For a moment, Taylor stood like a statue staring down into his glove in disbelief at his prize. He than looked up at me with a smile that would have melted any father’s heart and brought moisture to my eyes.

I was numb.

Taylor grabbed my arm and tugged me out of pedestrian traffic to car. The ball, upon closer examination was an official game ball that had probably been fouled out of park and retrieved by man.

Now, my son knows as much about customer service as I do about “RugRats”. But he made it perfectly clear that we were going to be regular visitors to that baseball stadium for years to come.

In fact, it’s safe to say that he is a baseball fan for life.

In retrospect, I believe that that gesture was one of greatest examples of “knock your socks off” customer service that I’ve ever witnessed in my life. As a result of a rather inexpensive, but sincere gesture by a stadium attendant, baseball has a lifetime customer. This guy went into my Customer Service Hall of Fame.

So what’s moral to this story?

Consider your business or organization. What are your front-line people doing to create lifetime customers? Are they empowered to make marketing decisions, such as one that stadium attendant made, on spot?

As much money as we spend on marketing our product or service, we sometimes forget that customers are won and lost on front-line.

Do you have a Hall of Famer working for you? Or are your customer service representatives shackled by company policies and procedures to degree that they are unable to capitalize on such “moments of truth”.

See ‘ya at ballpark.

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This is a sample chapter from Kathy Thompson's new booklet "How To Read Faces & Profit!" Discover how you can profit from every situation you are in. Details are at: http://www.words4-u.com/profits.html

Toastmasters, Kathy Thompson really enjoys writing and speaking. She has a B. S. in Business Communications.

She writes and speaks about Health, Personal Communications (writing & speaking).