Do you love your customers?

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A business truth is nothing happens until a sale is made.  You are in business to sell products or services for a profit.  In order to do that you need customers or clients.  These are really important people in your life because without them you cannot sell your products or services.  Small business owners should love their customers, but sometimes I wonder just how much some of them do.  If every small business loved their customers I have to believe we would see much better customer service than we find in some companies.  It almost seems that some small business owners and companies go out of their way to make it hard for their customers to do business with them.

Several years ago I read a self-published book by a business owner in a nearby community titled Our Bathrooms Are Not For Customers.  It was a book about how some businesses treat their customers and potential customers poorly.  The title for the book came from a sign he noticed in a store in which we was doing business.  He wondered why a business would not have a public bathroom their customers could use.  The really only possible reason is that it would require keeping it clean and presentable, but that hardly seems like a burden on a company.  What happens if someone is having "problems" and needs a bathroom quickly?  What about the customer with a small child?  In either circumstance what do these folks do?  I guess in those businesses with "No Public Bathroom" signs the customer heads for the nearest place that has a toilet he or she can use, but does the original business really believe that person will return to complete his or her shopping?  Not likely.

Another way small companies make it hard for people to do business with them is by not offering credit.  As I admitted in my book Mistake for many years our company did not offer credit to our customers.  We didn't even accept credit cards.  If someone wanted a new heating and air conditioning system they had to be able to pay cash or arrange their own financing if they were going to buy it from us.  It's probably best that I never knew how many thousands of dollars in sales went to our competitors simply because they offered financing.  I finally made arrangements with a local company to provide credit to our customers and found out that within 10-15 minutes we could let them know whether or not their application had been approved.  It wasn't long before we found out the studies were right...when people make purchases with credit they usually spend more money than if they are paying with cash.  For us that meant they were more likely to buy the more high end equipment which resulted in greater profit margins.  You wouldn't think in the 21st century we would even need to bring this up, but just today I did business with a small company that still does not accept credit cards.  Last year I ate in two small diners that didn't take credit cards.  I never returned to either of them again, but I did recently drive past one and saw it was out of business.

Small businesses make it hard for their customers to do business with them when they refuse to listen to their needs.  Many times salespeople fail to make a sale because they never stop talking long enough to find out what the customer wants.  The best salespeople ask a lot of questions and build their sales strategy to that customer around what the customer has said in response to the questions.  If you offer a product or service that fits nicely with what the customer has said he or she wants you are much more likely to make the sale.  A few years ago I was buying suits and having to drive an hour each way to purchase the brand I like.  Nothing fancy, just average suits price-wise, but I liked the way they fit and how they hung.  I went into our finest men's clothing store in our community and asked if they sold that brand suit.  The owner said they did not because no one in our community would spend that much money on a suit.  He assured me that the brand he carried was made by the company that made the suits I liked so I tried one of his suits on.  It was a horrible fit and I didn't buy the suit.  I cannot believe that I was the only person in our community that purchased that brand of suit, but the owner had no interest in making that brand available because he knew no one would buy it.  That store closed last year.

The final issue that makes me wonder how much some small businesses love their customers is the way they ignore them.  How many times have you done business with a small business and was made to feel like an inconvenience?  Nothing makes me more upset when shopping to be standing at the cash register ready to pay for my purchase when the employee has to stop and answer the phone and spend 3-5 minutes answering questions.  I've been tempted to just walk out and leave my items laying there.  I've come to the store, looked for the items I wanted to buy, and I'm there with cash ready to pay for them, and I have to wait while the employee answers questions from someone who's too lazy to come to the store and shop for himself or herself.

That's just three examples, and if we had more space we could describe dozens more.  For more information about how we can provide much better customer service than we find in some small businesses read my book Mistakes.  I devote an entire chapter to this issue.