1. One important thing to remember as the chapter closes, is that we can go a long way in avoiding having difficult customers if we follow James' advice, the server from San Ysidro Ranch restaurant. What did he say that his father taught him? Can you think of ways you can do that in your business? Explain.

u to DUJU JCIVICT ever had. The Best Service i Ever Received and How You Can Provide It Too I was working at LinkedIn/Lynda.com's offices in Santa Barbara, California, shooting a course for them on creating lifelong, loyal customers. My colleague, the esteemed author and consultant Roberta Matuson hap- pened to be in town at the same time. We decided to grab dinner one night, and a restaurant came highly recom- mended. We were told the restaurant was hidden up in the hills of Montecito, and it was not to be missed. We found the San Ysidro Ranch and were seated at an outdoor cable. Our server, James, approached us. He introduced himself and promptly offered to get us drinks. He asked what we liked and immediately made sugges- tions that suited us perfectly. He was polite, but not obse- quious. He was knowledgeable about the menu, but more importantly about helping us match our tastes and mood to what was on offer. In short, within the first 60 seconds of sitting down, James had made an impression unlike any other server I'd ever met. James returned with our drinks and began to careful- ly, slowly, and enthusiastically explain all the evening's specials. I was entranced listening to him describe the evening's signature dishes. But then James stopped and asked us a simple question: "What are you in the mood for this evening?" Again, not a strange question, but it was James's responses that caught us off guard. He went on to make fantastic suggestions. He made recommendations of dishes we could share, and suggested what would and wouldn't pair well together. Of course, being the brilliant consultants that we are, we followed his advice to the let- ter and had an unforgettable meal. We've all had great service and we've all had subpar and even terrible service. But I've never had service that was comparable to this. It quite literally redefined my Standard metric of what "service" means, not just in a res- taurant context, but in how I work with my clients and in how I will help guide them to work with theirs. It's hard to describe the essence of James and what was going on, but Roberta and I noticed it quickly. There 215 U was something special going on here. So, we asked him to tell us the secret, and his answer floored us. James told us the story of growing up in his father's fine dining restaurant in Mexico. He said it was one of the only "fine" dining establishments in the area. He ex- plained that he owed everything to his father for teaching him that the guests he was serving at that very moment had to be treated as the most important people in his life. If he had told me this at the start of our experience, I would have rolled my eyes! But the passion within James was undeniable, and he made us feel it. I do a lot of work with organizations on improving the customer experience and building stronger customer re- lationships, and there's a tried and true universal law that we can use in almost any business, in any industry, re- gardless of the situation: Do everything within your power to make the current customer feel special. It doesn't have to be anything big. Just make the cus- tomer feel special. Better yet, imagine every customer who walks into your world has a big neon sign above their head that says, "Make me feel special." There are a lot of things you could and should do in your company that are dependent on time, effort, or cape tal. There are countless strategies you could employ that are a gamble. But there's nothing stopping you and every body in your company from finding ways to make you clients feel more special