Do You Think Your Customers Are Sea Lions?

November 24, 2007

Are you making it virtually impossible for people to buy from you? Do you make your customers jump through hoops before you make a sale?

Your customers are not Sea Lions. Most of them are busy. They want an simple, straightforward sale, and if they don’t get it, they won’t buy from you.

Here’s an example of an Internet directory who are losing customers because they not only make it difficult to buy. They also ensure that they screw up their chances of ever selling to that customer ever again, and encourage bad word of mouth.

A while ago, I received a call from a lady selling spaces on a new directory. I won’t usually advertise on directories, as many of them are spammy and I don’t like having to compete against them for my keywords. But, I agreed to advertise with her for the following reasons:

1) I liked the idea that she was providing some valuable local area content rather than just hundreds of links to various sites.
2) She seemed nice and she was just starting out in business (she’s a franchisee for a fairly new company).
3) She came out to see me to explain her services - she wasn’t just some random telesales person who expected me to pay money over the phone to a company I’d never heard of.
4) I’d heard that a quite famous entrepreneur who’d recently gone through some difficult times was involved in the business. And as I was keen to see her do well, I wanted to support her new venture.

But, really, I agreed to advertise with her to do her a favour, as she was just starting out. I was taking the chance that her site would attract more local people than our excellent local newspaper site. And, I don’t need someone to get me on the first page of Google for my keywords because I’m already lucky enough to be in that position. But, lots of local companies aren’t and if her service turned out well, I’d recommend her to others.

So what went wrong? Well, I signed up for a year, filled out my bank details and she gave me a copy. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise that she intended me to send that copy to my bank - I assumed she was doing that. In fact, I don’t really have time to do things like that - if I’m buying a service from someone, I expect them to do all the legwork.

Now, if she’d called me, I would have explained all that to her. But, she didn’t. Not long after her visit, I became ill with flu. And Stuart received a call from her head office, asking why I hadn’t sent in the bank form.

Of course, he told me about it but dealing with it was not on my list of priorities because a) I had flu, b) I didn’t know that I had to send in the form anyway and c) I was a bit annoyed that the woman hadn’t called herself. So, I decided I would give her a call when I felt better.

But, it didn’t end there. Shortly afterwards, Stuart received a call from someone who appeared to be from the same company asking us to advertise. He assumed it was another franchisee, but he wasn’t sure as most of these directories have pretty similar names. Anyway, he told them that I deal with all the advertising, but they could email some details, which they did. Of course, I still had flu, so when he told me about it, I said no straight away, I just couldn’t be bothered. Plus, I’d already signed up with the other lady, so I’d give her a call when I was well.

But, I didn’t because - when franchisee number 2 called back and Stuart told him we didn’t want to advertise, he was rude. He said we’d messed him about and wasted his time, just like we’d messed the other franchisee about.

He obviously hadn’t been in sales for long if he expected to sell to everyone he emailed details to!

Well, that was it, I decided not to bother contacting franchisee number 1 and she still didn’t bother to call me either.

What Could The Company Have Done To Avoid Losing The Sale?

1) A personal follow up would have been good: This woman called me, then came out to see me - she must have been here for over an hour. But, she couldn’t even call when she realised I hadn’t sent in the bank form - she got her head office to do it.

2) Sent in the bank forms themselves: If you’re getting someone to fill out their bank details, then you give them one of the copies, the chances are they’re going to assume that it’s a receipt and that you will actually be sending the bank a copy.

3) Operated in exclusive areas: It caused confusion when a second franchisee called to try to make a sale.

4) Avoided rudeness: Being accused of wasting these people’s time was annoying. After all, I’d given up my time to allow them to sell me a service that I didn’t really need that much. The call from the rude guy put me off going out of my way to call the first franchisee, since she hadn’t bothered to call me. And I certainly wouldn’t recommend them to anyone else.

5) Refunded the deposit:: I definitely recall having paid a deposit by cheque. And I have not received a refund. So, now I will have to go through the cheque book and waste even more time going through the process of demanding a refund.

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Comments

3 Responses to “Do You Think Your Customers Are Sea Lions?”

Mrs. Micah on November 24th, 2007 5:51 pm

I certainly would have thought it was a receipt unless she’d told me otherwise. What else is one to expect? I don’t buy through Amazon and then send an e-mail to my bank to tell them to send Amazon money. Amazon takes care of that for me…
Ian on November 25th, 2007 7:21 am

I’ve bought an ad of the same franchise (I think!). I’m not sure it will do what it says in terms of clicks, but I was interested that they were building a real-world networking community to go with it.

In fact, that network ahs gotten me great coverage because I was allowed to be custard-pied at one of their events - and that’s going into the local paper next week.

BUT we were given a standing order form to send off.

Now, that is a mistake.

I’ve been through this before!

You should pick them up from your client if you’re in front of them. Or suggest they do it online - why not? That’s often easier for both parties.

And if you have a copy post it for them. The cost of a stamp avoids the risk of losing the client or them forgetting to do it.

Like everything in business, you need to follow the route of least resistance. If people want to buy, make it as easy as possible.

If you’re aksing for someone for a sale by email for example, tell them “just hit reply and say ‘yes’ and we’ll do the rest”. And then do the rest for them.
cathlawson on November 26th, 2007 7:01 am

Hi Mrs Micah - exactly. If Amazon didn’t do that they wouldn’t sell half as much stuff would they?

Hi Ian - am not sure that it’s the same franchise as they never mentioned a networking community to me. It was more like what’s on at the cinema and local weather etc. Email me details as yours sounds more interesting.