often come to our company with favorable expectations because of a positive word of mouth shared by other satisfied customers.
• Customers tend to have positive experiences with a company if the employees they come in contact with show them that they care about their experience and do everything that is possible to make sure the customer is satisfied with their company.
• Employees generally realize the importance of showing customers that they care and appreciate their business because they have learned that concept from the examples set by their managers who support them in that effort and who have also demonstrated that they also care about the employees who workfor them which helps to make them happy employees.
• Happy employees often create happy customers who tend to bring more happy customers that generally inspire a happy management team that generates happy profits that insures happy shareholders who become happy consumers looking for happy companies like theirs to buy more products and services from that has a tendency to make lots of people happy!

Whew!  Now that I re-read it, I think “I really do get ‘it’!”  Don’t you?

In fact, now that I think about it, maybe I’ll drop off a copy to that nice young store clerk?  Who knows, he may even show it to his nasty old owner…who, if he really thinks about, “it” may finally “get ‘it’ too!”…which would make EVERYONE HAPPY… especially ME?  Thanks, Dr. Phil!