Every now and again a story will pop up on social media or television, asking ‘is chivalry dead?’. Generally when we think of chivalry, we think of men opening doors for women and other acts of polite behaviour towards the opposite sex. Although as a woman I appreciate if a man holds open a door for me, I don’t have an expectation that it should happen. On the other hand, I think common courtesies should transcend gender: that is, if I have an opportunity to show courtesy or give assistance to anyone, male or female, I should.

It is interesting how not everyone thinks this way! A few years ago I was moving some heavy items from one location to another. Someone I knew walked alongside me as I did this, chatting away to me with coffee in hand. At the time I thought that maybe he was just a little distracted and didn’t think to ask if I needed assistance. But that incident has stuck with me as an example of how as a society we seem to have lost common courtesies as a normal part of our interactions.

Sadly this has translated into business as well. I often see friends remarking on social media about their complete surprise at having dealt with someone at a large company who was helpful and gave them the answers they needed. In contrast, most of us seem to be met with people whose only goal is to ‘tick the boxes’ and get to the next customer. Customer service is increasingly being viewed as a lost art and in some industries, we almost expect to receive poor customer service, such is our past experience.

For those of us in small business, practicing common courtesy can give us a huge advantage. We all appreciate when someone goes the extra mile or even simply provides ‘service with a smile’. So think about ways that you can show your customers you care. They will in turn become your biggest advocates and will spread the word about what a pleasure it is to deal with you.

Michelle Grice writes a weekly column for business women in The Western Weekender

The older I get, the more I realise that in many instances, ‘common sense’ is not ‘common’! What seems logical or reasonable to me, is not to others. And I see this in business circles just as much.

The most obvious examples I have witnessed are in marketing and promotion. Recently I was attempting to register for an event via a company’s Facebook page. They had set up an ‘event’ page which had a number of posts on it asking people to ‘join us’, ‘register now’, ‘book your tickets’. The problem was, the link to buy tickets was nowhere to be found on that event page! I eventually found the link via their main business page, but I am guessing that many others would have given up and decided not to book.

Attention to detail is vital to ensure that you communicate important information – it is often the most obvious details that are forgotten. Wherever possible, particularly if you know you are not a ‘details person’, get someone else to read over your communications before finalising them.

It is so important, as the saying goes, to ‘put yourself in other people’s shoes’. You need to write all your business communications as though the reader knows nothing. Which also means that it needs to be written and laid out in a logical and sequential fashion. If you take too long to get to the point, or the ‘point’ is lost amongst other less important information, you will lose opportunities to engage people.

A big lesson I have learned over time (and still have to remind myself of), is to never assume. For example, if you were to write an email on Friday saying “Let’s meet next Tuesday”, you run the risk of someone assuming you mean Tuesday of the following week when you meant Tuesday this week. A simpler way in this example is to write “Let’s meet on Tuesday the 21^st of April”, that way there is no ambiguity or assumption.

Although there will always be circumstances where others will make their own assumptions based on their own version of ‘common sense’, paying more attention to detail will reduce miscommunication and give your customers a better experience when dealing with you.

Michelle Grice writes a weekly column for business women in The Western Weekender