Nickname: FrenchAndEnglish.com

Review: True. Attention to detail, in every department of life, can make you feel someone cares. A nice word can brighten someone's day. Truth, corroborated at the right time, can convey loyalty. Attention to details trigger unconscious (for the most part) feelings that are supportive of a loving environment or not.

Date reviewed: Mar 6, 2008 1:35 AM

Nickname: nobody important (a customer)

Review: Service used to be better because salespeople had full-time jobs, got commissions, and as a result knew their business. Now companies pay as little as possible, hire twices as many people as they need, and work them part-time so they won't have to pay benefits, and otherwise show that they don't care about their employees. If an employee is treated badly, has to work three or four jobs to make ends meet, etc., what kind of service do you expect? Kudos to Starbucks for trying to do the right thing and giving benefits to its part-timers. Wal-Mart, I could do without the greeters. I want to get in and out quickly. I don't want a faux friend. Put them on the check-out lines instead.

Date reviewed: Oct 21, 2005 4:09 PM

Nickname: DrDon

Review: If you are going to touch your customers with people, they should be an exemplary of what image you want projected to your customers. The same is true of the bathrooms, the invoices, the advertisements, the board of directors, etc. I see perfectly good businesses fail for attention to details. Mostly you see it in franchises that don't get caring local management.

Date reviewed: Oct 21, 2005 3:27 PM

Nickname: busywoman

Review: I think you are right on the money. Someone mentioned the outsourcing. I've fought outsourcing overseas for seven years. Some things couldn't be purchased from within the US so I had to purchase some things overseas. But most of my products have been made here in the US and now I'm being forced to go to China for products. Unfortunately, they haven't been able to produce a quality product in six months. So it's back to the drawing board. And this is a large company! My American manufacturer closed after 20 years due to the loss in business because she pays her workers $10 an hour and can no longer compete. Outsourcing is actually causing many of the little businesses to close. Another friend of mine also closed his doors after 35 years in business. It breaks my heart. If someone cares, I know exactly how to set up the right staff to get the details taken care of. Too bad the big guys copy me instead of hire me. If they did I would have the backing to make things really happen!

Date reviewed: Oct 21, 2005 3:59 AM

Nickname: Cynthia Stine

Review: GEO is right about this tiny screen. What would be more meaningful in an article on small details would be details on what the customer is actually expecting when they come to your business. We think we know, but we're often wrong. It's harder to tell with a service business like a consulting company than a shop owner. The biggest mistakes I've ever made in business were failing to understand the customer's real expectations, which are often different than the work authorization they signed with us.

Date reviewed: Oct 20, 2005 6:37 PM

Nickname: cleave

Review: I think that many companies forget Michael Porter's insights as to the three types of strategies: price, differentiation, and niche. The trick is to align with customers who value your position. Yes, better service (through attention to detail) may cost more, but there are those willing to pay for it. I think many companies forget this as it's more difficult.

Date reviewed: Oct 20, 2005 3:51 PM

Nickname: crossledger

Review: Sure Michael's dead right but who'll pay those extras? Details're important but we never pay attention to them ourselves. Visiting the bar we forget that we too are bar (car etc, etc) tenders.

Date reviewed: Oct 20, 2005 2:47 PM

Nickname: Steph

Review: So True - and with the decline in normal civilities and manners, the shoddy customer service is delivered by rude and ignorant staff...

Date reviewed: Oct 20, 2005 2:44 PM

Nickname: said another way

Review: I'm surprised that Levine's article did not reach a little deeper on the reason why people representing businesses generally make, at most, a neutral impression on the customers. Maybe we should harken back to Abraham Lincoln's creation of the corporation, where its primary purpose was to serve society. This objective has been relegated to a lowly if non-existant position where the quarterly financial statistics provide the incentives for the business. Unfortunately, this one-track thinking leaves little room for the niceties of satisfying customers in little ways that matter, as Levine correctly points out. Is it possible to be focussed on more than one track - the other track being service to customers. Can a business walk these two tracks and succeed almost as well? The problem seems to be that a dual focus would unnecessarily divert the entity's resources from maximizing profits. This may well be but doesn't have to. It just requires thinking out of the formula box. Doable!

Date reviewed: Oct 20, 2005 1:42 PM

Nickname: GEO

Review: Paying attention to detail in business. Take a look at your reader comments window following this article..... You have a tiny narrow comment window, too narrow to read the entire line without fiddling with the width....On top of that, there's gobs of white space on either side of the window. PUT IN A WIDER WINDOW. MAKE IT EASY FOR US TO READ.

Date reviewed: Oct 20, 2005 11:51 AM