The change to (or from) Daylight Savings Time is always accompanied with some trauma that comes from the task of resetting all our clocks. It seems that no two timepieces or appliances use the same resetting system (I’m sure that there is a conspiracy at work here to keep us confused at least half the year) and few people are organized enough to find the manuals that come with the microwave, DVD, and alarm clock. For some reason the conspiracy to keep us “Daylight Savings Time Challenged” is most successful at keeping us from being able to reset the clocks in our increasingly complex electronically enhanced cars.

This year one company, Mercedes-Benz, brilliantly helped their customers grapple with this issue by sending an email with clock resetting instructions to owners of recent models. Bravo for a great customer relationship initiative! I know about this email because I read an article about it, not because I received one – I had to dig my car’s manual out from under the collection of loose change, chewing gum wrappers, and pens in my glove box, find the proper page in the manual, and fiddle with the little buttons to reset my clock and then I did the gallant thing and went through the same procedure to reset the clock in my wife’s car.

Now, would anyone plop down the price of a Mercedes-Benz because they received an email with the clock resetting instructions? Probably not. But that little gesture will go a long way towards increasing the ownership experience and the sense that this company is concerned about improving the relationship with owners of their products. When it is time to consider the purchase of a new car, the memory of that email will be one positive memory that makes up the buying decision and when you factor in the cost of composing and transmitting that email (next to nothing!) the return on investment is huge.

Think about this example from real life to develop great customer service initiatives for your company. When you think of your customer’s needs first they will be delighted, your customer retention rate will increase and your business will grow.

Next FREE “Lunch with Larry” Tele-seminar 4/4/07 To reserve your seat email lmgaller@comcast.net