It’s been said that nothing kills a bad product faster than a good advertising campaign. If you are in the business of selling products, you can often recognize the dogs and eliminate them from your product mix before too much damage is done. But, if we define your “product” as not just the item you sell, but the entire customer experience you create, there are many other things to consider.
After more than 20 years of creating and managing advertising campaigns for businesses, I can say that customer service is one of the most important elements of any marketing effort. You may have the best product at the best time and the best price. But, if you’re sales staff isn’t up to making the customer feel genuinely valued it’s all for nothing.
I worked with a retail chain that was having problems with sales in a couple of their stores. We tried everything. Some efforts provided some anemic results and others created a short sales spike that quickly disappeared. One day we found a scathing review on one of the review sites on the web. It detailed the quintessential bad service experience that we all love to pass on to others. A follow-up mystery shopping exercise quickly revealed a sales person who should have never been a sales person.
The problem was fixed, but the damage lingered for some time. This kind of problem can be hard to find quickly if there are just one or two people in a branch store or office most of the time. So, it is valuable to have an on-going service evaluation program such as a mystery shopper in place along with on-going training and coaching for your employees.
You can lose a sale because of price. You can lose a sale because a customer returns an item. But, you will lose a customer if your pre sale or more importantly, your post sale service is bad.
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