On Christmas Eve I jumped on the phone and called a couple of friends in the USA that I had not spoken with for a while.
I phoned to wish them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
One of those calls lasted for a good hour, with my friend [let’s call him Ron] asking me at the end of the call if I could send him my updated [current] contact details… you know… email address, phone number, house address, postal address etc.
A couple of weeks after sending Ron my new details I received a surprise comment on Facebook from him saying that he had not received the updated details.
This surprised me, as I had indeed sent them, and promptly, but I knew that Ron had updated his email address recently, so I made a point of resending my details again, via SMS and also via email.
Another couple of weeks went by and then another cryptic comment from Ron appeared on another one of my Facebook posts.
Ron’s comment was that he had sent me a Christmas card and he wanted to see how long it took for me to receive it.
I replied to Ron immediately that I had not received his email in my inbox nor could I see it in my junk mail.
I asked Ron if he could try sending it again.
To which he replied:
“David, I’ve sent you a real physical card by snail mail. One that I touched with my own hands.”
Silly me. How quickly we forget, or should I say, we assume things.
This reminded me…
When I had my own practice, every month I would post out to patients a personally hand-signed and written physical card wishing them a Happy Birthday, if they were having a birthday in that month, of course.
At Christmas time, every team member would each hand-sign Christmas cards to be sent to our valued regular patients.
One time, one of our patients joked with me that in her household, she and her husband used to “wager” with each other to see who in their house would be first to receive their Christmas Card from the dentist.
This was because they had different surnames, and because of this fact, different cards were posted by our practice on different days.
In fact this patient went on to say that one year her husband Graeme did not receive a Christmas card at all from us.
I was horrified.
It was now July, so I said to her, that I would fix this once and for all.
So I posted Graeme his Christmas card for that year right then and there in July.
That year Graeme was the first of our patients to receive his Christmas card!!
Interestingly, another patient once thanked us for sending him a Christmas card each year, and said that we were the only people who sent him a Christmas card.
Don’t ever underestimate….
Don’t ever underestimate the impact that you can have on someone’s life by taking the time to send them a hand-written card, or by taking the time to pick up the phone and call them, rather than just SMS them or email them.
Sometimes in the 21st Century we get so bogged down with the pace of things that we need to just stop for a short time, and smell the roses.
And see what happens when we do take the time…
When was the last time that you sent someone a hand-written card?
And when was the last time you picked up the phone and called someone to ask them:
“How’s things?”
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Dr. David Moffet BDS FPFA CSP is a certified CX Experience coach. David works with his wife Jayne Bandy to help SME businesses improve their Customer Service Systems to create memorable World Class experiences for their valued clients and customers. Click here to find out how David and Jayne can help your business