To have a successful business, you don’t want satisfied customers—you want Raving Fans. I wrote a book with the title Raving Fans along with Sheldon Bowles from Winnipeg, Canada. Our belief is that you don’t want to simply satisfy your customers. You want to treat them so well that they are blown away—that they brag about you. The way to do that is to think about the customer service experience you want them to have.

In the 1970s when all the gas stations were switching to self-service gasoline, Sheldon started a chain of full-service stations called Domo Gas. Sheldon said, “Most people don’t want to go to the gas station unless they have to, so I want to give them the best service, the quickest service, and the friendliest service.” So his vision was that if you came to one of his stations, it would be like going to an Indianapolis 500 race pit stop. He hired housewives and retirees and had them all wear red jumpsuits. When a customer came in, several attendants would race out. Someone checked under the hood. Someone pumped the gas. Someone washed the windshield. Someone opened the car door, handed the customer a newspaper and a cup of coffee, and asked the customer to step out so they could give the car a quick vacuum. Do you think Sheldon made a difference across Canada? You’d better believe it! Because he didn’t just have satisfied customers, he had Raving Fans. Everybody talked about the experience of going to one of his gas stations and how they were treated.

So don’t just satisfy customers—think of how you can really blow them away and turn them into Raving Fans.

Read more http://howwelead.org/2011/09/10/how-to-create-raving-fan-customers/