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Every business claims it. Every manager preaches it.
So why is it that customers sometimes feel they don't get it?
Customer service, after all, is the capstone of the economy in Beaufort County. We are small shops. Our product is hospitality. We need people to want to spend time here, even buy property here.
That's why I want to tell you the story of Babs Echtenkamp.
It's only been about three years since she married Alan Echtenkamp, so many of her customers may know her as Babs Bowman, or simply Babs.
She moved to Hilton Head Island in 1991 as a new divorcee. She came at the invitation of a daughter whose husband was opening a medical practice here. She could help in the office, and at home. She could land on her feet, and start a new life.
Her daughter left in about a year, but Echtenkamp stayed. She and her ex-husband's mother lived in a small Forest Gardens condominium. She barely qualified for a mortgage, and that was only with the help of friends in her three singles groups.
She worked at two different medical offices. And at night, she baby-sat.
She kept asking a woman in a church singles group if she could work in her jewelry store. She'd had experience in Florida selling costume jewelry, and she'd worked in sales in a discount clothing store, even becoming a manager.
But her new friend, Debbie Berling, was leery. Echtenkamp didn't seem like the type, maybe because she is so quiet, speaking in sort of a stage whisper.
Finally, Echtenkamp told Berling she had one day of the week open. Could she work that one day in the jewelry store? Berling needed help on only one day of the week. For both, that day was Monday. The deal was on, and a couple of Mondays later, Echtenkamp was full-time.
"On July 15, 1995, I hired a meek and mild woman named Babs Bowman as a sales associate for Forsythe Jewelers," Berling said. "I did it against my better judgment because she was so soft-spoken and sweet. I figured she couldn't possibly have the assertiveness to sell jewelry. After all, it takes some chutzpah to sell something no one needs."
This past New Year's Eve was Echtenkamp's last day in the shop at Sea Pines Center, and last week she was toasted at a retirement party.
"Her family staged an 'intervention' and told her she deserves to retire and enjoy life a bit more," Berling said. "We will miss her sorely."
During the 14 intervening years, the quiet one set a new standard. She became the first employee to personally sell more than $1 million in a year. She paid off her mortgage in less than 10 years.
When she made the last payment, she said to Berling, "I call it the 'House That Forsythe Built.' "
"That's funny," Berling replied. "I call Forsythe Jewelers 'The Business That Babs Built.'<2009>"
SOME INGREDIENTS
How it happened is nothing new. But reviewing the ingredients may help all of us, if we are to thrive in a service economy:
• Work hard
"Babs has worked every day from 9 am. till 6 p.m. without taking a break to sit except for lunch," Berling said. "She's on her feet all da never complains."
• Take personal pride
"She was determined," Berling said. "There are people out there so internally competitive that whatever they sell, they want to sell more. To them, their best isn't ever good enough."
Echtenkamp said, "I ended up doing more than I was required to do just because I needed a job and I wanted to do it well."
• Keep pushing
I asked Echtenkamp if she had found encouragement throughout her career from all her bosses. "No, not
really," she said.
Regardless, look nice, know your inventory and put your best foot forward.
• Say hello
"We greeted every customer within one or two seconds of entering the shop," Echtenkamp said. She told of selling a pair of 2-carat diamond stud earrings to a man who had started shopping elsewhere, "but nobody spoke to me, so I left."
• Listen
"With a customer, listen to what they like, what they wish for that maybe they can't do right now," Echtenkamp said. "It's all about what they would like, not what I would like."
• Sweat the details
Echtenkamp kept records in a little book. It included customer names, a phone number and maybe a wish she'd heard. It started small and grew into a larger book, filled with meticulous handwriting to include birthdays, anniversaries and cross-references so she could quickly tell a man a gift that would make him a hero.
• Look
Echtenkamp said she noticed what jewelry a customer was wearing, and their clothes and eye color; things that would match a client with the right merchandise.
• Build relationships
Echtenkamp sent Christmas cards, e-mails and letters. She called family members to suggest gifts at the right time. The contact was always personalized, she said, with information about a child, a skin tone or other jewelry, for example.
"The way she has sold has always been through relationships," Berling said.
• Pay them
Business owners, Berling learned, must reward star employees, not with trips and gifts but with cold cash: Salary. Pay them what they deserve. Pay them what will keep them.
• To get, you must give
"My theory has always been to make every person you talk to feel like they're the most important person you will speak with all day," Echtenkamp said. "Give them your full attention. Give them your full time. Just treat people the way you'd like to be treated."
It sounds so simple.
