What Do Your Customers Think of You?

My whole neighbourhood has got an ant problem. Five of us got together, negotiated a good price with an ant killing company who arranged for a man to come and kill the ants. He came, he killed, he left.  Oops, still got ants.  I called and complained and they politely said that they would send a man back to me the next day. Now it could have been a bit embarrassing for that ant guy to come back and kill the rest of the ants, after all, they probably should have been killed off the first time. 

I expected an ugly experience. I expected a grumpy taciturn bug killing guy who just wanted to get on with the job, after all he’d had to do it twice for one fee. What I got was a cheerful guy with a beaming smile who made a yucky job fun.  Whoever imagined that killing ants would be an uplifting experience? But meeting that ant guy and being bowled over by his great attitude made my day. 

In direct contrast is my lawn mower man. He comes, he mows, and if I’m lucky, he leaves.  If I need to talk to him, heaven help me, he brings down my whole day.  It’s so obvious that he doesn’t like his job. He’s in it for the money and it shows.  He doesn’t care about my garden, doesn’t want to spend a minute longer than absolutely necessary and often neglects to finish the job properly.  If I dare to mention that the edges are a bit ragged, he grunts, grudgingly agrees with me, does the edges perfectly but leaves the lawn roughly mown or forgets to put the grass clippings in the compost bin.  I’m certain he does it on purpose. He punishes me for daring to demand good service.

I used to love going into my garden when the previous lawn mower guy was there. I’d look around and see everything perfectly neat, smell the fresh cut grass and feel good about it all. I didn’t mind parting with the money to pay him, because it was worth it to get that good feeling about my garden. He’d chat about plants and pruning trees. I knew nothing about pruning trees, didn’t even know they had to be pruned, so in educating me, he was creating work for himself, because of course, I got him to prune my trees.  But that was then, now is an entirely different story.  Why do I keep paying this dreadful man? I’d rather give my money to someone who cares.  I’d almost rather use the money as toilet paper than give it to this guy.

There are some surefire things you can do to make sure you always leave a good impression;
1.)    Always do what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it. If you promise to ring them with a quote on Thursday, ring them on Thursday with the quote.

2.)    Under-promise and over-deliver. If they need their delivery sometime this week, promise Friday and if possible have it for them by Thursday. Give them more than they expected. Most of the time it costs you nothing and gains a lot of respect and good feeling in return.

3.)    Follow-up.  Ask them, “Did your order show up on time?” “How did the installation go?“  “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

4.)    Keep in mind that your customers think the most important person in the world is them and treat them like that.

5.)    Maintain a positive outlook. Even if you’re feeling miserable, your boyfriend left you, you smashed your car on the way to work, the lunch lady ran out of jelly donuts, fake a smile and before you know it, it will be real.

What do your clients think about you? Do you know? Can you imagine?  I wonder what the lawn mower man thinks he’s doing. What kind of impression does he think he leaves?   He has a bad attitude so of course he leaves a bad impression, but does he know he has a bad attitude or is it just one of those things that never crosses his mind? If he knew the effect his lousy attitude had on his customers, would he be concerned? He should be. 

Customers tolerate poor service for only a couple of reasons. Firstly, they don’t necessarily expect the best service when they’re paying bargain basement prices. (My lawn mower man charges like a wounded bull.) They’ll still expect reasonable civility though. 

Secondly, they tolerate poor service if it’s an aberration, a one off and they can put it down to an unusual circumstance. (If my lawn mower man’s cat died, or his house burned down, they would be passable excuses for his demeanour.) 

Thirdly, they accept poor service when there’s no alternative. (There are lots of lawn mower men out there looking for work.) 

Fourthly and most commonly, they accept poor service when it becomes habitual. The customer becomes complacent, they put up with the poor service because looking for better service is a pain in the neck. It’s more trouble than it’s worth, or so they tell themselves. But there’s always the danger of reaching breaking point as I just did with my lawn mower man. The new lawn mower man starts next Thursday.