During the recently ended fat times, many companies – including many Fortune 500s – allowed customer service to go downhill faster than a bobsled. For many large companies, the front line of customer service was purposely made difficult and unhelpful with the expectation that if they made little effort, you’d just go away. They were right.
Many customers did go away – but they didn’t forget. But with a booming economy and globalization, it was easy to replace disgruntled customers with ones who were dissatisfied with someone else’s lousy service. And round and round it went.
I have had this experience with high-tech companies, utilities, and others. I’m sure you have, too. Way too many consumers and B-to-B customers have tales of service horror and war stories to be good for the economy as a whole.
Forget your customers and they will surely forget you.
Even some local businesses got in the act when they had more work than they could handle. No shows, no calls, shoddy or partially finished work just don’t sit well with paying customers.
And as the good times slowed, those terribly annoyed customers remembered the slip-shod businesses who had made their lives hell. And those businesses now had a lot less work than they could handle and needed some of those customers that they had previously blown-off without a second thought.
Several good companies have died over the past few months – and many more bad ones.
Business runs in cycles. Good times are as surely followed by bad times as bad times are followed by good. And customers are the lifeblood of it all. Providing great customer service seems like a “no brainer” in good times or in bad.
What I am wondering is if businesses that allowed their service procedures to become customer nightmares will wake up during this slowdown. As always, some will and some won’t. The some that will are very likely to be the big winners in the coming upturn.
Those who create top-notch customer service procedures will have a much better chance of surviving the downturn in order to prosper in the upturn. And if they maintain a high level of service, they will be much better placed to survive the next downturn.
Does that sound like a better recipe for success?
For local businesses, creating more from less is always a tightrope-walking experiment. Learnnig how to provide better service for less is an exercise in creative thinking on which your company’s survival may rest.
Now is as good a time as any to take stock of your customer service. Is it as good as it can be? Anything less courts eventual disaster. But on the positive side, great customer service is one of those “good will” assets that will more than pay for itself in increased business today and increased value if and when you decide to sell your business.
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I am all for customer service to make a comeback. With the bad times here, customers are not going to spend more than they need. Companies should spend this time to focus on their existing customer base rather than go on a wild goose chase with prospects. I don’t understand when companies have incentives for new customers but none for existing ones. That needs to change now if those companies want to get through the bad times. They just need to get it through their heads that great customer service will bring in money from existing AND new customers.
I am all for customer service to make a comeback. With the bad times here, customers are not going to spend more than they need. Companies should spend this time to focus on their existing customer base rather than go on a wild goose chase with prospects. I don’t understand when companies have incentives for new customers but none for existing ones. That needs to change now if those companies want to get through the bad times. They just need to get it through their heads that great customer service will bring in money from existing AND new customers.
Good comment, Anh. It’s ALWAYS cheaper to keep an established customer than to get a new one. The cost of obtaining a new customer is many times that of retaining one. Plus, they have bought form you before and you have a track record with them. Reaching those established customers in a cost effective way is a key. Using email to touch base with them is far more effective than taking out an expensive newspaper ad that only a few of them will see, let alone read.
Good comment, Anh. It’s ALWAYS cheaper to keep an established customer than to get a new one. The cost of obtaining a new customer is many times that of retaining one. Plus, they have bought form you before and you have a track record with them. Reaching those established customers in a cost effective way is a key. Using email to touch base with them is far more effective than taking out an expensive newspaper ad that only a few of them will see, let alone read.