On Thursday, I talked about how serving your customer builds the value of your business. Here’s an example of a company doing just that.

Last summer, we had some plumbing work done on our kitchen sink. A few months later, a leak developed under that same sink. I called the plumber back to get them out to make their work right. They scheduled a service call for us right away.

The plumber who came out on the service call fixed the leak quickly, but he noticed that the sink was draining a little slowly while he was testing the repair. So he offered to rod it out for us – no charge. But, unfortunately, he found that there was a clog about halfway from the sink to the street – an odd place to find a clog. So he investigated and found that our drain line had a sag in it and was collecting debris in the sag.

He made a temporary repair and left us with a quote to re-plumb that drain line “the right way.”

This plumber turned a potential negative (a leak in his repair) into a positive by noticing what we needed and not just fixing it but going the extra step to help us to eliminate it in the future.

Sure, I can be cynical and say, “What a great upsell technique! He turned a service call into a proposal!” And, sure, you could look at it that way.

But it felt different to me – it felt conscientious, even caring.

How can your team leave your customers and prospects with that feeling? Where you aren’t taking orders but going to the next step of diagnosing their needs.

Talk about creating shareholder value!