Business tip: Return messages promptly

Business owners might find this true story particularly insightful.

For months, a small business vendor had been calling and emailing me – almost to the point of annoyance — eager that I try her company. Eventually, a need arose, so I called her office, confident she’d be thrilled at the opportunity to showcase the extraordinary customer service she insisted could only come from a boutique like hers. I left her a voice mail and waited for a return call.

I then waited…. and waited….. and waited some more. After a week of silence, I sent an email, followed by another phone call. Then I went back to waiting. I received no response.

Sigh.

Only after asking a third party – a friend of hers – to call her directly on her cell phone did the vendor call me back. She’d been away for a few days, she said, and then had planned to contact me after catching up on things and beginning work on my order. She simply hadn’t gotten around to returning my 10-day old message.

I resisted the urge to gently advise her that even when people get busy, it is good business etiquette to return all telephone calls and answer emails within 24 hours. If you don’t have the answer or cannot begin the project immediately, at least respond to acknowledge receipt of the message and give a ballpark time frame when you’ll tackle the job. Your customers will appreciate the courtesy so they can plan accordingly – and be less likely to call a competitor out of necessity or frustration while they wonder if their request landed in a black hole.

Candidly, I have experienced this problem with a number of vendors (and colleagues, for that matter). I understand that people are sincerely busy, or they are waiting to get all the answers before calling back, but if it is going to be more than two days, go ahead and fire off a short email or phone call to advise that although you can’t deliver today, the project is in the queue.

Take it from a customer: we appreciate hearing back from you….. sooner than later.

Survey Says: Poor Customer Service Ticking Off Consumers

Businesses everywhere, notably large ones, should take note of a recent consumer survey which revealed that many big name companies provide poor customer service.

The brunt of the consumer angst is directed at telecommunications companies– AOL had the worst rating with Comcast right behind – but a variety of retail and service providers dot this list.

The survey was commissioned by MSN Money and conducted by Zogby International. See the companies’ rankings here.

Historically, small businesses have used exceptional customer service to attract customers alienated by the giants, but I don’t think size is the problem.

The top 10 companies (those with best customer service according to the MSN survey) are as follows: Marriott; Sheraton; Amazon.com; Hilton; Trader Joe’s; Google; Hampton Inn; Nordstrom, Whole Foods Market and Holiday Inn. Nordstrom has 55,000 employees; Hilton has 100,000 employees; and Marriott has 151,000 employees. Size doesn’t seem to be a problem with them.

My experience is that large companies provide poor customer service either because of understaffing (to save themselves money) or poor training of front-line staff. Often, it’s a combination of the two.

Take Food Lion, for example. Forget about running in to grab a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk. If you are silly enough to try, at least bring a book, because it will take awhile to get the poorly-trained cashier to move through his or her paces. The manager at my local store always waits until the line is finally down to the one person before she rushes to open a second register, as if she’s helping. This is frustrating to customers, like me, who have decided to drive the extra two miles to Publix, where they somehow always get it right (11th best rating in survey, by the way).

Good customer service can be achieved, I don’t care how big or complicated your operation.

Properly train your employees. Put enough of them on the front line. Incentivize them to do well. Get rid of those who don’t. Survey your customers. Hold people accountable.

If you can’t figure it out, please hire someone who can help.

MSN Money will do another survey next year. You can either elevate yourself like Nordstrom or you can sink into AOL-dom and end up on my blog again. You’ve got one year to figure it out.

Until then, see you at Publix.