Ethan Canin has published his new book “America, America“, a novel that explores power and influence in American politics.
In a recent interview, Mr. Canin made a comment about politics that is also true in business.
Politics is about emotion. It’s not about logic; it’s not even about morality. Morality is a sort of cover for emotion.
To be elected you need to touch those emotional chords in people, they need to feel protected, they need to feel they are in the presence of a hero.
I’m not saying that customers want to feel they are in the presence of a hero. I’m just saying that customers want more than the knowledge that you have the experience and know-how. They want to be confident that you will persevere until the problem is solved. In this way, they want to feel protected.
Think of an auto mechanic or dentist that you have liked and that you came to with a serious problem that you wanted to be fixed. The ones I return to and am loyal to are the ones that pushed through, even when it was a hard problem.
A few months ago the air conditioner went out in our car. After doing the initial diagnostics, Mark, the mechanic, finally found a tiny leak in the evaporator core under the dashboard. It had been hard to find it because the power steering was leaking fluid and making it impossible to see the dye coming out of the evaporator core.
Problem solved, right?
Oops, not so fast. The air conditioner was still leaking fluid after a day of use.
Back into the shop.
Mark was clearly frustrated, but he took the whole thing with a sense of humor said he would look at it again.
Finally, after two days he was able to find a tiny hole in the condenser at the front of the engine compartment. This one was obscured because while the air conditioner was running the hole was blocked by condensation that froze around the leak.
Finally the air conditioner was fixed!
Although he gave me a break on his labor, it was still expensive with Mark’s time plus the cost of the condenser and evaporator core.
But he fixed it. He could have thrown up his hands and given up. He could have sent me to an air conditioning specialist or the dealer. He didn’t. He pushed through until he solved the problem. And Mark was nice to me the whole time.
I felt “protected”, confident that somehow Mark would fix my car.
Will I be going back to him for all the routine, profitable service work that he does? Will I remain loyal?
You bet!
And what about the rest of us? Is this the kind of service we give our customers? Do they feel protected?
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