I’ve shared my experience about my quest for my car’s state inspection. In Texas, the price a service station can charge for this service is fixed at $12.50. I understand that this is probably a loss leader for many car shops. Nevertheless, you must remember that: small sales lead to big ones.

If you neglect or mistreat a customer on the little sales, they won’t come back for the big sales.

On the other hand, if you give outstanding service and quality even on a small job, it can be inferred that you’ll do great work on a larger project.

Your customers may be willing to give you a try only when a little money is involved. Live up to your end of the deal, and they will come back even when higher costs are involved.

JetBlue Airlines has earned a Marketer of the Year award because of their focus on the customer.

We can learn a few tips by observing JetBlue’s thriving business. Here are some insights from JetBlue’s Andrea Spiegel, vice president of sales and marketing:

Attend to Customer’s Needs

“All of our policies and procedures are designed around what would make our customers’ experience the most hassle-free. From the design of our Web site to the tone of voice of how we speak to our customers is about this notion of bringing humanity back to air travel. It’s really about catering to the basics … our customers’ very basic needs.”

Are you paying attention to your customer’s needs? Or just your own? Everything your business does should be customer focused.

Communications with Customers

“While we’re a paperless airline, we also do virtually no direct mail. Having said that, we are greatly increasing our amount of e-mail that we send out. But to date, our success has really been direct to our customers and in the form of word of mouth. And while we may not have used traditional direct marketing tactics, we are all about communicating very clearly about and very directly to our customers.”

Hire Customer Focused Employees

“The real secret of our success is our crewmembers. We recruit based on people’s ability to communicate and people who understand what customer service is all about — not necessarily people who have airline experience or travel industry experience, but people who understand the importance of knowing how to deal with people.”

JetBlue is making money because they don’t take their customers for granted.

Are you communicating effectively with your customers? Are your business goals and driving principles customer focused? If not, make some changes and you’ll soar to great heights like JetBlue.

Have you ever had to deal with change in your business? If you haven’t yet, odds are you will soon. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson is a parable of how you need to adapt to change. This is a very short and simple read but it drives home some very solid principles about adjusting when things outside of your control change.

Your customers change. Your products become obsolete. Your competition expands and encroaches on your territory. In order to survive and thrive in this environment, you must:

• Prepare for change
• Be on the lookout for change
• Be flexible in adjusting to change

Who Moved My Cheese? teaches these principles and more to help you adjust to the constantly changing landscape in which you do business. The lessons in this book can be applied to more than just work. They’ll benefit you in your family life, friendships, personal finances, and more.

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Here in Texas we have to get our cars inspected every year to make sure they are still safe to drive. I needed to get my wife’s car inspected by the end of this month so I went back to the shop that did the inspection last year.

My Experience

I walked in and said I needed a state inspection. My conversation went as follows:

Guy behind counter: “It’ll be 45 minutes to an hour.”

Me: “So you’re saying I’ll be out of here in an hour?”

Guy: “There are no guarantees. My inspector is out and I’m the only one that can do the inspection.”

Me: “When does your inspector get back?”

Guy: “Next week.”

Me: “When is a better time to come by then?”

Guy: “Around 7:30am. Before the phone starts ringing and things get busy.”

Me: “Thanks, Dave.”

The employee/manager never made eye contact with me during this conversation. I jumped into my car and left.

I know you’re busy, but…

If you are busy, don’t blow off your customers. Why did I have to ask 20 questions? Even after the questions, I was left with the impression that the guy behind the counter just wanted to get rid of me.

All businesses get busy times. However, just because you are swamped doesn’t mean your customers will quit calling. To ensure that you still appease your customers you need to remember these steps when you are super busy:

• Explain why you are busy.
• Express sympathy for the customer and still show you care even though you can’t service them right now.
• Give the customer some options. Offer different times the customer could return or call you.
• If you know you can’t help them, don’t send them away empty handed. Refer them to another company you respect.

By taking care of your customers’ perceptions and needs even when you are busy, you’ll be sure to make the good impressions that will keep you busy for years to come.

Along the same line as yesterday’s rebate horror story, I wanted to elaborate on why rebates are evil and offensive to your customers.

Rebates Involve Deceptive Pricing

Rebates hide the actual cost of your product. Most advertising based on rebates shows the price after rebate. When you go up to the checkout, you’ll be paying more up front. You then must hope you’ll get your rebate later.

Unfortunately, the company you purchased from and the rebate fulfillment company often lose your rebate. How convenient!

Rebates Are Extra Work

Customers have to do extra work to get their money back. They have already come to your store or ordered on your website. Isn’t that enough? Why make them do any more? Remember, you work for the customer. Not the other way around.

Rebates Put the Customer Last

The reason rebates are attractive to companies is that people will forget to submit the rebates and the company can hang on to the profits. This clearly tells everyone that the company wallet is more important than that of their customers.

Rebates Have Alternatives

Instead of putting the burden of rebate submissions on customers, give the discount at the time of purchase. Is that really so hard?

By eliminating rebates and giving the discount at the time of purchase, your customers will share the news of the great deal they got on your product. If you hang on to rebates, they might share their horror stories with everyone they know.

How do you want people talking about you? Remember, word of mouth has power.

As a public service and with the hopes of sparing others my misery, I’ll recount my rebate horror story known as TCA Fulfillment Services.

Last year I purchased a wireless router from Fry’s electronics because, with the rebate, it was a good deal.

5/8/04
I mailed my receipt, rebate form, and required documentation.

7/30/04
I had not received my rebate, so I called customer service to discuss the issue. Because of a data entry error on their side, they sent my rebate to a far off zip code in another state. I was told I’d have to call back in 23 days because they only issue one check every 60 days.

9/1/04
I called customer service to follow up and claim my new check. I was told that the policy had changed. They now only issue checks every 90 days. I would have to call back then. I told them I thought that was ridiculous and I wanted to speak with a supervisor to explain why they changed the policy midstream. I was told that I was speaking with a supervisor and “that is the policy.” Urgh!

10/5/04
I called back to once again claim my check. I confirmed my address was correct and was told they’d resend my check. It should arrive in 6-8 weeks.

12/23/04
I called to locate my money. They confirmed it was sent and that I should get in the next 30 days.

Today
I never got my money. After so many phone calls and the complete incompetence on the part of TCA Fulfillment, I gave up. In so doing, I fell completely into their trap and they got to keep my money. Nevertheless, for my own sanity and so my wife wouldn’t have to hear me screaming at the phone, I let it go. Rebates are evil.

Avoid TCA Fulfillment at all costs

If you are going to buy something and the rebate form has any of the following information on it, run away. Buy something else. Go to a different store. Or just assume you may never get your money.

www.wheresmyrebate.com
TCA Fulfillment Services, Inc
1-800-390-2344

I’m not the only one

A google search for TCA Fulfillment Services yields many other stories of disaster. Don’t let it happen to you!

Since the birth of our first son last month, we’ve been going through diapers like crazy. Our last jumbo pack was Huggies brand. One of the diapers had a metal staple right where my baby’s rear end should sit.

My wife called up Huggies customer support and had a very pleasant experience. After apologizing profusely for the problem, the representative promised some coupons to make up for our bad diaper. The folks at Kimberly-Clark (Huggies’ manufacturer) also said they’d be sending a postage paid envelope so we could return the diaper. They wanted to see if the metal piece had come off of their equipment.

Our little package from Huggies arrived this week. Included were two coupons for $1.00 off diapers and one for $16.00 off (or a free mega pack). Thank you for taking care of your customers!

Create Excellent Problem Resolution

The people at Kimberly-Clark got customer service right. When your customers run into problems, remember and follow the same steps:

• Apologize for the problem and inconvenience
• Compensate the customer for their time and trouble
• Research and fix the problem so it doesn’t happen again

Research the Problem

Hopefully Huggies will take that bad product and figure out what happened. When your customers report problems, take the time to find the root of the problem. Once you identify what caused the issue, you can correct it so that it doesn’t happen again.

Buy this book

Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing by Harry Beckwith offers great insights into developing customer relationships. The author shares numerous real world examples and extracts the business and marketing principles for your benefit. This closely correlates with the goal of this site and I found numerous points that I can work on in my business activities.

Selling the Invisible is full of sound marketing and business advice that applies to your company. Even if you don’t consider yourself a service company, this book has insight you can put into practice.

I checked out the audio CDs from my local library and listened to them during my daily commute. I was so intrigued by Beckwith’s points, that I often wished I had a hard copy of the book for reference.

This book is worth the investment of time to read. Take note of the principles he shares and see how you can improve your business.

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In order to develop the return customer base you deserve, you’ll need to be constantly improving your service and products. Who knows your company and its good and bad side better than your employees? They are on the front lines with customers everyday. Your employees may also be frustrated or feel inhibited by the current modus operandi.

On a recent trip to Office Depot to resolve my filing cabinet issue, I talked with some employees who openly expressed their frustration with my situation. One clerk had actually dealt with the same call center shenanigans that I had experienced.

Your employees have a long list of problems they see with your company. Have you asked them what they think of your business? Employees will often openly complain with their fellow coworkers but be silent around management. Offer your employees an anonymous way to give you feedback.

Encourage employee feedback and ask for it often. Some of the roadblocks keeping your business from more success have already been discovered. Your employees know them. Do you?

The Church of the Customer helps us prepare for good customers. One point they make that I like was this:

Reward constructive criticism - Encourage customers to provide constructive feedback. Make your contact information (phone number, email address, etc.) easy to find on your website. Send customers a small gift for taking the time to send their suggestions.

Naturally, you should be able to handle customer problems and questions. Are you forgetting their suggestions and comments?

With people using your products or service everyday, they are bound to have some ideas for improving things. Consider this your free research and development team. You’d listen to your in-house R&D people. Are you willing and able to hear what your customers are saying?