Have you taken an objective look at your customer service policies lately? Or have you been on the front lines answering your own customer complaints?

If you haven’t, I suggest you do. And I would do it sooner than later, especially if you aren’t up to date on who in your company is saying what to your customers.

My recent experience with a local restaurant brings this issue to the top of my mind and I want to share it with you. You’ve probably ran into a very similar one with a company you weren’t entirely pleased with yourself.

My wife and I, with 10 other friends made reservations at a very busy restaurant on a Saturday night. To make a long story short, they screwed up the reservations.

We ended up waiting for 2 long hours for a table, and when we finally were seated, there was only room for 8. Then, they offered to give the other 4 a separate table, the whole time knowing we wanted to sit together as a group.

The service was lackluster, to say the least.  Friendly, but not attentive, only checking on us one time during the entire meal.

Needless to say, we were not impressed.

The next day, I emailed the owner describing our dissatisfaction. I didnt even get a response..until three weeks later.

And his response?

“I’m sorry about the misunderstanding. You should have asked to talk with a manager (which, by the way, we did). Hopefully it won’t happen again next time you visit us”.

Woaa… It definitely wont happen again! No question about it – because my wife and I, ten of our good friends, and most likely a few of their friends will never go back!  They just conservatively lost 15 customers, all because of poor customer service, and worse yet it was from the owner.

Pretty impressive response huh? And from the owner himself. I guess he can cook, but he surely doesn’t have a clue about how to treat customers so they will come back again.

Great customer service has to start from the top. Now we didn’t complain to get a bunch of free meals out of the deal, but a sincere apology with maybe a coupon would have gone a long way.

But instead, he made me feel like it was my fault because they screwed up.

So, the moral of this week’s rambling is this:

Take care of and care about the satisfaction of your customers. Do what you have to in order to keep them happy, because they are your business. They pay your paychecks! If you don’t, trust me, they will be more than happy to spend there money  at your competition.

To get more information about how to develop and implement a customer service and marketing plan for your business, about this post, marketing advice, or about my direct response copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

Visit www.webcontentNH.com for Website design, SEO copy, or online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services
www.crestviewmarketing.com