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Are Your Customers Happy or Are They Satisfied?

If you want customers to be loyal and to help you grow your business, they better be happy. In fact, if I could wave a magic wand over words that describe how customers feel, I would make satisfied disappear. Think about it! What does satisfied mean to your customers? It means they feel...

• appeased
• contented
• gratified
• pleased
• pacified
• and placated

In other words, you met their expectations. Not a bad thing to do; but definitely not great, remarkable, surprising or extraordinary, which are all words that mean you exceeded their expectations. And when you do, you have happy customers, who feel all the things satisfied customers feel plus...

• blessed
• cheerful
• delighted
• glad
• joyful
• and pleasurable

Which group is more likely to send customers your way? To tell their family and friends about you? To be loyal? I'll take the happy group every time and bet my business will be there afore you, if you choose satisfied ones. The big question that arises for the business that wants happy customers is how. How do we create happy customers? Here are a few recommendations that are winners:

• Always put people first, especially employees.
• Understand what employees and customers want, need and desire from your business.
• Train every employee on a regular schedule how to treat each other and their customers and how to meet or exceed every cutomer's wants, needs and desires.
• Communicate both the good and the bad with all employees and work together to create more good and to eliminate the bad.
• Ensure every employee is a brand ambassador.
• Under promise and over deliver.
• Create great experiences.
• Produce great products and services.
• Empower everyone to say yes. Build a yes culture based on respect, dignity, honesty, and sharing.
• Put a smile on your business's face and lead with your heart.

Happiness is A Gift That Keeps On Giving

Most of us want happiness but we don't know where to find it or how to recognize it when we see it. That's a problem.

In Lead With Your Heart, I urge all businesses to put people first and to sell happiness. It isn't difficult to do, and when we make customers happy our business will flourish. And to make customers happy, we begin by understanding their wants, needs and desires, and then we create great customer experiences that meet or exceed those wants, needs and desires.

Here’s the bottom line: Putting people first is a different and a better way to think and to measure success. When we filter everything we say and do through the principle that people come before all else, we end up with a company that features the following:

1. The best products and services we can produce, because that is what people want and need.
2. Employees who are enthusiastic about their job and are given the responsibility and the ability to always say "yes" to customers by providing a solution, because that is what people want and need.
3. Products and services that offer great value at a fair price, because that is what people want and need.
4. A growing number of loyal and new customers, because you provide what people want and need.
5. Strong revenues and increased margins, because you provide what people want and need.
6. A company that communities vie for, because you provide what people want and need.

I am talking about putting the “who”—people—first, not the “what”—profits. And by doing so, we create happiness, we contribute to better living and we create and deliver products and services that people want and need at prices that deliver value. But it is unlikely that we can make customers happy, if we ourselves are glum. If we can't put ourselves first before the what, how can we put others first?

The formula for personal happiness is eerily similar to the one we use to make others happy. We must strive to meet and exceed our wants, needs and desires by creating great experiences for ourselves and for all those we touch. It is a give/get formula that begins with positive thinking, with forgiving ourselves and others for the many transgressions sure to occur on most days, and with always looking for the best in ourselves and others.

The best ways, I believe, to evaluate our business and our personal lives are to ask the right questions. Here are a few of the questions I ask.

1. Who did I help this week and how did I help them?
2. What proposals did we close and why?
3. Did we make anyone happy this week and how?
4. Did we alienate anyone this week and why?
5. Were we authentic and honest 100% of the time? If not, why did we stray from the truth and how will we prevent that going forward?
6. Did we achieve our goals? Why or why not?
7. Did we make progress in building relationships?
8. Did we have face-to-face meetings for the purpose of building relationships? How did we use social media to build relationships?
9. Did we meet or exceed or client's wants and needs? If not, why not? If yes, how?
10. What did we learn this week to make us better people and better business persons?

When we strive for happiness and reach deep within ourselves to overcome the obstacles placed before our positive states of mind by ourselves and others, we then have a chance to discover happiness. It is hard work. There are no magic pills. However, it is worth the effort. Give someone a smile today or offer an encouraging word. I bet you get back much more.

Sometimes Happiness Just Happens

When I awoke this morning, my eyes settled on my wife beside me and I thought how happy I was during that moment. And then I saw my cat curled up in the V left behind my bent knees and I thought how peaceful and loving. Sometimes happiness just happens.

Now, in my office thinking about what I can say or do for my clients, I wonder how happiness just happens in their employees and their customer's lives. I'm sure that sometimes it does. And when it happens, the employees and customers are living great experiences. And that is good for both my clients and their customers. And that's the way it should be.

And when we always put people at the front of everything we say and do, those happiness moments are more likely to happen. Good for business, good for employees and customers, and good for the bottom line.

What moments of happiness have you experienced lately? Personally or in a business environment? How did the moment make you feel? How did it affect your marriage, your relationship, your sense of a brand?

The Importance of Being Happy

Defining happiness is not an easy task. When I define happiness, I am talking about meeting and exceeding people’s wants, needs and desires by creating great experiences for employees, customers, and citizens that our businesses touch. I am talking about putting the “who”—people—first, not the “what—profits. And by doing so, we create happiness, we contribute to better living and we create and deliver products and services that people want and need at prices that deliver value.

The same definition applies to personal happiness. We strive to meet and exceed our wants, needs and desires by creating great experiences for ourselves and for all those we touch. It is a give/get formula that begins with positive thinking, with forgiving ourselves and others for the many transgressions sure to occur on most days, and with always looking for the best in ourselves and others.

When we fail to strive for happiness in our work and personal lives, we can expect some of the following results:

Business/Work Lives

• Lack of passion and enthusiasm for the work and for the goals.
• Lowered quality and productivity.
• Decreased enthusiasm for the brand and its products and services.
• An unwillingness to share, to do good, to be authentic and honest.

Personal Lives

• Lack of passion and enthusiasm for life and for living it fully.
• Lowered incentives to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.
• Decreased enthusiasm for getting off the couch.
• An unwillingness to share, to do good, to be authentic and honest.

When we strive for happiness and reach deep within ourselves to overcome the obstacles placed before our positive states of mind by ourselves and others, we then change all the above from negatives into positives. It is worth the effort. Give someone a smile today or offer an encouraging word. I bet you get back much more.

What Would you trade or Sacrifice for $1 Billion?

If you could have tax-free $1 Billion, which of these things would you keep and preserve instead of the dough and which would you trade for the money? In other words, you can choose all of the following to keep and preserve and not get the money, or you can take the money and lose or sacrifice one or more of the following

What would you do for $1B? Would you sacrifice:

1. A loving family?
2. A job you love that benefits other's lives?
3. A world that is a great place to live & work?
4. Peace in your life and in the world?
5. A cure for cancer?
6. The elimination of poverty and homelessness?
7. The life of a stranger?
8. The life of a child?
9. Your current personality for one that made you distrusted by most?
10. The power to change one thing in the world? (If you take the money, no matter what you do with it you will be able to impact things but not change anything forever.)
11. A life in which others loved you?
12. A life filled with happiness?
13. A planet made up only of clean air and clean water?
14. A life in which people always come before material wealth?

I wrote this post for but one reason: to encourage us to think what $1 Billion would mean to us and what we would be willing to trade for that amount of money. After all, we could do a lot of good, if we wanted with $1,000,000,000. Or not. How did you feel as you realized what you would have to trade to become incredibly wealthy.

What would you be willing to trade for $100, $1000, $10,000, $100,000 or $1,000,000? Anything that is important or critical to yourself, others or the planet?

Feel free to add your own Pandora's Box to the above list.