{"id":680,"date":"2024-01-09T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-09T23:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testsite.sudsiesuniversity.com\/?p=680"},"modified":"2024-01-09T23:27:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T23:27:00","slug":"great-service-is-a-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/09\/great-service-is-a-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Service Is a Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">No one can make you serve customers well. That\u2019s because great service is a choice. Have you taken a taxi ride recently? Well, I was told a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point. A man called Harvey was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey. He handed Harvey a laminated card and said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">\u201cI\u2019m Wally, your driver. While I\u2019m loading your bags in the trunk, I\u2019d like you to read my mission statement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">Taken back, Harvey read the card. It said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\"><em>Wally\u2019s Mission Statement:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\"><em>\u201cTo get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, \u201cWould you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">Harvey said jokingly, \u201cNo, I\u2019d prefer a soft drink.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">Wally smiled and said, \u201cNo problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">Almost stuttering, Harvey said, \u201cI\u2019ll take a Diet Coke\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">Handing him his drink, Wally said, \u201cIf you\u2019d like something to read, I have&nbsp;<em>The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated&nbsp;<\/em>and<em>&nbsp;USA Today<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">As they were pulling away, Wally handed Harvey another laminated card. \u201cThese are the stations I get and the music they play, if you\u2019d like to listen to the radio.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">As if that weren\u2019t enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of the day. He also let him know that he\u2019d be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights, or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">\u201cTell me, Wally,\u201d Harvey asked the driver, \u201chave you always served customers like this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. \u201cNo, not always. In fact, it\u2019s only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, on the radio one day. He said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you\u2019ll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, \u2018Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don\u2019t be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">\u201cThat hit me right between the eyes,\u201d said Wally. \u201cHe was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">\u201cI take it this has paid off for you,\u201d Harvey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">\u201cIt sure had,\u201d Wally replied. \u201cMy first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I\u2019ll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don\u2019t sit at cab stands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can\u2019t pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\">Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles. How about you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color\"><strong>Excerpt from:&nbsp;<em>The Simple Truths of Service<\/em>,<br>by Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No one can make you serve customers well. That\u2019s because great service is a choice. Have you taken a taxi ride recently? Well, I was told a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point. A man called Harvey was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudsiesuniversity.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}