Partner Article

None Nil Zero Zip

Late last year my tennis club resurfaced its courts. We were given 30 days to pay by the company that laid the new surface. For reasons I won’t bore you with we (unintentionally) didn’t get around to paying on time. Not surprisingly the company’s ‘get the money in’ process kicked in which amounted to an email (to which we replied, apologised and said they’d have the money in the next 2 weeks), followed by a couple of phone calls making sure we didn’t manage to forget.

The new surface has been down for over 6 months and that same company that (quite rightly) chased us for payment, hasn’t seen fit to send and email or (even better) make a phone call, enquiring as to how the courts are playiing, do the members like them, any problems? Whilst they have a process for chasing money, they have no process for checking how their customer feels about the product they supplied.

Over the last 2-3 years, I’ve bought all kinds of stuff (so have you) from all kinds of businesses - a new laptop, new kitchen, sofa, bed etc etc and not one i.e. NONE, NIL, ZIP, ZERO of all the companises I’ve trusted enough to give them my money and buy their product or service, NOT ONE has been in touch to ask how I’m getting on with their product. Is that because they’ve got my money and they’re not bothered? (They’re not bothered enough to ask.) Unbelievable! What is every business looking for today - someone who will trust them enough to buy from them. And what do 99% of businesses do once they’ve found such a person (known as a client or customer)? They employ this incredible tactic - they ignore them.

I regularly talk to businesses (of all sizes) that are trying to give themselves an ‘edge’ over their competitiors or are looking for ways to improve client/ customer loyalty etc - how about this; be concerned enough about your client / customer, what they’ve bought from you and how they’re getting on with it - to ask them.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Austen Hempstead .