Are You Sure Your Customer Service Isn’t Causing Cancellations?

Customer service means different things to different business owners. But the one fact that is true whether you are a one person business or a multi-national corporation is that the quality of your customer service can be your biggest asset or your biggest liability.

So ask yourself, “Do I know absolutely, for sure, that my customer service is my biggest asset?“

Because if it’s not, you have no idea how much money that could be in your bank account is coming in and going right back out-faster than the tide.

Customer service is a vastly underrated job. Most business owners have a distorted view of the role customer service plays in your bottom line.

You spend years building your business; time, effort and more often than not, huge amounts of money to get clients or customers through your marketing. Then when prospects arrive; you, your website copy or possibly sales people and affiliates you pay a commission, make the sale.

That’s it. Money in the bank. You’re done, right? Customer service is there to take care of any problems that come up and that can be automated or outsourced to a third world country.

Wrong!

Untrained, unsupervised, under-educated in your business, customer service people can run you out of business.

It doesn’t matter if your business is done one on one in person or if it’s a completed automated online purchase. One bad customer service person, email, auto-responder or support ticket system can undo any relationship, good will or great promise of your product or service faster than you can process their credit card.

And just as importantly, a good one can bring you more referrals, more repeat buyers and deeper relationship than you could ever get on your own.

So which do you have?

After the 25 years I spent in my previous career training sales people day in and day out, I can tell you that at least 98% of businesses are shocked to find big gaping holes in the customer service that money is poring out of.

In the last month I have heard diverse experiences while I researched this topic specifically with online marketers. I’ve been asking around a lot to find out how people feel and what impact the way their transaction was handled had on them. What I got was horror stories on all formats of customer service.

Here’s one business owner that’s losing money unnecessarily due to his customer service system.

An email response to a specific question about how to use what she had just purchased came back with a terse paragraph re-stating what was purchased and the return policy along with this statement, “As you did not cancel within the 30 days, you were billed the fee.” And then they answered the question by sending her to an FAQ page she had no access to before.

Since the purchase had just been made, that statement didn’t even apply. But the tone of the response and the addition of that mis-information led the buyer to feel uneasy. That shifted her from being an excited new customer, who already intended on buying more from this person, to someone who returned the product.

When questioned about why, she said that even though she did like the product, she questioned if she missed something because obviously there must be lots of people returning it, so just to be safe she wanted to return it while she still could.

How sad is that? Based on income statements made from this one product I would say it’s probably taking mid-six figures out of his bank account ever year. I guarantee you the business owner looks at the cancellation rate as part of doing business and isn’t looking for how to lower it, because this cause would be easy to spot and fix. Many are, but business owners are blind to them or just don’t know the psychology of the transaction well enough to know what to look for.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I received an email recently from someone who has been online for many years. I have a feeling he’s experienced this problem with others and its avoiding it upfront by sending out a declaration of what he stands for in his business so you know what to expect from him. He even included his phone number, his assistants name and invited people to pick up the phone.

I’ve never received anything like it before. If he could have heard me I would have stood up and given him a round of applause!I found it so refreshing that I’m now paying more attention to his emails and his product offerings.

So which reaction does your customer service elicit? How much is it costing you to not know for sure? It’s time for you to recapture some of the money that’s leaking out of your customer service department.

If you would like my help with this in your business, I do consulting and training on customer service. Send me an email and let’s talk.

Until next week, I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Just comment on this post on my blog at http://www.LynnPierce.com

If you would like personal mentoring, send me an email detailing what you would like help with.  As your mentor I hold a bigger vision for you than you hold for yourself.  When you have faith and a team that believes in you, it gives you courage.  When you don’t have to do it all yourself, all things are possible for you.  Commit today to go for your dream 100%.

Lynn Pierce, the Success Architect, has taught people how to combine business and personal development to reach the pinnacle of success and live the life of their dreams for over 25 years. In addition, she is also the founder of one of the most exciting annual events for women entrepreneurs, “Empowered Women’s Business  Summit”. Now she shares her keys to success and life mastery with you. You can get my special report, “What Do You Stand For? A No B.S. Guide to Creating Your Own Personal Manifesto” at http://LynnPierce.com