Missing The Moment
At
the end of June I sent an enquiry to a company whose product I wanted to
buy. The total price would have been in the region of £250. Not much, perhaps, in the bigger scheme of
things, but a significant personal investment for me.
It
took the company 14 days (of which four were Saturdays or Sundays) to respond
to my email. Ironically, I had phoned them for the answer two days before
receiving their email reply. Even then,
they only responded to my specific question in both cases. What didn't they do? Two things:
1.
They showed no real interest by letting me
chase them and by taking 10 working days to reply to my question AND:
2.
They failed to try to convert my enquiry into a
sale.
They
made me feel that I didn't matter to them, as well as that customer enquiries weren’t a priority. I was the one who had to chase
them and all I received was a short answer to the basic question. Either this
company is doing so well that enquiries can wait, or people need some training
in handling customer enquiries and understanding the opportunity that they
present.
When
someone calls your business or emails an enquiry, you don’t know at that stage who they are, whether they
represent a large buyer, whether there may be a bigger order or whether you
might get repeat business. That’s what you need to find out. In this case, the two employees concerned just
weren’t aware of the impact of
their behaviour or the opportunity that they were missing.
I
started wondering how many similar opportunities I may have missed. How often have I been too busy or stressed
out that I missed those vital moments to earn some customer goodwill and to
increase my sales and reputation for customer service? There’s always the excuse of “Oh you called on a very busy day for us.”
However, as a potential buyer, I’m not interested in whether
the other side is having a great day or a terrible one. I want my question answered promptly and
professionally.
According
to research, people tell three friends about good experiences and nine about
bad ones. You’re therefore three times more
likely to lower your reputation with poor service as to improve it with good
service. Sounds unfair? Yes, but you can’t argue with fact. Nowadays, with the ability to reach out over
the internet to thousands of others, unhappy customers can reach out
further and faster (and make life difficult for big business as a result).
If
you have several staff handling customer enquiries, they need to understand
that these are opportunities and how they
should be handled. In particular, how
can enquiries be converted into sales without seeming to be pushing the
enquirer in a direction in which they may not be ready to go?
Even
if the enquirer isn’t willing to commit to a
purchase just yet, leave the door open by giving them your name and contact
details. Whether they buy or not, they
now have a “real person” whom they can contact in future and recommend
to other friends as someone who cares.
Mastering
this art will see an increase in both reputation and sales, with the former
driving the latter.
I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.
Labels: Customer Care, Selling, Strategy
posted by William Martin @ 01:30
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