Photo credit: Louise Docker "aussiegall, on Flickr"

I got a phone call from my pharmacy recently. The pharmacist noticed that I had recently added a new medication to my account and was calling to check on how it was working.

I’m nowhere near vain enough to think that she singled me out for special treatment so I have to conclude that this is something my pharmacy does regularly. (I’m not a big medicine taker so I wouldn’t really know.)

At any rate, this kind of follow-up is great customer service. It makes me a more satisfied customer. It also makes me feel better about doing business with my pharmacy.

Taken in that light, great customer service equals great marketing.

The whole point of marketing is either to:

Photo credit: Taki Steve "takacsi75, on Flickr"

a) attract new customers, or

b) convince existing customers to buy more frequently or spend more.

Calling individual customers one at a time may seem both time-consuming and expensive as marketing campaigns go, but it’s highly effective. Especially in a very personal industry like health care.

Just think if your auto mechanic did this. A few days after having your transmission serviced, he called to make sure everything was running fine.

To some degree,  companies like Amazon and Netflix already do this but the more personal touch and the smaller scale seems so much more special. That really ramps up the impact.

I challenge you to see if you can find a way to boost your customer satisfaction and word-of-mouth marketing by providing exceptional customer service.