KEEPING CUSTOMERS

Success in business depends on keeping your customers. It’s time consuming and costly to get new customers so it’s critical to do everything possible to keep a customer once acquired. In addition to having the customer continue doing business with you, it is important that he or she value your products and service enough to recommend you to others.

To be recommended to others it is important to establish a reputation for great customer service. This is done by always delivering the best products and prompt professional service. This does not mean that you will never make mistakes. It isn’t critical that you not make any mistakes. What is important is how you handle mistakes when they happen. If you admit your mistakes and immediately take steps to correct them without being forced to do it, your customers will be impressed. In these cases being right is not important. What is important is how your customer feels when the incident is over. That will determine whether they will return and recommend you to others.

Good customer service is the key. It is more important now then ever because it is becoming very difficult to get good service. Think about the last time you got really good customer service at any business. If you are like me, it was memorable because of the poor service you normally get. That is what you need to do for your customers. Make it impossible to forget the experience of doing business with you.

Here are a couple of examples from my personal experience. One is about how to lose a good customer and the other is how to keep a customer even when a problem arises. The first happened to a competitor of mind. He had contracted to build a custom desk for a customer. He completed the desk and the customer told him that the desk should have had a lock on one of the drawers. My competitor insisted that it was not part of the price. He finally installed the lock and billed the customer for an additional $16.00. The customer paid it but was disturbed by being billed. My competitor refused to give the customer any satisfaction on the issue.

About a month later I received a call from this company to quote them for some office furniture. They were opening a second office and wanted several pieces of custom furniture including custom desks and a file cabinet. I submitted a quote and got the job. I later found out that my price was higher than my competitor’s price for the same pieces but I got the job because the manager was still upset about the $16.00. So, for this small amount he gave up a contract of several thousand dollars. Of course, I was glad that he had to be right since it got me a very good contract. More importantly, it got me a good customer who ordered products from me many more times after that first experience.

On another job, I built a conference table for a law office and they did not like the appearance of the top. I was going through a bad financial time but I told the customer to use the existing top for a couple of weeks and I would build a new one for them just the way they wanted it. Two weeks later I arrived with a new top and switched it out. They were well satisfied with the new top and gave me a contract to install crown molding throughout the entire office. The original top was acceptable but it just wasn’t the way they pictured it and it was obvious that I didn’t understand what they had wanted.

In addition to the new work, I got recommended to other law offices. As to the top that I took back, it served me for many years as an assembly table. I just placed it on a couple of sawhorses in my shop.

Good customer service pays off and it’s the right thing to do. I suggest that you put yourself in your customer’s shoes before making a decision on any customer service issue. Determine how you would like to be treated if you were facing the same situation and treat your customer at least as well.