How Not to Send the Wrong Message to Your Customers

Four weeks ago I called the owner of a local company that carries promotional items. I had known the owner for about twenty years. He is a good person and well meaning, but what he did really lost me as a client for life. What he did was NOTHING! That’s just it, absolutely nothing. After getting all the information about my promotional item that I wanted to purchase, he promised to research my request and never followed up with me and my order. You can’t stay in business for very long if you don’t communicate with your customers well. If you don’t get back with the people who want to spend their hard earned money with you, you lose them - FOREVER!

If you are looking for a communication job, remember, good, solid communication with your prospects and customers is absolutely critical. If you and your employees or coworkers don’t do it very well, you need to learn how, or face serious consequences. Why? Because your prospects and customers don’t have the time or the patience for no information, or miscommunication. There are far too many of your competitors who would just love to scoop up your qualified prospects and customers. Not paying attention to them nor exceeding their expectations for service is the kiss of death.

So, what can you do to make sure these kinds of communication disconnects never happen to your company? First, take inventory of just how new prospects and clients are followed up with after they contact your organization. Do you have a system in place that provides for follow up in a timely and succinct manner? Do you have a check system that catches prospects and customers who fall through the cracks?

One way to explore how you are doing is to select a random sample group of five new prospects and five customers who have contacted your company. Whether they were requesting information or wanted to order a product or service, you must track their experience. Track how many times they were communicated with before they received all the information they needed, or made a purchase. Evaluate how smoothly the experience was for that person. One of the best ways to do this is to survey them. You can do this by using an email questionnaire or by simply calling and asking them. I recommend the latter. As someone once said, “You can learn a lot by just listening.”

Once you get their responses, you can make any adjustments that are necessary. So, let’s go back to the company I used as a poor example in the beginning of this article. They missed their chance to earn my order. My sense is that I am one of many prospects and customers they are driving away to their competitors. Don’t let this happen to you or your company.

Tom Borg is a consultant in leadership management, team building and customer service. Please see more of his blogs at CommunicationsJobsBlog.net
and businessworkforceblog.com. To view additional job postings go to Nexxt.