Are you Making Raving Fans or Grouchy Ogres?

I USED to be a happy customer, but....

I did business with a large national lawn service for a few years. They performed well and I would have gladly recommended them.

The economy went south and I canceled the service for a while. Painfully, my lawn looked awful after a couple years.

I then resumed service with the same company. I was happy that my lawn was greener but I now regret doing business with them. I soon wanted to switch to someone else. They temporarily won my business but LOST my loyalty.

HERE'S HOW THEY BLEW IT

HASSLE THEM UNTIL THEY BUY? A bad practice that appeared to work.

My lawn was looking horrible. I intended to call the lawn company to start them up again, but their phone solicitor beat me to the punch. I told him, "I want to start up again, but I'm going into a meeting and I'm not prepared to make a buying decision today." He kept pushing. I got irritated and asked him to contact me by email. I never got the mail. I kept getting calls at my business number even though I kept asking them to change it to my home number. Only one guy complied with my request for email. Others claimed they didn't have that capability. I finally caved in and got them started on my lawn. 

HASSLE THEM TO BUY MORE? Instead building loyalty they lost business. 

They were doing a good job on my lawn, but they started calling me again on my business number to try to sell me more stuff. I kept telling them to change my number in their database, but it never happened.

I left a message for the sales manager and never heard from him. I finally called and talked to the gal who answered the phone, telling her why I wanted to cancel the service and why I wanted my money back. She handled my call and my request with skill and efficiency.

IS SCALE THEIR DOWNFALL or is it their philosophy?

The big guys have more resources. They should have better databases and better training to treat their customers well. But maybe scale is their problem. Maybe they're too big to care about details. Their sales process stinks. Apparently their database does too. And why aren't they doing email marketing? I guess they simply want to be a big, hungry cash machine with antiquated methods.

SIMPLE RESPECT is where small business can beat Goliath

Scale offers great advantages, but it can be a detriment too. Big businesses sometimes lose sight of simple courtesy and respect. This is where small business can shine if you don't make the same mistakes. Pay attention to some simple principles:

- Train your staff to be courteous and don't use a reward system that undermines that behavior.

- Develop the tools (database, etc) to communicate with customers according to their preference wherever possible.

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