Is your business evolving? Devolving? It's your choice.

I was driving past our local mall recently and noticed the packed parking lots around the building, but one corner was empty. The Sears store has no cars full of enthusiastic shoppers looking for that perfect parking spot. Sears is gone. I rounded the corner to see an empty Ruby Tuesday, no cars, no people, no business. On top of the hill above the mall a Texas Steakhouse was just torn down to make room for another business.

What do these businesses have in common? They failed to evolve in our market. Sears failed to evolve nationally, while the other two failed to evolve in our community. Businesses that fail to evolve fail. I still remember when Ruby Tuesday and Texas Steakhouse arrived in our community. Both were fine restaurants, but neither improved nor kept pace with a changing society over the couple of decades they were here.

Businesses are always under pressure to provide exceptional customer service, deliver amazing products and services and to demonstrate compassion and commitment to customers. Chick-fil-a comes to mind with I hear these criteria. Six days a week, you will wait in line at a local Chick-fil-a drive-through. You know that when you get in the car, and yet they still come by the masses. We have a local ice cream store that is much the same. It requires that we drive thirty miles to get a cone. Do we? You bet. They are stunningly good, and the ice cream is heavenly. The owner is wonderful person, and the staff treat you like you are the most important customer they’ve had all day. I see them being here for decades plus.

What I noticed about the companies that didn’t evolve is they devolved instead. Their facilities soon started to look shabby, their staff seemed flippant, and their service became minimal. I tend to look at management for this type of failure. It can be corporate or local, but the buck stops at the management door. A good manager can take a sagging business and make it sail again, and how do they do that? How do they do that? By delivering amazing products and services and showing compassion and appreciation to their customers. All of us in business thrive or die on customer care. I hope this new year will be the year your business becomes the go to place where customers tell their friends, family, and colleagues. Your best advertisement is a satisfied customer who likes to talk. Let’s give our customers something to talk about.