Small Business Customer Service Can Work Against You

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Author: Denise O'Berry

Article source: http://www.erises.com/. Used with author's permission.

Is the special treatment you designed specifically to keep customers coming back working against you?

A local jeweler offers free lifetime battery replacement for any watch he sells. It's a good hook to keep customers walking back in the store on a regular basis and increases his sales volume.

But, it's backfired on him. And he's lost at least one customer because of it.

He's run into a problem getting the batteries he needs and now has to send a customer's watch off to the manufacturer which lengthens the turn around time for the repair. One customer got so irate she's sworn she'll never do business with him again. Oops. Thousands of dollars of business lost over a $6 battery.

What are the perks you provide for your customers? Does it make their life simpler, save them money or time? Or has it turned into a problem that's driving them away?

You need to make sure it isn't. When you first roll out a customer perk, you need to walk through the process in your company just like you were a customer. That gives you an opportunity to fix any kinks or holes in the process before your customers are exposed to it. Then on a regular basis, every three to six months, you need to do a quality check to ensure the process is still working and make adjustments as necessary.