How to tick off customers and chase them away

I am an avid scuba diver. One of my favorite places to dive is Bonaire. It is one of the ABC (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao) islands in the Dutch Antilles.

The premier dive resort on the island used to have a staff that was friendly and devoted to its customers. They had a lot of return customers. The dive masters there had a bond with the divers. The place was clean and was run efficiently. Then something happened a few years ago. The owner/fonder sold his interests to one of his employees.

Under new management, the dive resort became filthy, the pool was dirty, the diving staff became surly to the customers and the good dive masters began to leave en-mass. The wife of the owner was in the dive office chain smoking when a customer went in and to ask a question. The wife actually told her paying customer to get out and knock on the door before coming in again.

The customer left. But he never knocked on the door and he never returned.

Many of those unhappy customers are now going to a nearby dive resort called Buddy Dive.

I highly recommend Buddy Dive Resort.

The difference between Buddy Dive and the other so-called resort is night and day.

How to avoid mis-communications

People communicate in different ways. They hear different things and they see different things. How they hear and see things are shaped by their own past personal experiences.

For example, if you tell a group of people you are very frustrated, their idea of how frustrated you are depends on their own perception and experience of their frustration level. So when you communicate with your clients, try to use as many concrete words as possible – use what some therapists called “wheelbarrow words”.

These are words that can be put in a wheelbarrow. If you tell your clients you have 22 bricks, they have a much better idea of what you are talking about. They can see those bricks in a wheelbarrow. In other words, try to be as specific as you can when you speak to your customers or clients.

For example: As a construction company, instead of saying you are “uniquely qualified” to serve your client’s needs, tell them you have 3 bulldozers, two cranes and five forklift trucks. All of these can be put in a wheelbarrow. If you are an architect, tell your potential clients you designed that tall building downtown at the corner of First Avenue and Pine Street. Don’t tell them you are “the best” architect in town.

You get the idea.

Not returning customers’ phone calls – big and bad mistakes

There are two kinds of consultants: Those who return clients’ phone calls and those who don’t. Unfortunately, most consultants fall into the second category and commit deadly sin #1. You should always be responsive and return phone calls – no matter how busy you are.

In this day and age of cell phone and Blackberries, there is absolutely NO excuse whatsoever for anyone not to return customers’ phone calls. If you have to call your future customer and tell him that you are too busy to talk to him at length right now, do it. Just set up a more convenient time later. Your client will not be upset with the fact that you are too busy to discuss his needs with you immediately. In fact, he will be very appreciative of the fact that you take the time out of your busy schedule just to return his phone call. This is just basic good business common sense – not to mention professional courtesy.

However, it is amazing how many consultants fail to return their future clients’ phone calls in a timely manner. Incidentally, the bigger the consulting firm, the slower it is to return calls. Many firms have lost potentially lucrative contracts because of this.

Contractors (plumbers, repairmen, carpenters, etc.) were notorious about not returning phone calls severla years ago when there was a building boom in this country. You would be lucky if one out of five contractors returned your calls at all because they were so busy with work. Now…many of them are unemployed or out of business. If they had kept in touch with their potential customers when they were busy in good times, they might well have several jobs to do right now in hard times.

The problem of not responding to messages is also an internal one with many consulting firms – especially large ones. Remember – you cannot make a sale if your staff does not return your future clients’ messages. Here is a test: Have someone outside your firm make a service request call to your receptionist and see how long it takes for someone within your firm to call back.