Category Archives: Charming your customers

A little charm could save the show

Posted on by
Reply

A nearby cafe, well placed to be successful with a loyal local following, recently changed hands, taken over by a mother and her two children.

Mother seems a bit shy but is charming; her son is also charming, outgoing and openly affectionate with his mother. In contrast, the daughter has no charm… at all.

So which one would you put on the front counter? Anybody but the daughter, right?

Well this family has the daughter fronting customers. Why would they do that?

Charm can be superficial, of course. Sometimes it’s the grumpy rough diamond who wins us over when they show us that they care about us and go the extra distance to give us quality product and service.

Not in this case, though.  My hot chocolate was tepid, the cocoa left to form a congealed lump at the bottom of the cup.  She was graceless, unfriendly and unhelpful.  Not an encounter likely to tempt me back.

My question is: how can people be so insensitive to the needs of their customers; so unaware of how people might respond to them… Unable to match their resources (such as people) to the most appropriate tasks and roles?

 

Getting a response from a web enquiry

Posted on by
Reply

Have you checked your website’s enquiry facility lately? Are enquiries routed to an email address that still exists? Do you have someone nominated to check incoming enquiries? How quickly are enquiries responded to?

These may seem like obvious questions but I’ve had a number of experiences lately of sending off queries via website ‘contact us’ forms and receiving no response.

It’s disturbing on several levels. We genuinely seek an answer to a question that’s important to us. But at a deeper level, we are relying more and more on internet communication in so many parts of our lives. Non responses undermine our confidence and trust in this communication channel.

And can any business really afford to burn these contacts? Web enquiries are an an important part of the marketing and customer service mix.

On a positive note, I have been cheered by responses from people in various countries as I arranged my recent holiday, and impressed at the efforts many people are willing to take to provide assistance, regardless of the language barrier.  Needless to say, they won my confidence and my business.

Long distance customer service

Posted on by
Reply

Preparing for international travel recently gave me some food for reflections on long distance customer service.

Many of us take for granted online booking of travel arrangements, from airfares, accommodation, train, car hire and tours. But what happens when things go wrong?

I found that the bookings system on some sites didn’t work too well. This can be frustrating. On a couple of sites I found it difficult to make the date ‘stick’ so that I accidentally booked for the wrong dates. There were other difficulties, too. It’s a reminder that it’s wise to schedule occasional checks of your website functions, following through a complete booking, for example, to make sure everything is working as it should.

The next question is: how easy is it to fix when things go wrong with your bookings?  I give a big bouquet to online tour booking agency Viator. Their website listed contact phone numbers in several countries, including my own. When I called to correct an incorrect date in my booking, I received prompt, friendly service and the error was corrected there and then.

It’s this kind of responsive customer service that builds our confidence in booking overseas services online.