A couple of years ago I spent a week at a clients site in a town in the Midlands of the UK. Day one, I got off my train and jumped in a cab to get to the site. The driver was friendly, helped me with my luggage and gave me a few tips for my stay in town. OK, I like an easy life so asked for a card so I could get my return trip. Another guy picked me up from site to take me back to my hotel. The first thing he did was apologise that the first driver didn’t pick me up that evening. Another chat, plenty of advice for great places to eat out. I was asked if I wanted a cab for the morning, which I did. So this carried on all week. On the last day, the driver helped me get my bags out of the boot at the train station, put his hand out, thanked me for my business for all of that week and shook my hand. I was pretty amazed that what is often thought of as a commodity service was run with so much emphasis on the customer, my basic needs and above all making like easy for me.

A key lesson for me was to consider the question “What task can I take that I do well and my customer no longer needs to think or worry about?” These guys drove me around all week, made my life easy and asked all the right questions to get my trade exclusively. People want you to do something for them so they don’t have to keep planning it out themselves and if you finish the deal on a high, they will come back.