by Brian Warfield

For the past several weeks, we’ve been talking a lot about gratitude in the blog — how showing appreciation to your customers can have a huge impact on their loyalty… and ultimately your bottom line. In October, we invited readers to submit their stories of how they show gratitude to their customers – and to sweeten the deal, we entered every story into a random drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card.

Congratulations to Linda Adams of Johnson County Automotive in Merriam, KS, winner of our “Customer Wow” contest. As we approach Thanksgiving, it’s most appropriate to continue the conversation about gratitude. And so, we’d like to share with you Linda’s story of how they treat their customers — how they “wow” them — at JocoAuto. Here’s what Linda wrote:

“We treat our customers like family. Sounds corny, but if our families would like it, well that is what we do for our customer! We create an atmosphere where they feel ‘right at home.’ Customers relax on a red leather couch or the super comfortable red leather chair and ottoman while watching their favorite TV show. Last Christmas they were quite surprised to find their present was a heated, vibrating, zero gravity massage chair. Customers that would normally drop their vehicle off and leave, well, now they stay, reclining in their new chair for a quick nap.

Every family likes to have fun, so in fall we throw a big party for our customers: cool cars, barbecue with all the fixings, beverages, and bouncy houses for the kids! And our families help out. We really are one big happy family.”

In addition to SHOWING appreciation, Linda and the team a JoCo Auto also TELL their customers thank you in many different ways. They use the SocialCRM service to send follow-up thank-you emails, and also thank customers when they post a positive review about their experience at JoCo Auto.

Johnson County Automotive has over 30 years serving the Kansas City area and many more years being a part of the industry. But the story began many years ago in a small town in NW Missouri where lifetime memories were created as a small boy worked in his grandfather’s shop.

Linda told us that Alan Heriford, JOCO Auto owner, spent many hours in his grandfather’s shop. Alan learned much about the business over the years, but he learned even more by working in a small community where everyone knows your name. The most important lesson: “The value of being honest and that you always take care of people like they are your family. Because if you don’t, your business will surely fail.”

Linda says Johnson County Automotive has followed that philosophy from the very beginning, and strives every day to be just like the shop that once stood in that small NW Missouri community.

Read the original blog post, along with all the customer wow stories we received: Trick or Treat? Tell Us How You “Treat” Your Customers and Win!