Business Insight Zone

Twice in the past two days, I’ve talked to friends fresh off of strings of customer-service dissapointments.

• Friend #1 did an afternoon of errand-running, patronized four retailers, and had bad experiences at all four.
• Friend #2 took advantage of an afternoon off of work to window-shop for his next vehicle. Two of the three dealerships he went to . . . ignored him completely. At the third place, a friendly salesman came right over to him, talked him up, avoided the hard sell, and answered all his questions.

Both of these friends are savvy veterans of the business world. Neither of them was asking for white-glove treatment. Both of them had future buying decisions clarified sharply for them by the behavior of the retailers they went to — and not in ways that any of the retailers (except for that last vehicle dealer) would want. As you’d expect, both of my friends were incredulous to receive this kind of treatment, especially given current market conditions.

It shouldn’t need saying, but here’s an elementary-grade two-step guide to marketing:

1. Get attention.
2. Do something GOOD with that attention.

Have you experienced shockingly bad service during this downturn?

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UPDATE, Thursday afternoon: My friend Jon Swanson wrote a short, compelling post about a merchant — in this case, a restaurant — that got it exactly right on service.

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Related post:

• The Basic Basics: Run to the Point of Contact.

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Photo by independentman.

Category: Marketing & Sales