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Key Takeaways Researchers have long believed that people are wired to remember negative experiences more than positive ones, which means you could be losing business if your front-line team isn’t making the best impression on customers.
Customers decide your business is worth a chance before you ever meet them. If you wait until the customer is in your store, at your desk or in your chair to impress them, you’ve already lost ground.
Front-line employees are key to business success. No amount of new leads can move the needle. You must train all team members who interact with patients and reinforce that training with practice.
Think of the last memorable customer service experience you had. Does it stand out for being exceptional or terrible? I’m willing to bet the latter, not because most of us are experiencing bad customer service but because researchers have long believed that we’re wired to remember the negative more than the positive.
It’s called “negative bias,” and while it might be a useful survival mechanism, steering us away from potentially dangerous situations, it can also mean that the non-life-threatening negative situations we encounter routinely may stick with us longer than the positive ones do. Why should negative bias matter to business owners? Simply put, if your customers are humans, you could be losing business if your front-line team isn’t making the best impression.
Your first impression isn’t their first impression
I’ve written about this extensively: Building customer trust must begin with the first interaction, whether that’s online, face-to-face or over the phone. If you’re waiting until the customer is in your store, at your desk or in your chair to roll out the red carpet, you’re already late to the game. That customer decided your business was worth a chance before you ever met them. Customers have a wealth of information available to them, including online reviews, and now that AI is on every phone, tablet and computer, it’s easier than ever to gather information and compare options.
What customers want
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