Are You Sending Your Customers To The Competition?
October 10, 2007
Never promise your customers more than you can deliver. Always try to do more than you promised them. And if you screw up, apologise before the problem turns into a complaint.
If you fail to do this, your competitor could steal customers away from you, even if their product or service is no better. And here’s an example of how this happened in real life.
One weekend, I visited two restaurants in Glasgow. The service at both was far too slow, and we were kept waiting for ages. And both served food of reasonable good quality. But I'd return to the second one tomorrow, and the first one left a bad taste in my mouth. Here's why:
TGI Fridays Screw Up Big Time: As it was a weekend, I made a table reservation in advance for TGI Fridays. Anyway, we wound up getting there an hour and fifteen minutes early. So, I told them I had a reservation for later, and asked whether it would be possible to get a table right away, or if we should come back at our reserved time.
We were told to take a seat in the entrance hallway and they would have a table in ten minutes. Well, we waited and waited. And nobody apologised for the delay. The kids were with us, they were bored, it was uncomfortable and we weren’t even offered a drink while we waited.
Eventually they seated us after 45 minutes, but again there was no apology for the delay. So we left TGI Fridays with a bad taste in our mouths.
How Holiday Inn Prevented A Complaint: We had a similar experience at the Holiday Inn the following day, but here’s how they dealt with it differently: Firstly, we were already given a drink and a comfortable seat. And then as soon as the waitress realised there was going to be a delay, she let us know and apologised.
So, she’d apologised before we had a problem with the wait. Then, after she’d served our food, she apologised again and offered us a round of free drinks. And we left the Holiday Inn having had an enjoyable experience - the delay didn’t bother us and we’d definitely go back.
What Your Business Can Learn From This: Never overpromise and under deliver. If you know you can deliver by Tuesday, tell the customer it will be there on Wednesday. They’ll be delighted when it arrives early.
Apologise to your customer before they have a real problem. If there’s going to be a delay - apologise to your customer as soon as you know. And be honest about how long they’ll be waiting. Most people don’t mind, so long as they’re kept in the picture.
Have a system in place so that you and your staff can compensate a customer the moment a problem occurs, without even having to think about it. And make sure your staff are aware of what form of compensation they should be giving for each particular type of problem.
A small gift or freebie won’t cost you much. But, it could save you from losing a customer, and potential referals.
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7 Responses to “Are You Sending Your Customers To The Competition?”
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A great article with excellent examples Catherine.This lesson I learned the hard way (few years ago). And the part about Tuesday and Wednesday is the best advice you could give to others. It is an excellent way to beat the time in front of customers eyes.
I just had that happen to me last night.
I was out running errands, and decided to stop at Taco Bell for dinner. I placed my order at the drive up window. Even though I didn’t have to wait very long (two cars were ahead of me), when I got to the window to pay, the lady apologized for making me wait. She them offered a free drink.
I told her I didn’t feel the wait was unreasonably long, but she insisted on treating me to a free drink.
She then handed me their biggest size drink.
I was impressed, and will definitely go back there again. Plus, I will tell others, as well.
customer service is definitely key
My boss emphasizes not promising more than we can do. So I’m supposed to pad estimates and such. She says it’s better to get compliments than complaints.
I really believe in this. It’s an excellent point. And to be quite frank we need to work on it a bit more.
I’m currently working on systems which more tightly manages engineering time so we can start arriving on time more readily, and when we can’t making sure the customer knows.
You are right - most customers understand and don’t mind as long as they’re kept up to date.
And that’s important when you’re supporting IT and some jobs are unpredictable in length which makes arrival times quite tricky.
Barbara - that is good service. I wish we had a Taco Bell here. I’m not even sure if they have any in the UK at all.
Nick - thanks for commenting and very true.
Mrs Micah - that is so funny. So she lets them think they’re going to be paying more then charging them less. It’s a brilliant idea. But, I would worry that I would lose the job by giving a higher price to begin with. She must have had a lot of experience at doing this.
Ian - it honestly works. We’ve screwed up in the past, and I’ve spent many a time getting my head chewed off because a technician has promised the customer what they want to hear rather than the truth.
They would get too caught up in the job they were at and not notice the time, then they would call the customer when they were already thirty minutes late and say they would be there in another thirty minutes - even though it would be at least an hour. It took ages to get through to them that if they were honest to begin with, and called before they were late, the customer wouldn’t be half as mad.
I think I’m going to use the restaurant example in training next week, as I think it will be something they can relate to fairly well.
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