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Beware of Providing Customer Dis-Service
As a small business, it’s very well to gain
customers; but for many SME’s perhaps the
question should be, are you battling hard
enough to keep your existing
customers? If not, you may risk not only
losing them, but losing future customers
too.
The following example shows how customer
service should definitely not work:
 We
have recently tried to get in touch with a
major internet service provider; a fault in
their online email service is affecting our
newsletter emails. This means that their
customers are unable to view this newsletter
in full, and may also be affecting thousands
of other emails their customers receive.
Their response has been anything but
convincing. After phoning up their helpline
and spending 30 minutes explaining the
problem, it was clear that no one knew how
to fix it; so they suggested emailing their
complaints department.
Now, a complaints department is actually a
good place to build customer
loyalty, by solving problems quickly you can
restore a customer’s faith in your
business’s ability.
After emailing we received a response
stating that we should get a reply within 10
days, not exactly quick. Pleasingly, after
one day they responded asking for our
account number, so we explained that we
didn’t have one for this problem; but that
the issue was affecting their customers.
Twenty days and two newsletters later there
was still no further response.
We then contacted their head office number
and were told to write our query and post it
to a support address. A fortnight later,
still no response.
The moral of this story is that bad service
will damage your business.
Failure to deal with an issue means that
their customers are still suffering with the
problem; and we now have a negative image of
the company which they will have to work
very hard to change.
Remember, customer service should be quick
and helpful; and if you cannot fix a problem
straight away give a genuine
estimate of when you can solve it. Better to
warn a customer of a 10 day delay than to
leave them waiting without knowing.
Another valuable lesson is to treat
non-customers with importance too, as you
never know when they might become
customers; and even if not, you are helping
to create a positive image which can spread
through word of mouth.
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