I consider myself a loyal customer, the kind that will make an A-list client on any CRM system.  What I mean by that is, I am not picky at all if you met my needs, solved my problems then you’ve earned my trust, and I will be loyal for a very long time.  For examples, I’ve been with the same bank for over 13 years and carry their credit card too;  we had the same ISP for 8 years until recently only because the downtime was unacceptable given the monthly fee I paid; I uses the same wireless carriers for last 10 years…well, you get the picture.

While setting up my own blog here, I’ve learned a lesson about being true professionals, people who are  (1) passionate about what they do and stand behind their promise, (2) committed and will go extra and beyond to help clients in a crisis situation, (3) follow through to make sure client’s success.  It makes huge difference when you have these people helping you.

The story began with shortly before the holidays, chatting on Twitter with @DannyBrown and @johnhaydon (both are Headway Enthusiastists), discovered their sleek websites I am drooling for, are build on this amazing Headway Theme.  They both spoke highly about the flexibility and creativity that allows you to design your website like pro without requesting a developer background; I was hooked and the process began (or so I thought).

Be Passionate Grant (@GrantGriffiths) from Headway jump into the conversation not to sell but offer help from the beginning, I didn’t feel the pressure of buying and Grant certainly was not rushing to closing.  All he did was answering my basic stupid questions like Blog 101, as patient as an owl.  There’s no doubt in my mind that he knows Headway inside out, and he IS going to help me.

Be Committed So the journey started, I was just too excited that I got my domain and hosting, and was aiming the goal to publish my first blog on December 31 late evening (don’t ask me why but you can read it here)  then there were some issues even my hosting service provider didn’t want to touch, the same old excuses i.e. : we don’t support that, it’s not our product you have to contact them.  Grant (@GrantGriffiths) and Clay (@claygriffiths) were behind the scene working tirelessly, helping me sorting out the issues, even took over from me and fixed it.  The most important and amazing part?  Remember my goal?  Yeah, they helped me set up my website in the last 24 hours of 2009 !!

Follow Through There were still some hiccups I couldn’t figure out and of course,  Grant (@GrantGriffiths) is my go to person who then introduced Tina (@TMarieHilton) with my layout challenges, you would think his job is done and story ends here, leaving Tina and me to figure out.  That’s usually a close of an open ticket.  No !!  I nearly fainted when, on January 5 Grant DM me and followed up to make sure the site was fixed the way I wanted.  How often do you get that?  I’d say maybe 1 out of 20.

We all work with deadlines and try to cross off the to-do list, you need people have the same vision and commitment as you do to help you achieve the goal.  What Grant and his team demonstrated is the world class client services because they have customer’s best interest at heart, they are serious about your success.

Large corporations and small business, how does your sales team take that first lead and translate into business?  Take care of customer’s needs first.