I was thinking the other day as I saw some familiar faces of people I have worked with in the past. There was this one person who couldn’t immediately remember my name and so we gave the person a hard time about it in a fun way. It did make me think though from a business point of view on whether or not we tend to give our money to businesses where the owners or employees remember your name.
I know for myself when it came to places to get a haircut I have stopped going to a place largely because the person didn’t seem to care to remember my name at all. I have been going to the place for over two years and initially stayed with it even after the original barber had sold the business. So while I did give the new owner a chance, after a few months of him not caring it seemed in remember his customer’s names I felt there was nothing special about the place and so it basically came down to the price and convenience factor.
This is why even when I worked in retail the simple notion that I took the time to at least remember people’s names and a bit about them played a big factor as to why they would shop with the store I was in versus others for example. Don’t underestimate the power of simply remembering people’s names I guess you can say when it comes to customer retention.