Are You Driving Your Customers Away?

Well, imagine that a customer who's been with your company
for a while with no complaints finally has a reason to
contact customer service because of what appears to be a
billing error. She assumes the problem will be corrected
promptly and she'll go on her merry way.

Instead, your customer service rep recites a convoluted
procedure she'll need to go through to rectify the issue,
much to the customer's astonishment. The representative
explains by saying, "I'm sorry, but that's our policy and
we have to follow it."

That procedure might be driven by an arcane control issue
in your company -- or perhaps by a legitimate business
requirement. But the customer doesn't know what's behind
it. In this imaginary scenario, she tries to offer
suggestions, but is rebuffed by the equally frustrated
employee who seems unreceptive to her proposals.

The customer thinks, "Why aren't they open to my ideas?
Don't they believe my opinions have value? My complaint is
valid, my suggestions are good, and if they don't want to
listen to them, I'll take my business elsewhere!"

Finally, at her wit's end, the customer asks to speak to a
supervisor. The representative resists the request and even
argues against it. When the customer threatens to end her
relationship with the company right then and there, the
representative reluctantly summons her manager. What's gone
wrong in this situation?

Let's face it -- holes in our policies and procedures can
surface every day. In those situations, what our policies
allow personnel to do can make the difference between
keeping and losing a customer.

Those things include:

1) Sympathizing with your customer's concerns and
apologizing for inconveniences.

2) Explaining why the policy exists, especially if it
represents a type of customer protection.

3) Offering immediate alternatives to help assuage the
situation.

4) Actively recording the concerns for ongoing system
improvements, and

5) Making complaint escalation quick and painless, ideally
to someone who has the authority to override the policy if
needed.

When your policies and procedures cause confusion or don't
convey a clear set of benefits to consumers, your customers
can be quite sensitive to the "disconnects" they perceive.
Those are areas in which the organization might not be
"walking its talk" -- and the customers and prospects can
feel it, leaving them wondering what your policies are or
why you have them.

You can eliminate these disconnects through continually
reviewing and fine-tuning the policies and procedures that
affect the quality of your customers' experiences.
Standardizing the procedural hand-offs within your
organization also will bolster your customers' confidence
and desire to work with your organization -- because
they'll receive the same fair, logical, and helpful
treatment no matter whom they contact.

In conclusion, there are a variety of ways in which we
might be inadvertently frustrating our customers and
clients. One of the most common involves policies and
procedures, which may be unnecessarily confusing or
restrictive. By being alert for situations that put our
customers on the defensive and handling those situations
gracefully, we can retain our customers' loyalty and avoid
driving them away.

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Adele Sommers, Ph.D. is the author of the award-winning
"Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance" program.
She helps people "discover and recover" the profits their
businesses may be losing every day through overlooked
performance potential. To sign up for more free tips, visit
her site at http://LearnShareProsper.com