Hug Your Customers: STILL The Proven Way to Personalize Sales and Achieve Astounding Results. Kindle Edition!
By Jack Mitchell (Author)

 

Hello, my name is Maria and today we are talking about “Hug your customers” by Jack Mitchell.

 

Now this book is Jack Mitchell’s personal advice from his experience and career working in the clothing industry.

 

He shares advice on how to build a customer oriented business and how to thrive in today’s industry that is competing with the online e-commerce market.

 

So I have three main points that I want to share with you that I took away from reading this book.

So let’s get started!

 

The first point that really stuck with me after reading this book was the importance of leading by example.

 

Now Mitchell in the book talks about in order to achieve customer service that is of high quality you have to treat your employees the same way.

 

So that’s what he means by leading by example.

 

He talks about how he takes the time to really get to know each individual employee on a personal level and develop quality relationships with them and learn what’s important to them in how they want to be treated in their work environment and through that, through showing his interest in his employees the employees pick up on that and are more likely to engage the customers in a positive way because they’ve been treated well themselves.

 

If your boss is treating you poorly you’re less inclined to provide great customer service.

 

So that was something I really liked and noticed in this book.

 

The second point that I really liked in this book is the concept of long-term vs. short-term gains.

 

Now, a lot of business mentalities are focused on converting the sale but don’t focus on the individual that’s making that purchase.

 

And Mitchell talks about how a lot of times they make financial investments in their customers.

 

Let’s say a customer comes in and spends money, they’ll send a thank you note later in that week to thank them for their business, and at times sends them flowers.

 

Those sorts of things cost money and time, but even though in the short-term that’s costing you money, that action and the energy you’re putting in to fostering that relationship with your customer, in the long-term is gonna pay off because you’re building a relationship and that individual is more likely to come back and continually support your business in the future.

 

And in the long run, that 20, 30, 100 dollar investment in your customer is gonna pay off two, three, four, five hundred percent.

 

So we have to get over this idea of focusing on the sale in that moment and instead direct our focus on developing a long-term relationship with our customers.

 

And that’s what this book is really about.

 

It just focuses on becoming customer-oriented.

 

And not only because it’s something that’s good in terms of making you as the business owner feel good about what you’re doing, you’re making smart financial decisions when you invest in your customers.

 

Especially now with e-commerce, the only way you can really compete is to provide better quality customer service.

 

People are interested in the service and the experience they get when they walk into your store.

 

Are you greeting them in a friendly way, are you making them feel welcome?

 

Or are you just waiting for them to show up at your counter and give you the money and then leave and that’s it?

 

Those are two very different approaches and they will have considerably different effects on your business.

 

The third and final point that I really liked in this book is the idea of raising the bar.

 

And essentially the idea is that what is considered a 10/10 service today, in 10, 15 years is simply gonna be 5/10 service because the market is gonna adjust to that and that’s gonna become the new status quo and the norm.

 

So, it’s very dangerous to remain doing the same things for long periods of time.

 

You should always be trying to innovate and improve what you’re doing in terms of your customer service because where you’re at now if you remain there in 5 or 10 years, everybody is gonna be there even if right now you’re at the top.

 

So you always gotta be working towards better.

Now that I’ve shared with you the three main ideas that I liked in this book, I want to go over some of the positives and negatives and who I think should be reading this book.

 

So let’s start with the positives.

 

One of my favorite things in books in general is when they have summaries at the end of each chapter that go over the key points, and that’s what this book has and I really like that.

 

So the fact that you get to the end of a section and it gives you a summary of what was discussed and you can quickly go over that and not have to page through it again to find a specific idea that you want to take note of.

 

Another thing I like about this book is that there’s tons of examples of what they’re doing in their business.

 

And although not all the ideas are directly transferable, the concepts and principles can be used in almost any business.

 

The ideas he’s sharing with you in this book are practical and you can implement them into your business or into your life immediately.

 

It’s just a matter of adapting and understanding what the benefits are and then taking action.

 

And now to the negatives.

 

The only negative I could think of is that at times certain sections are slightly repetitive, but then again I think they’re repetitive because Mitchell is trying to emphasize the importance of the point he’s making.

 

Now, who should be reading this book?

 

Small business owners should definitely read this book, because it teaches you what you can do to compete with larger companies.

 

Even though you might be financially not as strong as other companies, building relationships doesn’t require money.

 

And if you can apply the principles that Mitchell talks about and adapt them to your business you’ll definitely see an improvement in the customer satisfaction and your long-term growth.

 

I think anybody who’s trying to compete against e-commerce should definitely consider reading this because it will teach you the most important ideas regarding customer service and it will teach you what your biggest advantage is over e-commerce and that is that you have the ability to have a one-on-one contact with your customers and it will teach you how to improve those relationships and create long-term business that will continually come back to you.

 

I also think small business owners should read this book in order to learn how to improve their relationships with their employees because I think that a lot of times that’s something that’s overlooked.

 

We focus on just the customer satisfaction but overlook the employee satisfaction.

 

So that’s it, that was my book review of “Hug your customers” by Jack Mitchell.

 

If you want more information on the author or you want to see what I talked about here in a written format you can head over to my blog www.promotekdbook.com where I’ll have all this information and more information related to the author.

 

And as always, if you have any book recommendations for me, please post them in the post comments or contact me over social media.

 

And next week I’ll be back with another book review.

 

Until then, keep reading and keep learning.

 

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Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JJ9QVJW