Photo courtesy: Dan Eriksson at Flickr

I have used the same dry cleaner for my clothes for more than five years. During my last visit, the person asked me whether I received a coupon by email. I told him I did but I just ignored it. In fact I asked him – “You take care of me anyway. If there are discounts, you would give it to me. Why should I bring a coupon?”

The person was insisted – “That is true. Sometimes I might forget to apply some special discounts and I don’t want you to miss it. You are one of my long-term customers and I DO want to take care of you very well.”

I was not convinced and probably he could see that. When I was leaving, he said – “Also I want to make it easy for you to refer me some of your friends. Now you can just forward this coupon and it will be like a gift.”

I smiled and left.

I really admire the person for going out of the way to use technology to DO something about his business. His persistence gets extra points. More important his creativity of “trying to make me feel that the actions I take (forwarding a coupon) will take care of my concerns (giving a gift to a friend) more than his concerns (getting new customers.)”

Have a great week ahead.