|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Home | Business | Customer Service In fact I think that a good portion of the town that I live in could be going a bit bananas. A few weeks back we had an air conditioner guy come to the house and sure enough when he arrived he was wearing a giant teddy bear costume. I understand that the costume could very well protect him from the cold arctic blasts from over-zealous air conditioning units but don’t you think we have gone a little overboard in the ‘do it for the kids’ department? My next door neighbor has a long sleeve, His wife is dressed like the nativital mother of Christ and The aircon guy is dressed like big Ted. What do you think their names might be? Are you willing to hazard a guess? World memory champions use odd imagery to enact the photographic mind, activate the reticular systems in the brain and MASSIVLEY multiply their recall. Can we use this skill to remember customers names? Definitely! Most people I talk to say they have a terrible time remembering names, this article (if you apply the information) will massively increase your ability to remember the names of your customers. Remember, a customers name is the sweetest sound they can hear. When I walk into a café and they say “Hello Joshua” I know that I’m coming back! It will significantly increase your profits if you and your staff remember the names of customer, but don’t let that distract you from the higher goal: It’s a nice thing to do, it feels good! Here’s how we do it: Your brain is a visual machine, when you think, you think in pictures. But sometimes things are hard to turn into a picture, can you visualize what a Simone looks like? Maybe you can, if you know someone named Simone, but what if you know two people? O-oh! When we can’t clearly visualize what something looks like (anything abstract) then we can use replacement words to help jog our memory into ‘visual’ mode. This technique works great for names and faces! I first came across this idea when I was watching the West Wing (a political drama set in the White House) when the media liaison is trying to remember everyone’s names in the press briefing room she is pointing at each empty chair and saying the name of the person that is assigned to that chair when she gets stuck on the eighteenth chair. She says to herself, “eighteen?, Eighteen you’re old enough to vote, vote rhymes with mote, what is a mote? It is a type of trench, Trent! This is not exactly a solution that astounded me with its elegant simplicity but it got me thinking about how substitution and link words could aid in the systematic recollection of names. So why has my neighbor got a long sleeve? His name is Steve. Why is his wife dressed as the nativital mother of Christ? Her name is Mary. Why is my aircon guy dressed as big Ted? His name is Jed. Seems silly doesn’t it? But it works. Try it for yourself and see. Next time you meet someone new ask their name and then come up with a word to replace their name with and attach that word to their body or features somehow. Why all this fuss about remembering peoples names? Names really are important, and not just to your customers. I was speaking to a business executive one day who said that if ever he couldn’t afford to give an employee a raise but he knew that they needed a little encouragement then he would do one of two things, get a gold name plate made for their desk or office door or get personalized business cards made. This would generally buy him between 6-12 months worth of ‘raise’ without having to increase their pay cheque one cent. Scott Ginsberg the renowned public speaker has for the last 6 years worn a name tag. Why? Names are important. The point he is trying to make (and doing it quite effectively I’d say) is that a world that knows each others name is a more caring place. A friend recounts the time he was at a dinner for over four hundred people when a leading Australian politician went around the room and was introduced to each guest, he spoke briefly after dinner and when it was time to go he walked past each table and thanked each person by name for being their. Who do you think my friend voted for in the next election! Remembering people’s names is a tremendous skill that requires only a very small amount of effort considering the massive rewards that result. We should “do unto others as we would have them do unto us”, do you like it when you meet someone and you tell them your name and they say ‘oh, don’t bother, I’ll forget it anyway’. Decide today to be the ultimate ‘people person’ and begin to master the art of remembering names. Your brain works like a muscle, the more you exercise the name remembering part the better it will work. Article Source: http://www.articlewheel.com
Joshua Hodge is the principle consultant for Really Important Marketing – For more helpful resources on environmentally sustainable marketing visit www.reallyimportant.com.au
|
 RSS Feeds by Category |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
