The other day I was reading a blog post by Leslie Haywood, the inventor and entrepreneur behind Grill Charms who successfully swam with the Sharks on Shark Tank. On this particular post, Leslie talks about not having a receptionist and personally taking calls when her customers come a knocking.
We’ve become accustomed to the world of automation and voice recordings and pressing numbers on our phone to try to reach a live person. I don’t know too many people who actually like this form of customer service and yet it seems we accept it to the point of even doing it ourselves with our own businesses.
Leslie’s no small fish, but her willingness to connect to the consumer defies common standards. She’s smart. People do business with people they like. People. That’s the magic word.
I once wrote a complaint letter to Nordstrom and got a pleasant letter in return from Mr. Nordstrom. Now I have no clue if he actually wrote it or even signed it himself for that matter, but the fact is I didn’t get some lame response from someone else down the ladder. I liked that. I liked that I came away feeling as though my voice was heard.
That’s precisely what I like about Leslie. She wants to be in the trenches with her customers. She knows she’s not conforming to corporate standards, but she’s providing a face, a real person behind the product.
To me, that’s just good business.
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