Is Bad Customer Service Killing Your Business?

By Small Business Ideas On November 19, 2010 Under Small Business

It’s time to beat the old bad customer support drum again. I do know, I am sick of beating the drum, too, however so long as bad customer service runs rampant by means of so many companies I really feel it’s my entrepreneurial obligation to bring it to your attention. So grab a pew and prepare to take heed to the sermon I’ve preached before: unhealthy customer service is the bane of business. If the Almighty smote down each enterprise that dispenses unhealthy customer support, the world could be a much friendlier, albeit a lot sparser place. Contemplate a world without malls and fast meals joints… would it actually be so dangerous?

What puzzles me most is if bad customer service is such a demise knell for business, why accomplish that many companies permit it to go on? Don’t they read my column, for Pete’s sake? I feel the issue is that almost all dangerous customer support is doled out (or at the least condoned) by business house owners and managers who have ceased caring what their customers think. Once you stop caring what your customers assume it is time to shut the doors. Go discover a day job. You may make someone a splendidly disgruntled employee.

My newest parable of lousy customer service was truly experienced by my higher half whereas trying to buy my daughter a pair of basketball shoes. I won’t point out the title of the sporting goods chain retailer through which the bad customer service occurred, but I will tell you that its name is similar to the sound a frog with hiccups may make.

As my wife waited for somebody to assit, the four or 5 teenagers who had been charged with manning the shop stood in a clump on the cash register guffawing and flirting with one another as if they had been at the promenade instead of at work.

When my spouse pointed out this reality, one of the employees, a cheeky lass of sixteen or so, put her fingers on her hips and mentioned, “How impolite!” The males in the group didn’t react at all. They have been too busy arguing over who might take a break so they might chase different cheeky lasses concerning the mall.

For sure my pretty bride, who has the power to instill fear into the hearts of even the most nugatory employees, left the gaggle of laughing teen idiots standing with their mouths open in disbelief. How dare a customer tell them to try this with a pair of basketball shoes?

As a lot as I bemoan dangerous customer support I rejoice good buyer service. It should be applauded and the purveyor of stated good customer service ought to be rewarded for truly delivering satisfaction to the shopper, above and past the decision of duty.

So let me inform you the story of my new hero, Ken. I won’t tell you the name of the shop in which Ken works, however let’s just say they began out promoting radios in a shack someplace long, lengthy ago.

I first met Ken once I went into the store to buy a mixing board for my business that records audio products for the Web. In a nutshell, you plug microphones into the mixing board then join it to the pc and you may record audio directly to digital format. Completely irrelevant of this article, but I did not want you thinking that I was buying non-manly cooking utensils.

Once I acquired the mixer put in it did not work. So I boxed it up and headed back to the store to return it. After I advised Ken my problem he didn’t simply grunt and give me my a reimbursement as so many bad customer support reps would do. As a substitute he requested, “Do you mind if I strive it?”

“Knock your self out,” was my reply, confident that if I could not get it to work, neither might Ken. Ken took the mixer out of the box and went about hooking it as much as one of many computers on display. He began pulling power cords and cables off the show racks and ripping them open and plugging them in. He tore open a brand new microphone and an adapter and kept going until he had the mixer hooked up and working. Sure, I said working. It turns out the mixer was fine. I just had the flawed power adapter.

Ken might have simply given me my a reimbursement and been finished with me. Instead he spent quarter-hour and opened quite a few different packages that I used to be beneath no obligation to purchase simply to help me get the thing working.

I was so impressed that I not only stored the mixing board, I additionally purchased one other $50 price of products. And the following time I need something digital guess the place I will buy it? Even if it prices twice as a lot, I am going to buy it from Ken.

Now here’s the ethical of the story: in case you are a business owner who has a gaggle of youngsters in command of customer support at your retailer you’ll be better off changing them with wild monkeys.

Not less than monkeys can be trained.

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