By Francis Moran

The quote in my headline comes from a beautiful little story that is warming the hearts of Canadians today. Jorma Hogbacka was a regular customer at the Tim Hortons coffee shop in his hometown St. Catherines. Apparently, he had a colourful way about him, part of which was to ask the coffee shop staff to help him pick his lottery numbers, with Jorma promising to share any winnings with them.

Well, Jorma won. Big time. His was one of three winning tickets in Saturday’s $43-million jackpot, netting the retired welder a tidy $14.8-million.

And his instant millionaire status did not cause him to forget his promise. True to his word, yesterday he handed a $30,000 cheque to former Tim Hortons staffer Melissa Grivich, who, according to the Globe and Mail, now works as a police officer. And Jorma is working with the iconic Canadian coffee chain to find four other employees he says are on his list to receive similar big tips for past performance.

I’m writing about this because I constantly harp on customer service and how it can be a sharp, effective and sustainable competitive advantage in a world where commodity pricing and reverse engineering rapidly erode any other leg up a company might initially have in the market place. And even though she is a paramount example of how things should be, the newly-enriched Melissa Grivich doesn’t think she did anything special.

“It was my job. I was serving coffee. It wasn’t the greatest job in the world, but I made the best of it,” the Globe quotes her as saying. “It’s just unbelievable how far customer service can go.”

‘Nuff said, Melissa. ‘Nuff said.

Technorati Tags: , , ,