In the face of the economic challenges in front of us, we need to accept responsibility to our customers. We need to help them extract more life out of the products we sell.

In our usual American style, we have been selling new product and then moving on to the next customer who needs new product, only to go back to the first customer 20 years or so down the road. That will not work anymore, and that is if it ever worked at all. A lot of us have left a lot of business on the table by not maintaining and inspecting what we sell often enough. I also believe that this is an integral part of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

So how should we go about addressing this issue? I believe it is all about maintenance and inspections.

In two workshops we had at the 2008 GroundWater Expo in Las Vegas, many of the attendees looked as if annual maintenance and inspections were alien concepts when I mentioned them. Finally, a contractor in the audience mentioned a program that he offered to his customers, a “wellness” program. It was offered to all of his customers at prices ranging from $150 to $1500. I like that approach.

I am sure that you can come up with similar programs for your specific market and your customers. In fact, many of you already offer similar programs. Yet I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of these programs.We can no longer continue to replace products with new ones as we have in the past. It is just not affordable.We throw away good value all the time. It is a product of our society and we have to change this quickly.

Do you agree?

All we need to do is look around at roads, bridges, overpasses, schools, and many other facilities in our communities. But what could be more important than water? So let’s get with the program. Create an annual check-up program.

Many of us have our furnaces and air conditioners inspected before their main seasons of use.We need to create similar programs to inspect and evaluate the functionality of the products we sell. In fact, we should promote this type of program when we sell the prime product.

Think along the lines of purchasing a vehicle.When you buy the vehicle, you have a series of additional items offered to you in the transaction: extended warranties, insurance options, maintenance programs, and others.

Or just try to buy something electronic today and see if you can get out of the store without someone offering to sell you an extended warranty.

Here is another truth that is worth repeating. The more often we see or deal with a customer, the more opportunities we have to create a “customer for life.” We must never forget that we are in the retail customer business. Many of us overlook this key point.

Customer service is the balance between the expectations the customer has about your company, products, and personnel, and the perception of how they were treated. Shouldn’t we be offering additional value wherever we can? This also gives us an advantage with the most critical group of people in our world—our employees. These employees are heroes to our customers. They look after our customers when they go the extra mile for them. If they don’t, we will probably lose the customers over time.

Harvard University’s Business School did the definitive study on customer service in the 1990s in what it called “The Service Profit Chain.” This chain is represented as follows:

• Employee satisfaction and loyalty
• Service value
• Customer satisfaction and loyalty
• Growth and profits.

If your employees are satisfied in their jobs, they will provide the service value that keeps your customers coming back.

It is simple human nature.We feel the need to make a difference.We can go a long way to helping our employees have more pride in what they do by offering more programs and values to the customer.

It really is quite simple, isn’t it? Provide value to your customers and they will keep coming back. There is a difference between getting what you earn rather than what you deserve. The choice is yours.