I thought it would never happen to me, but one of my credit cards was used for a purchase I didn’t make.
My first response was disbelief. We read about these things, but think they will never happen to us.
But there it was in my bank activity, a charge I did not authorize from a location about 1,000 miles away.
I track this stuff pretty closely, and I immediately called my bank.
Here is where it got interesting.
it all started with an automated response asking me to make a selection from a series of available options. The first nine options were all for new customers and add-on products.
The bank was clearly interested in selling new products to new customers, first, and then new products to existing customers, then my concern.
Wading through that list was frustrating. I mean really… I am an existing customer and I need some customer service.
Finally, I got to a live person who was very helpful. The bank’s customer service rep put in place all the things that need to be done in a situation like this. She was very efficient.
Then I told her I wanted to offer a suggestion. She offered to connect me to another number where I could leave my suggestion. Gone was the efficient customer service. She was clearly trained to handle only one thing.
Once again we can learn a lot by looking sideways at other businesses.
How easy and seamless do we make it for our existing customers when they have a concern.
Do we make them our highest priority, or do we make getting new business more important? Of course, most people will say the existing customer is more important but is that the reality?
In order to find out how you really stack up against this question, you have to do a little investigation. Go through all the steps you have for a customer that has a concern. Where are the bottlenecks? How can you eliminate the bottlenecks?
Better yet, get a customer or stranger to go through the steps outlined on your Website and in your promo material. Have them give you an analysis and take action on what you learned.
Do this before you have a real situation on your hands that causes you to lose a customer.
Very often the hard part is deciding exactly what you should be tracking. If you get stuck with trying to figure out what to track, contact me for some ideas.
Remember, you only get results if you take immediate action on your ideas.
