• Consider the airlines who charge their best customers, business travelers, three to four times more than the occasional traveler.
• Consider the airlines who charge their best customers, business travelers, three to four times more than the occasional traveler.
• Like L.L. Bean, know which level your customers put you in and thrive in the 21st century.

What do customers want? They’d like to know that somebody in the company is thinking, and thinking of them. Consider the example of grocery stores creating preferred treatment for the wrong customer. Is there a business problem when, inadvertently, the supermarket industry treats its better customers less well than the “few item shopper”?

Are supermarkets competing with convenient stores? Are they trying to be all things to all people? If they did away with “express” would that free more cashiers to take better care of their best customers, the ones with their carts spilling over? Could that give them a competitive advantage? What are your thoughts?

A good friend recently asked me, “I’m curious about what you would do with the supermarket conundrum of express lines for customers with few purchases and longer lines for customers with lots of goods?” Great question. What would you do? American businesses are filled with bright people who are both innovative and solution oriented and they are not afraid to think outside the box.

Give a moment’s thought to the airline industry as well. Does it really make sense to charge your best customers, business travelers, three to four times more than the occasional traveler who books 30 days in advance? Research study has found that customers divide companies into three levels of service.

• Level one is accommodation. It means meeting a customer’s expectations, which implies that you know them beforehand. That’s why L.L. Bean will replace items, even if the customer returns them years after the purchase.
• The next level represents a more intimate interaction, in which the consumer is educated with information about the product or service. That means that you have staff who can speak intelligently about your wares. Ultimately, it leads customers to prefer your business.
• At the highest level, there must be customized service. That may mean tailoring products and services to fit the wants, needs and desires of the individual customer. It may also involve actually customizing what you offer to fit those specific needs and to seal that bond of intimacy.

Superquinn is a chain of grocery stores in Ireland that is obsessively concerned with its customers. They provide scissors beside the broccoli so customers can trim off the heavy stalks that they would otherwise throw away when they got home. An additional benefit is that they don’t pay for what they don’t want. Additionally, perishables are delivered twice a day to ensure freshness.

Fish and meats are cut to order at Superquinn, and the store stocks special items for customers, even items that are normally only carried by a competitor. This eliminates the need for customers to make special trips for one or two items and keeps them out of a competitor’s shopping environment. As a result, Superquinn’s customers wouldn’t dream of shopping anyplace else.

Are you willing to truly customize your product or service offerings to meet the needs of an individual customer? Wal-Mart doesn’t. Like L.L. Bean they offer an “accommodation” service level of business. If you’re differentiating on service, are your customers educated or informed when they do business with you?

Organizations throughout the United States need to decide what level of service they wish to offer: average, good, or superior. In the long run, that will go a long way to determining which organizations are truly successful, which one’s just survive and which one’s fail miserably. Relentless thinking about your customer will show them that your business genuinely cares.

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