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Small business marketing tip: Make it easy to do business with your company
Do you want to make your small business marketing more effective? Are you looking for more repeat customers from your small business marketing efforts? OK, I'd like to pass along some advice now on how to do all of these things with your small business marketing. But first a quick story to help me illustrate my point...
Recently, one of the blades on our kitchen's circular fan broke so I went ahead and ordered a new set of them. They came in the mail last week and I set aside an hour on Saturday to replace the blade. When Saturday came, I jumped into the repair process. But I was not prepared for the ordeal that was ahead.
I spent hours lugging ladders into the house, unscrewing screws that were barely visible, and performing gymnastic feats that surely the manufacturer would have shuddered at. Within the first hour I was so frustrated that I started yelling at my family. By hour 3 I was yelling at the neighbors (behind closed doors of course).
In short, the instruction manual had NO instructions about how to replace a fan blade. It didn't even have adequate instructions on how to disassemble the fan so I could GET AT the blades. So I was left to my own (very poor) handyman abilities.
In short, I wasted 3 hours of my Saturday doing nothing but getting frustrated at this company. I dragged ladders, tools and my son into the process and after 3 hours was no closer to understanding how I could replace a fan blade, let alone open up the fan to get at the blades.
Fast forward to this morning where I called up the headquarters customer service line. I was helped by a nice guy who meant well, but when he learned what I wanted to do, and for which model, he conceded that "Oh, it's not going to be easy". I then asked him why any good company would design a product that was so difficult to fix. And his answer spoke volumes. He said "I'm sure they didn't think about that".
Anyway, the offending company shall remain nameless, but I will put in a link here for those inquiring minds. It's the only way I can pay them back for a lost 3 hours this Saturday.
What can all small businesses learn from this? Just this: Learn how your buyers will be impacted by your product WELL AFTER they purchase it. To do this, do 3 marketing things right now:
1) Call up 3 customers today and find out what issues they've had with your product or service in the last 6 months.
2) Get them to tell you how THEY would fix the problem they faced. Take copious notes.
3) Ask them if you can stay in touch with them every 6 months or so. Call it a "virtual focus group" or whatever.
Only the best small business marketing folks commit to service AFTER the sale is made. And the really great ones commit to it YEARS after the sale is made.
December 17, 2007 in Small Business Marketing | Permalink
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Comments
There's a car dealer that calls the day after a repair to ask about the level of service. Sounds nice, but then I discovered that it was for anything. Yes, calling after the brake job was nice, but after an oil change??
Is the problem that the person making the calls has no interest but is just dialing all of yesterdays customers? How do you incorporate this to leverage the value without making it a system that comes off as routine?
Posted by: Brian | Dec 18, 2007 8:44:03 AM
Good question Brian. I think part of the answer is that the caller must be genuinely interested in getting quality answers to the questions they ask.
For example I would actively train callers to probe further with follow on questions like "Hmmmm...this must be frustrating for you...can you explain that in more detail?" or "I think I understand what you're saying, but can you say it a different way?" Questions like this communicate that the caller isn't just reading from a script, and trying to "get through" all his calls before lunchtime. Probes like this communicate that the service rep feels my pain and WANTS to go deeper into the problem to fashion a solution.
In my above example, I also think there should be more empathy. Why didn't the customer service rep say something like "You know I need to bring this to the attention of the design department. Hold on for a second while I get a pencil and write up a customer call report". Saying something like this tells me that what I'm saying is important enough for others within the company to consider...that my time and input is valuable.
Posted by: Jay Lipe | Dec 18, 2007 10:16:02 AM
