Today my girlfriend borrowed a little recorder device to conduct some interviews for her thesis from her uni’s library. She’s been doing that already a number of times for different assignments over the last couple years. You get a little recorder that works just fine if the person you’re interviewing sits across you. For the situations where you’re conducting an interview via phone you have to hassle around a bit, though. Switch your mobile speakers on, position the recorder next to it, and then hope the quality is not too bad. It’s not ideal.

Today, however, she came home with the same device plus something extra on top. And guess what – there is something built for that particular purpose of using the recorder for phone interviews. Only, the previous times no one ever cared to ask whether my girlfriend was planning to use it in phone interviews.

Today, the person behind the service desk did care. She asked that extra question and went that extra mini mile in being service-orientated. She also asked to spread the word as they’ve had this add-on for years but most students wouldn’t know.

Well, none of the other library employees had bothered to tell them. If you were to rate the service and decide who of the employees should receive your tax money – I suppose it wouldn’t be too difficult to chose.

Doing that little bit extra, asking the one additional question, showing genuine interest and care for your customer – it’s what makes all the difference when you are a small startup. And if anyone in the team neglects this imperative – whether in development, marketing or sales – you better change this fast or hope your target customer are robots.