• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Submissions
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Jan 29, 2023
  • Startup
    • Creating a Plan
    • Funding a Startup
    • Franchise Center
    • Getting Your Office Ready
    • Making Your Business Official
    • Marketing Your New Business
    • Personal Readiness
  • Run & Grow
    • Customer Service
    • Human Resources
    • Innovation
    • Legal
    • Operations
    • Risk Management
  • Leadership
    • Best Practices
    • Communication
    • Green Initiatives
    • Open Culture
    • Strategic Planning
    • People Skills
  • Sales & Marketing
    • Advertising and Lead Generation
    • Marketing Innovations
    • Marketing Plans
    • Online Marketing
    • Relationships
    • Sales Activities
  • Finance
    • Budgeting and Personal Finance
    • Payments and Collections
    • Tax and Accounting
    • Pricing Strategy
    • Working with Investors
    • Working with Lenders
  • Tech
    • eCommerce
    • Hardware
    • Software
    • Security
    • Tech Reviews
    • Telecom
  • Shop

SmallBizClub

Helping You Succeed

taxbandits banner
Home / Run and Grow / Customer Service / Communication with Your Customers
Communication with Your Customers

Communication with Your Customers

6776 Views

May 5, 2015 By Jerry Osteryoung

Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.

~Yehuda Berg
 
I was sitting in a pre-op room of a hospital waiting for my very special friend, Ellie, to be called for her knee replacement surgery. We were told to be there at 8:30 a.m. At 8:45, we were taken to the pre-op room where we were to wait for her to be taken into surgery. She did not get wheeled into surgery until 1 p.m.
 
As it turned out, her surgeon had been delayed by a problem in an earlier surgery. This is understandable, but no one ever came to tell us about the delays. In fact, when I went out to talk to the staff at the nursing station and asked when she would be called, they acted as though I was being unreasonable even asking. Every time, their response was that they would let us know when it got close, but they never did. We did not see them until they came to take her to surgery.
 
The nursing staff was very capable, medically speaking, but clearly they had not been trained in customer service—or patient service, in this case. Had they had this training, they would have known that you always give the customer the best information you have at the time and then keep them updated. 
 
This is such an easy problem to fix. The nursing staff could have said that they would monitor the situation and give us updates every 30 minutes to an hour. That would have given us a much better sense of security that someone was keeping tabs on us.
 
This particular case is from the medical field, but examples of similar communication failures are just as pervasive in business.
 
Related Article: 5 Steps to Building a Culture of Communication
 
One firm had a book of business so large that they were running about a month behind in deliveries. Unfortunately, they never let their customers know about these delays, so many of them just shifted suppliers. In the end, this situation cost the company almost 20% in sales the next year.
 
They could have avoided losing that business simply by informing their customers about the delay and offering them the option to replace their order with alternative products that were in inventory.
 
Communications are so important to each and every business. Most issues with communications are easy to fix, but you first need to be aware of the problem. Then you need to act on it.
 
One way to identify where your potential problems are is to map out each instance when your business communicates with your customers. For every one, figure out what can go wrong with communications or customer service and the steps you can take to fix these issues. This exercise can really show you where your company is vulnerable.
 
A survey of your customers is another thing you can do to gauge the effectiveness of your communications. Simply ask them to tell you how well they feel you communicate with them. A survey focusing exclusively on communications is so important, but so many firms just do not do them.
 
Now go out and make sure that your communications with your customers are the best they can be.
 
You can do this!

Filed Under: Customer Service Tagged With: Communication, Customer Service, Jerry Osteryoung

Jerry Osteryoung

Jerry Osteryoung

Jerry Osteryoung is a consultant to businesses—he has directly assisted over 3,000 firms. He is the Jim Moran Professor of Entrepreneurship (Emeritus) and Professor of Finance (Emeritus) at Florida State University. He was the founding Executive Director of the Jim Moran Institute and served in that position from 1995 through 2008. His latest book, coauthored with Tim O’Brien, “If You Have Employees, You Really Need This Book,” is a bestseller on Amazon. Email Jerry @ jerry.osteryoung@gmail.com

Related Posts

  • improve-team-communication-with-brief--daily-meetings11 Important Tips for Increasing Communication with Your Team
  • 6 Ways Leadership Has Evolved in 2022
  • never-overlook-the-importance-of-communicationHow to Bring the Personal Touch to Company Communications

Primary Sidebar

Random

A Beautiful Mind: How New Psychiatrists Can Develop a Successful Practice

Mar 29, 2019 By Rebecca Shipley

In Marketing, Practice Like You Play

May 12, 2016 By SmallBizClub

9 Tactics to Sharpen Your Headlines. The NYT is Totally to Blame

Nov 7, 2017 By Chad Pollitt

How to Establish a Video Marketing Strategy for Your Business

Jan 15, 2019 By Anand Srinivasan

An Unexpected Advertising Strategy That Pays Off in the Long Run

Jan 19, 2017 By YEC

Footer

About Us

Small Biz Club is the premier destination for small business owners and entrepreneurs. To succeed in business, you have to constantly learn about new things, evaluate what you’re doing, and look for ways to improve—that’s what we’re here to help you do.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 by Tarkenton Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved | Terms | Privacy