Your company’s value comes from your customers, especially your repeat customers. Whereas your employees are your most important ASSET – your business value is solely driven by customers. No customers, no cash flow. If you have few repeat customers, your future cash flows are harder to predict, and therefore the value of your business is reduced. As the Kruglak brothers of Genesis Security Systems said in this Washington Business Journal column, “Keep an unrelenting focus on the company’s customers.”
Customer service is one of the big areas where a small business differentiates from a larger business, so how do small businesses blow it? Micromanaging and the fear of giving bad news.
Fear of Giving Bad News: Your customers are planning on you to deliver, and when you don’t, it can cause many other problems for them. If you tell them the bad news, at least they can plan alternatives. Yes, they may still be disappointed with you, but they will likely be FURIOUS if you promised them that you would meet the deadline and you gave them no opportunity to plan alternatives. Good-bye repeat business, good-bye referrals, hello bad press!
Micromanaging: if you are somehow involved in every transaction in your business, then when things get busy – or you get injured and have to go to the hospital – the flow of information to your customers gets constrained or completely shut down. This is what happened to me this weekend – the owner of a small manufacturer suffered an accident and – since his cell phone is the company’s phone -- all communication with his company stopped.
Grow Strong!
Coach Grev
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