If you see your customer looking at their watch, it’s not a good sign. It’s a natural human reaction, but as the owner of a business, one you want to help your customer avoid. On the surface it’s a simple glance at the dial. But if you go beneath the surface you’ll understand your customer is actually annoyed, in a rush, and disappointed.
While these feelings may not be visible on the outside, eight times out of ten they are happening inside. These are feelings that contribute to the overall decision of whether the customer wants to be a repeat customer or give their business to someone else. We’ll touch more on this in the chapter on the Customer Mind.
Your service should be efficient and fast-paced to the point that you and your employees are delivering what your customer has purchased or ordered as quickly as possible.
If it’s an extremely busy day and you are unable to get the customer what they want right away, that’s fine, but let them know. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do this. Let’s use a restaurant as an example…
The right way is to let your customer know as soon as they place their order or when they enter your establishment that you’re busy for a good reason (like your specials are very popular, or you have drink specials and it’s brought in a crowd) and will get them what they’ve ordered as quickly as possible, but it may take a bit longer than usual.
The wrong way is to take their order and then apologize for keeping them waiting. Apologizing is a must in this situation, but it’s best to let your customers know what to expect from the outset.
Business owners are often scared that this approach means they’ll have to turn away business. The money signs gaze over their eyes. Well, that’s short-term thinking and it’s plain stupid. You may be able to make a bit more by disappointing your customers into a meal, your product or service. But when their expectations are not met, you’ll lose them forever. On the other hand, let them know upfront what’s going on, and they’ll more often than not be happy to wait a bit longer – and they’ll continue on as a happy customer.
Customers are people. They will appreciate it when you are caring enough to be informative and honest with them. They’ll know what to expect and their expectations won’t be disappointed.
If you’re just slow or inefficient you have a problem. Fix it. Implement a system to get back on track.
Remember, you can do this by writing down each point of the process from when a customer walks into your store or contacts you, to the purchase stage and through the follow up. Do that and see which areas can be made more efficient, and implement changes to fix them.
When the unexpected happens and you have to make your customer wait longer then they really should, don’t try to hide that it was your fault. Whether it was your fault, or your employees, it’s still ‘your’ fault, not the customers.
The best way to remedy this situation is to provide the customer with a bonus, a small gift to say you’re sorry and provide extra value. You’ll be surprised how quickly doing this turns a customer from an almost ‘lost’ customer to keeping them a happy one.
A good friend is vegetarian. No meat or fish of any kind. And, no exceptions.
One day we met at an average-priced Italian restaurant on the other end of town for lunch. It was a first for all of us. We sat down at our table and admired the Italian decor. Looking through the menu it became clear that every single dish except for salad had some sort of meat or fish in it. A lot of restaurants would have offered a grilled cheese sandwich or said, “Sorry, salad is all we have.” Not this restaurant.
After asking the waiter if they could accommodate any vegetarian requests, the chef came out from the kitchen. He asked what she could eat and said he’d put something together. He did, and she enjoyed the meal.
The food wasn’t amazing. Definitely not the best Italian I’ve had. But we’d all go back.
They provided enough value through their service and food that if we felt like Italian we’d go again. That restaurant knows how to delight its customers. And, it’s no wonder that, when I went by the restaurant the other day, it was packed. People were waiting in a line outside to get in.
Language and Replies
Do you know what kind of language each and everyone of your employees use when they communicate with your customers? How about your own language, is it effective? You likely won’t be surprised to hear that our everyday language used in business, due in part to email, has deteriorated.
It’s not uncommon to receive business emails from companies that forget to put a proper subject line in. Worse yet, replies often include no salutation (Dear John or Hello John) and often no signature or name at the end. Would you send a written letter without the name of the person you’re sending it to? So why do it with an email.
I’ve received business emails or inquiries from people that write one line or don’t personalize their emails at all. Guess what I do with those? I hit the ‘delete’ button.
Your employees, whether in your store or on a sales visit, should be using language that is appropriate. It reflects upon your business. It may be unfortunate that people often judge others by their way of speech or appearance – but they do. So you can fight it, and suffer the consequences. Or accept it and prosper from it.
It’s worth your time to check in once in a while to see what kind of language your employees are using in different situations with customers in sales, support, and service communications.