I love adding places to Google Maps that really contribute to community. In the modern, technology saturated world, you can go through an entire day without anybody calling you by your name. And that’s a pity, both a failure of community and a failure of technology.
I love adding businesses that get to know their customers, that treat people as individuals, and where customer service is a real priority.
These establishments may not have the fastest service, or the best deals, the tastiest food, but they are the ones that make their customers feel like family.
Love Potion
For example, my local pharmacist, known affectionately as Freddie Mercury, because of his lookalike mustache. There’s normally a queue, people can get medicines faster at the supermarket type drug stores nearby, but “Freddie” knows everyone by name, and he normally knows what you’ve come looking for too. It’s some real old-world community, family orientated service. And he isn’t the cheapest either, but my loyalty is well cemented, because he knows my name.
Family Recipe
Restaurants and hotels are the biggest category of this kind of establishment. I love finding places that are family run, have been around for ages, and have become landmarks to the local community - and I love going back over and over again. Restaurants that treat customers like family have the benefit of having the “family” over time and time again -they don’t need loyalty programs, points or cards, they just need to remember who people are and what they like, and they will have more customer loyalty than any of their competitors.
Home Away From Home
I work in the hotel industry - and hotels value their returning customers more than just about any kind of business, because of the cost of recruiting a new customer, compared to the cost of getting a returning customer. Why do guests return? Good service, but more than that, personalized service. The check-in staff greet them by name, book them into their favorite room, make sure they can read their favorite paper.
It’s time more businesses started using technology to make their service more personal, instead of using it to replace human interaction.