Over at the Church of the Customer blog, Jackie Huba writes of a horrible customer service experience she endured as she tried to purchase a gift certificate as a gift for a friend.
In Handling fee, or manhandled? Jackie writes candidly of her experience. Fortunately, the business owner is web savvy enough to have a Google Alert set to alert her to when her business is being discussed on Web 2.0. She found Jackie’s post, commented and not only was able to have the opportunity to try to “heal” the damaged relationship, but she was also alerted to a serious problem in her business.
However, the business owner did get a chance to “peek” in on what people thought about the practice of charging a handling fee for a gift certificate.
One of my favorite sayings lately is: “Wisdom is when you learn from other people’s experience.” This spa owner’s “experience” is your opportunity to gain business wisdom won by the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune of another’s experience.
- Treat every customer like they’re a “POWER CUSTOMER”. (I cover the topic of POWER CUSTOMERS in my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results.) Bloggers are the ULTIMATE power customers- especially a blogger with an RSS feed with over 196,000 subscribers!
- Remember that if someone is satisfied with the service provided by your business, they’ll tell 3 people. If they’re upset, they’ll tell on average, 16. (That’s assuming they don’t have a blog.)
- If you haven’t already, set up a Google Alert for your business name. A Google Alert will alert you to when your business (or you) are the topic of discussion on the millions of blogs and other websites on the internet!
- Have your own PLATFORM to defend yourself.
Because even after the the spa owner above has made her apology/explanation via the comments section of the blog, many of the blogs readers won’t find it hidden in the dozens of comments. Another disturbing fact is that the original blog post will be there FOREVER! It may achieve a rank of #1 when someone searches for your business!!! (Blogs have a way of dominating the search engine results.)
If this isn’t the most compelling reason why YOUR business should have it’s own blog, I can’t think of a better one.
Visit Acumen Web Services to get your own business blog.
blogs are essential for any serious online entrepreneur, especially in the new era of web 2.0, it’s a great way to know your audience as well as be known by your audience
This is a great article. When we have an upset client we try use it as an opportunity. Even if you are not able to completely satisfy the customer it is vitally important to understand why they are frustrated and prevent others from encountering the same experience. Thanks for sharing!
Kevin
http://www.kidsdesk.net
Perhaps it’s the personal nature of life and career coaching and the fact that I set very clear guidelines form the outset, but I have never had a dissatisfied client.
In many cases we are our businesses and it makes very good sense to treat others as we would like to be served.
Wow! Great advice. It’s also good to check out the Yahoo Local section. They allow reviews of businesses. I have seen some spa businesses slaughtered at yahoo local!
Very good and interesting business idea! Everyone who owns a business should listen to your advice!