Errors That Cost You Your Customer

A lot of businesses today still fail to understand that when you lose your customer focus and deliver bad customer service, (intentionally or otherwise)it is actually costing your business more than if you would give great customer service. Bad service results to much more than just a poor customer experience – it reduces your revenue and drives up costs in so many ways.

Companies with short-term vision, companies concerned only about making the sale and closing the deal, instead of building trust, credibility and relationships have repeatedly committed the following errors that have cost them their customers and possible new businesses:

1. Ignoring customers. During the busy holiday season, a little mystery shopping experiment was conducted. Mystery shopping agents were asked to only purchase items in stores where someone offered to help them. They browsed each store with a list in hand, in some cases wandering multiple aisles trying to find an item on their list. Thankfully the list wasn’t too long because they walked out of a lot of stores that had what they were looking for. The number of employees who looked past them or who walked right by them without any acknowledgement was astonishing. All they had to do to get them to pull out their debit cards was acknowledge them and ask if they could help. That’s it.

2. Talk down to customers. Sometimes customers ask stupid questions. Oh wait … no they don’t! They are valid questions to the customer. The customer is not the expert on your business or the products and services you offer. You are! Plus, there is a lot of incorrect information floating around that your customer may have heard. And even if they act like they don’t know, indulge them. Treat their questions with respect. Making the customer feel stupid is not good for business.

3. Take customers for granted. You are not doing the customer a favor by offering your product or service. You are meeting a need, solving a problem, providing entertainment or joy, but chances are another company can also meet that need, solve that problem or entertain them and even for less. When a customer chooses to spend their time and money with you instead of your competitor, that is a reason to be thankful. Customers want to be appreciated. They want to feel valued and special. Let your customers know you appreciate them. Thank them for their business, their support and their loyalty. Have loyalty programs that rewards their patronage and you will have win them for life!

4. Making promises you can’t keep. This isn’t about service breakdowns. Those happen to even the best of the best. (The best of the best have plans in place to deal with those breakdowns when they happen anyway.) This is about telling someone a lie or stretching the truth in order to close a sale. It’s about deliberately omitting information on a product or service that if the customer knew, they would not purchase. It’s about looking to close the deal instead of about looking to build a relationship. When they do realize they’ve been scammed, it’s an experience they’ll never want to relive and a bad word of mouth can ruin it for you.

5. Spamming customers. Just because we exchanged business cards at some networking event does not mean you have my permission to add me on to every one of your mailing lists. The same thing applies if I download a free whitepaper or fill out a form. At the very least, let me know that if I do request a free download or complete a form, I will get multiple emails from you. That way I can decide if what you are providing is worth the email bombardment.