In his article, “Customer Experience Through the Eyes of a Child,” Jeremy Watkin enlightens readers with his realization that you can learn lessons about customer service every day from your kids. Here are a few things he learned on an early morning jog with his two year-old:

1. Experience

It’s not enough to talk about what you can do for your clients or what you have done for your other clients in the past. Customer experience has everything to do with action, not so much words. Take action to show clients the customer experience you promised. Reach out to them, respond to feedback, fix problems, show that you back up what you say and you’ll be off to a good start.

2. Learn

Chances are, you won’t know everything there is to know about your client when you make that first sale. It’s just as likely that client’s needs will change as time goes on. You have to be proactive in learning about your clients and their needs to keep up with how you can be of the most use to them and have the best kind of business relationship. Continue to get to know your clients over time, and it will not only open up more opportunities for great customer service, but it will also alert you to future sales opportunities.

3. Anticipate

Every business relationship has its obstacles. What makes a salesperson truly impressive isn’t just how you handle a problem when one arises, it’s how you can anticipate one and prevent it from happening. The experiences you gather from past client problems can alert you to potential hazards with other clients. So, make sure you’re learning from every negative experience. It’s often the best way to retain the lesson to memory so that you can identify it somewhere else.

4. Plan

No matter how thoroughly you think you’ve planned everything out, things are still bound to go wrong every once in a while. When that happens, you can’t sit there stunned wondering how, after all your experience we discussed in the last point, something slipped past you. You need to take control of a problem as soon as it happens. You shouldn’t just learn to anticipate problems your clients may have, you should develop a plan to resolve as many problems as you can. That way, when you see a similar one taking place with a different client, you’ll be prepared and know exactly how to nip it in the bud.