I’d like to start with a disclaimer: This is not Wally World and no guards were held hostage during our recent visit to Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ. This was opening day and coincidently, I drove my family nearly 3 hours to visit this park a couple of weeks ago on what turned out to be the first open park day of the spring. In what could have (should have) been one of the best amusement park experiences of a lifetime, ended up with many twists, turns, and business lessons along the way.

There is no doubt that offering more choices is something that is appreciated by today’s customers, especially the Millennial generation, but, how much is too much?

Millennials, or the generation born between 1980 to 2000, are the single largest generation and almost all of them are 100% digital natives. So the idea of their consumer choices being limited to a single option, is completely alien to them. Millennials grew up with businesses like  Kayak to Amazon where what they were looking for was always just a click away. If they didn't find what they were looking for, another option was only a click away.

No matter the size of your business, extraordinary customer service is important for a number of reasons.

Whether you are looking to attract new customers, create loyal customers or maintain the number of customers you already have; customer service should be at the heart of your business model. But no matter how much YOU believe in delivering a great customer experience, it is up to your team to set the bar. It is not the kiosk that makes a customer’s experience memorable; it’s the staff member behind the counter who is going to make a difference.

Do you have a store that you would consider yourself loyal too? Your “go-to” stores? When you run your typical weekly errands, you probably have a go-to grocery store, go to dry cleaners, and a go-to pharmacy. But, why are you loyal to those places? Maybe you started to go to a particular place because of a good review, out convenience, or good prices, but if you think about what keeps you going back instead of continuing your search for “your go-to”, you will probably think of a specific instance of something good happening at that place.