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I have written before about customer service on this blog (e.g., poor customer service hurts your business and customers leave you because of poor customer service).
In this post, I want to talk about the importance of providing timely responses to customer questions/inquiries and keeping your clients informed, and how failure to do either one or both will hurt your business.
Two instances come to mind when I think about consultants who lost clients because they either ignored their clients’ emails or neglected to keep their clients updated about the status of a project.
The first example involved a skilled consultant who was hired to provide technical services for a client. Although highly talented, the consultant neglected answering client emails, a key to maintaining good relationship with the customer. Multiple questions from one client went unanswered, and by the time this consultant responded, the client either had already come up with a solution or the opportunity to address the issue had already passed.
The second example involved another experienced consultant who failed to keep clients informed about problems or issues that might delay delivery of services. After the first missed deadline, inquiries from a client were met with excuses for why the deadline was missed, and instead of taking ownership and responsibility for the missed deadline, the consultant blamed others for the delay.
In both examples, highly skilled consultants lost clients.
A health professional once told me that in health care, providers will sometimes make a mistake because, let’s face it, no one is perfect and as hard as professionals try, they’re still human and can and do mess up. However, this health professional told me that he learned a very important lesson in running his own healthcare practice. He said if you have a great relationship with your clients, even if you screw up, you’ll have a much better chance of retaining your client than if you have a shoddy relationship. He told me that even if you are highly skilled, if your relationship with your clients are second-rate, the chances of losing them are much greater than if you are moderately skilled but provide excellent customer service.
“Many times . . . consumers do not complain . . . but instead take actions such as switching brands [or companies] or engaging in negative word of mouth (WOM)” (Hawkins & Mothersbaugh, 2010, p. 636).
Take-Away: No matter how skilled or good you are at your job, if you provide a service to customers (whatever that service might be), be sure to remember that you need to also provide exceptional or first-rate customer service, which includes providing timely responses to customer questions/inquiries and keeping your clients informed. Failure to do so can result in lost business (or clients) or damage to your reputation, or both.
Reference
Hawkins, D. I., & Mothersbaugh, D. L. (2010). Consumer behavior: Building marketing strategy (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
