Who Cares?

You'd better care.

There's no better way to lose a customer or prospect than to appear indifferent.

From the very first communication, customers want to personally connect.  They want to be heard and understood and expect a personal response. 

What do most companies do to their future and current customers when they answer the phone?  They make their customers listen to an assortment of options to then listen to yet another set of options to which they make them leave a message or indefinitely hold for the "next available customer service representative. It's OK because they first say, "your call is important to us," just not your time.  It's more important that they save money by hiring less people to promptly answer your less important call.

There's no better way to win a customer for life than to compassionately fix a mistake.

I've always said, I'd much rather fix a mistake with a WOW than give the customer only what they expect.  That's not to say that we don't have EXCELLENT delivery systems, but that's exactly it, they're designed to deliver beyond expectations.  However, as people are the medium for which systems are designed, mistakes happen.  When we make a mistake, we now have the opportunity to make them clients for life.  The first thing to do is to admit the error immediately.  Then, do something outrageous to fix the problem.  Check out how Microsoft fixed a mistake while servicing one of their Xbox customers.  My favorite comment reads:

marketing ploy by microsoft.. clearly he doesn't 'need' all that free stuff.. its just to get attention.

And what's wrong with that? 

One revelation in a salesperson's life is the need to under promise and over deliver.  To find out about the other 9 big turning points in a sales person's life, order your FREE, groundbreaking report, "The 10 Big Breakthroughs in a Sales Person's Life."

 

Comments

[Kelly Erickson]

Thanks for the trackback! Nice place you've got here, and I agree completely, caring is what it's all about. That can be tough to achieve organization-wide, but not impossible.

Regards,

Kelly
Maximum Customer Experience Blog

[Rick]

Thanks, Kelly, your compliments are heartily accepted, especially from a designer :^) Your site has a well designed purpose; I look forward to reading it on my reader. Welcome to my BlogAlliance.

Rick