We recently put our house on the market. With that came a lot of work to get it ready. That work included 17 trips to two different home improvement stores.
I’m not saying their names. But if you’ve ever been to either of these, you’ve got a pretty good idea as to who they are.
When I visited Home Improvement Store #1, I was searching for a specific ceiling fan light bulb. I assumed it would be in the light bulb section. I assumed wrong. I looked all through the lightbulbs. Twice. I walked to find an employee and asked where I could find this elusive bulb. His response? “If we have any left they’ll be on aisle 4.” I took it upon myself to figure out exactly where aisle 4 was and where exactly on aisle 4 I could find the bulb. After five minutes of looking, I simply pulled out my phone and searched Amazon. Amazon had it delivered in two days.
Compare that with the visit I took to Home Improvement Store #2. I needed a couple of fence pickets. I went to the lumber area since that was my first guess. As I started looking around, an employee asked if he could help me. I told him what I needed, and he said, “Oh. They’re actually over in the outdoor gardening section. I’ll walk you there.” As he walked me to the other end of the store he asked me what work I was doing. When I told him about our house, he shared his story about selling his house and the work that he had done to get his house ready. He found the pickets I needed, handed them to me and walked me to the lumber cutter so we could have them cut down to the right size. Now that’s an experience.
Some time later we needed to order a replacement microwave. (I momentarily forgot how impressively strong I am, and I accidentally ripped the door handle off.) Guess which home improvement store we ordered it from?
Whether it’s a customer, a peer, your team member or someone you mentor – someone’s going to ask you for directions this week. Want to make it the best possible experience for them? Walk with them. Sometimes that means giving them all the resources they need to accomplish their goal. Sometimes that means thinking through what their “path” will be and ensuring that path is as simple as possible. Sometimes that means literally walking with them.
It may take a few more steps, a few more minutes of your time, to provide the right experience to people. But it’s oh-so-worth it. And it brings people back time and time again.
My son actually taught me this lesson when he was six-years-old. You can hear that story along with more insight and application of the lesson here:
What can you do to walk with others, to walk with your customers, to walk with your peers and colleagues, to walk with your team members?
