When I saw the video called “Fish!” from Charthouse learning for the first time I was incredibly moved. http://www.catchthefishphilosophy.com/. I wanted to buy the video. It was about $800 for a 20 minute video and when I asked someone why it was so expensive I was told because it was some really powerful, potent stuff. I had to agree with him!

If you can, GET this video. It is expensive but it is the most powerful 20 minutes you will ever spend – I can almost guarantee it. Make all of your employees and colleagues watch it. They teach you to operate from 4 basic principles. Choose, Play, Be There, Make Their Day.

Choose – to make it a great day! Do this for your clients, your employees, colleagues and everyone else you come into contact with. Anytime someone calls me I usually blow them away with the first sentence because when they ask me how I am doing the answer is almost always “Absolutely fantastic, life couldn’t possibly be any better!” Of course it helps that I actually believe that.

Play – Make it fun. No matter what you are doing be creative and find ways to make it fun.

Be There – when you are working with someone it is so important to be THERE. Focused, in the moment and giving them 100% of your attention. We find out thoughts wandering to that other project or that thing someone said earlier that upset us and we MUST re-direct our focus right onto this very moment. If those things are really that important they will be there anyway and we can deal with them later. The focus you place on this moment may win you a client for life that will replace another miserable client you will be happy to be rid of

Make their day – So many people let you know when you are asking them to do more than what they really want to have to do. Imagine being happy to do it and them not even having to ask you. You will make their day. Mind blowing customer service is when you go 10 steps beyond what they would ever expect. If you do this it will give you such an edge because most people won’t

Here’s an example of how I applied this recently with a client of mine:

I try to remind my clients that while we are dealing with serious stuff here, we don’t need to take it too seriously all of the time. One of the services I offer my clients is that I take what is in their QuickBooks file and export reports to use them in developing financial projections. Recently one of my clients, a company run by two young brothers mentioned to me that they were considering moving to Texas. They had also added that they wanted me to develop a tab in the projections that served as a Scorecard”. Something to look at the split earnings from the S-Corp net income as well as their draws, salaries and anything that represented what they took out of the company. This way we could look at it side by side and see who had taken what to compare and be aware of what was needed, if anything to even things out.

So I did the work and the formulas were written, the information was laid out and I was finished. But not quite because now I had an idea for how I could make it “FUN”. So I went onto Facebook and I grabbed each of the brothers pictures. I placed them at the top of each section. Then I found an image of the Texas flag on the web and I added that in on the side with a Quote “Should I stay or should I go?” This was simple, and even a little stupid but about 10 minutes after I sent it over, one of the brothers shoots me a comment on Skype telling me he thought it was GREAT!

So that’s my experience and mind blowing customer service tip.

I like to ask myself – “What kind of an experience am I giving the people that come into contact with me today?” If I can’t answer that I am giving them the best possible experience. I go to the Principles of Fish! starting by choosing a better attitude (I don’t always have that right away, some days it takes some work, but it ALWAYS pays off!)