I’m a big fan of just getting something done without obsessing over getting it perfect. But I’m also a big fan of striving for excellence wherever possible. Contradictory? Maybe… But what I’ve discovered is it doesn’t take much to just do a little better. So my philosophy is “get it done, then do a little better”.
This week we had new flooring laid in our house. The job involved jackhammering to remove the old tiles, then we had vinyl planks laid in part of the house and carpet in the other part. We were told to remove all our furniture out (obviously), and we also decided to remove anything from the benches and walls because we expected some dust from the jackhammering. I didn’t think it would be necessary to empty the cupboards or anything though.
We left the house for a week to stay out of their way, and I was really looking forward to getting home and seeing the end result. But all we could see when we walked in was a thick layer of dust over everything (including the new floor), and the carpet was covered in billions of loose fibers. Even inside the cupboards everything was covered in thick dust. There was also blood on several walls where one of the workers had obviously cut themselves. The cleanup took dozens of hours just so we could get the place functional, and will continue for weeks as we make our way through the cupboards and their contents.
Once the main cleaning was done the new floors looked great, but any happiness I could have felt about them was washed down the drain with the billionth load of grimy water.
Now my point is, the flooring company we dealt with could have done any of a number of small things to make this a positive experience for us. They could, at the very least, have set our expectations so that we would not be shocked by the mess and we could have prepared better. But they also could have used protective sheeting over the cupboards, cleaned the floors so that their own product looked good, or even offered a cleaning service for an additional cost. It wouldn’t have taken much for us to be rapt with the result, but instead we were hugely disappointed and will certainly not use the same company when it comes to doing the other half of the house!
We also bought a new car this week (it’s been a very expensive week)! We bought the car off the same dealer who sold us a car a couple of years ago. We remembered he was great to deal with, no bullshit, no sneaky sales tactics, and not at all slimy, so we were keen to deal with him again. Between my husband’s initial enquiry a couple of weeks ago, and our visit to the dealership to place the order, the dealer had obviously looked up our previous sale and refreshed his memory on our details, so as we were walking through the car yard and he was assisting some other customers, he acknowledged us both by name. This was such a tiny detail, but he had made the effort and I appreciated his attention to detail and his friendly service. We will definitely continue to deal with that dealership as long as this salesperson works there, because he takes those tiny steps to ensure we have a great experience whenever we deal with him.
It really doesn’t take much to take something from ordinary to excellent. The two examples I’ve given here are both related to customer service, but this applies to anything in your life. What is something you think you could be taken from ordinary to excellent with a tiny adjustment?
