Would You Buy From You? – The Sanest Common Denominator

The mirror is a harsh critic.

Which can also qualify it to be a favorite, if you can stand the view from an honest vantage point. For this reason it’s a great -though difficult – exercise to look at yourself through the eyes of a customer.

We all have our preferences, expect to be treated a certain way, even feel entitled to this treatment, right or wrong. In a perfect world, we’re all certainly entitled to common courtesies like please and thank you. And yet, how often do we truly say thank you in business? Not just in emails to our customers or when a peer passes the pepper at lunch.

On the phone, to a client we call just to say thanks.

Looking an employee in the eye, with a smile, expressing gratitude.

And yet. We expect some of these things when we do business with others.

Here’s where we circle back around to the harsh critic.

Make a list of the things you expect a thriving, successful restaurant to have. My list has:

• a website where I can see a menu
• good reviews
• a helpful and courteous waitstaff
• a clean kitchen
• takes credit card in addition to cash

Here’s an even more fun one. List things that irritated you so much that you stopped doing business with another company. I’ll share some of mine:

• someone on the staff was rude to me
• they didn’t have basic things I thought a business should have
• couldn’t talk to a human on the phone
• nobody ever acknowledged my complaint, even to say they got it or were working on it
• couldn’t avoid talking to a human – no website, email
• had a service they abruptly stopped having with no notice
• no office near us we could walk into to talk to a live human

Now, the first time I did this, it wasn’t for the exercise we’re doing. My then-roommate and I were bored and this was almost like a game- could we find one place to place bulk orders for a particular thing online that could make us both happy?

This was about 2 years into owning my own business, and for a reason I can’t remember, I looked down at the list and thought “Is it fair that I include on this list that you can’t speak to a human on the phone? You can’t speak to a human when you call my business either.”

And it was then that I realized that when people were deciding whether or not to do business with me, they weren’t going through their list of must-haves and asking themselves if it was fair.

They want what they want.

If I don’t have it and my competition does – that’s usually not a win for me.

This went beyond the loss of an existing customer whose needs were being met, which is pretty bad, since a reported 82% of people said they stopped doing business with a company after a negative experience in one study on customer experience. It could also interfere with getting new customers and clients, which is more expensive endeavor.

It wasn’t easy to even contemplate some changes, but I had to make them.

Some things I literally could not compromise on – at the time I was still bedridden much of the week, so being available to talk to people in person was not an option. The company was just me then, but it became a priority during expansion.

Other things I was ashamed to say I hadn’t addressed. Like a live person to answer the phone. Even if I couldn’t answer my own phone any more due to my work schedule, sure I could get at least a part time person or service?

So look at your list and think about where your business is falling short of what your expectations would be if you weren’t the owner, and where your competitors are beating you. If you’re really honest with yourself, it can be a real eye-opener.