Good old fashioned customer service.

You can spend heaps of money on a fantastic marketing campaign with a professionally produced television ad, matching radio ads, great print ads and a digital campaign to compliment your efforts, only to have it all fall over when you have a potential new client walk into your store and experience poor customer service.

Too often organisations spend their entire marketing budget on the big stuff and forget about frontline staff training. When the whole objective of your position is to drive traffic to your business door, don't forget about who they will meet when they get there.

Don't assume your receptionist or retail operator is even aware of your campaign, let alone knows their role as part of the big picture. By engaging frontline staff before rolling out the marketing campaign to the public, putting in place proper training and following up after the campaign, you can ensure you have the best chances of the new customers you attract actually staying and spending.

This advice seems most appropriate for retail based operations, however the lesson extends far beyond that. Executive assistants are frontline staff, medical receptionists are frontline staff, travel agents, tradies, accounts clerks, call centre operators - the list goes on and on. Frontline staff include any staff (or contractors) who interact with your clients at some point. Ensure they are aware of the importance of their role in the overall marketing campaign and how they can help bring it to life. Who knows - they may have some insights that you haven't considered.

Good old fashioned customer service can be hard to find these days. Have you still got it?