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Are You Putting Up Obstacles For Your Customers?
By Steve Hurst | November 4, 2008
Are you making it easy for your customers to buy from you? Or, are you putting up obstacles so it’s difficult and hard to buy your products or services?
A couple of blog posts back, I wrote about “making it easier for your customers to buy” (Click here to see post ). Today, I wanted to continue with that thought.
If you haven’t guessed by now customer service is a BIG pet peeve of mine. And bad customer service in ANY form is a way of “making it difficult to spend money” with that particular business. Let me give you my latest example.
This past Saturday night, my wife and I decided we wanted pizza. Now as you may or may not know, we live in a very rural area, so delivery is out of the question. I called it in, drove to town to pick it up (about 10 miles), pulled up to the drive through window and gave the person working there my credit card to pay for the pizza.
I’m waiting and waiting and waiting (for almost five minutes) when she comes back to the window to tell me, that she cannot process the credit card, because the other person working with her is on the phone taking a huge order and it’s the same line they use for the credit card machine.
Now to some business owners, this is nothing or no big deal. And quite frankly, that’s the problem. To ME…it’s a VERY BIG DEAL. Let me explain.
This pizza store is not a nationwide chain, but a chain in a 15 or 20 state area. So they are not small. I have to wait because the owner/manager, someone is too cheap to spring for another PHONE line…thereby, making customers inconvenienced if that phone line is being used by having to wait. To me, making customers wait (for no real reason) is BAD customer service.
Before you start to think that I’m an impatient person and should be more thoughtful, that’s not the point (in fact, I was in no hurry, but it’s still bad customer service). I know I’m exaggerating this situation a little, but the point is, this place is making it difficult for customers to spend money with them instead of making it easy for their customers.
I recall at one time hearing a marketer say how he would love to spend MORE money, but businesses keep making it harder and harder for him to do so. Once I really started thinking about this, it’s a true statement. I have found myself in that position many times and I bet you have too.
Have you ever gone to a store of some kind (department, hardware, etc) wanting to buy a particular item and needing some help with the purchase? You know… some information about the product or maybe just where to find the item…..except….you can NOT get anyone to help you? It’s happened to me many times and I’m sure it’s happened to you.
That’s the point. Here you are ready to spend money, but you can’t. The business is making it extremely difficult for you to give them money. How dumb is that????
However, here’s the REAL question, are you making these mistakes?
I would almost bet you anything that the owner/manager of this pizza place has the attitude that the customer should be more patient and understanding. NO….that’s not how it works. It’s not up to the customer to be more understanding; it’s the business’ obligation to make that customer happy. It’s not called, “customer make my business life easier”, it’s called CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Make sure you remove ANY obstacles that keeps your customers from buying from you.
To Your Success,
Steve
www.spnmarketing.com
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Steve Hurst has been working in sales and marketing for over 30 years. For 10 years he had his own computer business which included website building and consulting. The past 5 years he’s owned his own Business & Technology consulting business. Using his sales and marketing skills along with his knowledge of technology, he’s helping his clients increase their sales and profits by utilizing today’s technology.
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All writings here are copyrighted by Steve Hurst. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.
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