Information Sells

Customers Are Not Disposable

How many ways are there to tell your customers to take a hike?

I was recently asked to rewrite a customer service letter for a landscape company. Every December and January, this company lays off most of its crew and cuts back its service. Right before the reduced hours begin, it sends a form letter to all clients explaining that although there will be no service for the next three to six weeks, there will be no reduction in the monthly service fee, either.

Every year the same letter goes out, and every year cancellations and angry calls roll in.

Now, by itself, reduced service in the dead of winter is neither unexpected nor intolerable. But the landscaper had managed to craft such an appalling letter that one former client literally held it up, when soliciting new bids, as an example of the type of service they would not accept.

How could a customer service letter go so wrong?

• They talked about themselves and their needs, instead of the clients’ needs and wishes
• They treated all customers as unimportant and interchangeable, first by sending a form letter and second by cutting service regardless of circumstances
• They failed to thank the clients for their business
• They failed to ask for a chance to continue the service in the coming year
• They told clients they were paying for nothing
• They told long-term clients that they were not even worth the time and effort it takes to write a new, one page letter every twelve months

And they did all this in just five paragraphs!

The landscaper missed an opportunity to generate goodwill and build loyalty by rebating a portion of the normal monthly service fee. (There are plenty of ways to recover this two week rebate throughout the year.) They threw away the chance to ask clients what sort of service they’d like in the winter. And they missed an opportunity to upsell additional “winterizing” services by putting the priority on cost cutting measures like lay-offs instead of specialized, targeted, profit generating jobs like storm clean up.

It took public humiliation to make them look twice at their winter letter – and even then they weren’t willing to rethink their business practices.

What sort of message do you send to your customers?

Do you thank them? Do you say how grateful you are for their patronage? Or, between the lines, do you words and deeds betray a belief that customers exist only to be squeezed until every cent has been wrung out of the transaction.

Small actions can have a big impact. Make your impact positive.

Photo by wok Released under Creative Commons License

Similar Posts:

• Customer Service – Do Your Deeds Match Your Words
• Saying No and Meaning It
• Cutting Costs or Cutting Your Throat?

Tags: customer service, mailings