Do you how know easy (or difficult) it is for your customers to do business with your SMB (small-medium business) or nonprofit? If you’re not sure, I suggest you find out.
Why am I asking you this today? Because I recently had a customer experience that was so poor, I have to share it.
Albeit, it was with a financial institution – surely not considered small by any measure – but customer experience concepts are the same no matter the size of the organization.
So, here’s what happened. I tried to set up a link between my bank and one of my QuickBooks (QB) accounts so banking transactions would be entered automatically. I’ve done this in the past and thought it would take a few minutes. Uh, NO!
Related Article: What Makes Customer Service Interactions Good or Bad in the Eyes of the Customer?
I kept getting an error message when I selected my bank’s name from the scroll-down menu. So, I called the bank for technical support.
After being forwarded twice from one person to another, I finally got a rep who specializes in QB. He told me that the bank uses a “special” name when customers go through the QB bank feed setup. And, how would I know that?
So, I tried to connect using the “special” name and it still didn’t work. The rep consulted a supervisor at least three times and still, no luck.
It was taking SO long that I had to take another call and the rep said he’d call me back in 20 minutes. Uh, NOT!
Making Things Worse
The bank has made what should be a relatively easy procedure into a difficult one requiring telephone support, which has a hard cost! And, to make matters worse, QuickBooks indicated that its bank feed setup only works with the two most recent editions of Internet Explorer, which I don’t use! Yet, according to StatsCounter, the top browser globally in May, 2015 was Google Chrome!
In my upcoming book, Beyond Your Logo: 7 Brand Ideas that Matter Most for Small Business Success, I include some very interesting customer experience statistics.
- 65% of respondents stopped using a brand’s products or services because of a poor customer experience. (Parature 2014 State of Multichannel Customer Service Survey)
- 81% of prospective buyers were frustrated because the company doesn’t make it easy to do business with them. (“The $6 Trillion Opportunity: How Digital Can Improve Customer Experience to Drive Revenue Growth,” Accenture Strategy, 2015)
- 53% of US consumers switched service providers due to poor customer service experiences. (“The $6 Trillion Opportunity: How Digital Can Improve Customer Experience to Drive Revenue Growth,” Accenture Strategy, 2015)
Poor service is a ubiquitous problem that makes it challenging to do business with organizations that are not strongly customer oriented. I suggest you examine some typical customer journeys within your company or organization to identify how it’s doing. And, correct whatever needs fixing. (I offer many recommendations in the book. Hint, hint.)
Big Takeaway:
Always be customer focused. No exceptions. Your business exists for its customers. You make a living from its customers. You have a roof over your head because of its customers.” Beyond Your Logo: 7 Brand Ideas that Matter Most for Small Business Success
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