Treating Your Family Like Our Family

By Walter Ford

When I hire somebody, one of the things that I do is tell them about our basic business philosophy. The first time anybody walks through our front door, they’re a friend. It doesn't matter if they’re a customer, an inspector from the state of California, somebody that runs parts or a process server serving papers. It doesn't matter.

The second time they walk through that front door, they’re family. You treat them as such and if a delivery person comes in and we have pizza or other food we’re sharing, if they were a family member, wouldn't you invite them to sit down and have a soda and something to eat?

I do this because it sets the tone and ultimately determines the personality of our business. If you visit a family that doesn't really help or look out for each other, you’re not going to get a warm and fuzzy feeling from those people. If I have a customer in the waiting room and they see me run to the door because the delivery guy has his hands full and then welcome him in, it makes everybody feel better.

I feel my personal philosophy on running any kind of business, especially when it’s service oriented, is that you want to exude that feeling of contentment and happiness. People don’t come to us because they want to. They come to us because it’s a necessity. When a customer first walks in, they’re likely going to be in a negative space. I think it’s our duty to do our best to put them at ease and make them feel comfortable.

Treating a person like family is probably the fastest way to get there. If there’s any question about how I should handle something, all I have to do is ask myself, “If they were a family member, what would I do?”

We had an incident where we had a problem with a car on Friday, and I came in the following Monday at 10:30 am and it hadn't even been on the rack yet. I looked at my manager and said, "Not only is this a good customer, he’s a personal friend. He’s been here more than once. Is this how you would treat your family?" When you set the goal of treating everyone like family, if you do fall a little bit short, you’ll probably be okay.

The goal is to show my employees how I expect to be treated. My hope is that this attitude will eventually come as naturally to them as it does to me. I truly like my customers and enjoy speaking to each and every one when I'm in the office.