Let me be crystal clear....I'm most definitely not the shiny example of how to do things in this world. God knows, I've made plenty of mistakes. Some, absolutely epic in scope because when it comes to building and running a business....Things can go sideways and south, very quickly!
Running a business can be very rewarding, and for over 20 plus years, it was my passion. The joy of creating something that people put their trust in, was such an awesome feeling. Giving value to a community, is truly something everyone should experience in their entrepreneurial lives.
But like I mentioned....Things can go south very quickly. And when you do have issues, the customers that put their trust and belief into your products or services, need to be reassured that things are being handled.
They don't always expect a solution immediately, even though that should always be the aim but generally, all they want is a voice to reasure them, their concerns are being looked into.
Here's the kicker....99% of the companies on planet earth put this kind of service down near the bottom of the priority list.
Sometimes it feels like these companies just expect your business, and don't value it. Which is like the biggest faux pas in business, in my opinion. But the good news is, when you do priority the communication channels between your customer base and your company, relationships can last decades!
I had an issue this weekend with a product / service on the blockchain. Like with anything tech related, things can go south. Not everything is going to work all the time. Which is expected, especially in this space.
The problem was, after 48 hours of downtime and issues, there was zero communication between the company and it's community. Zero official announcements, and no response to support tickets up until this morning.
48 hours of hearing nothing but silence is....Unacceptable.
All customers need in these kind of situations are messages as simple as this:
"We are aware of the issues, and are looking into them!"
But that was nowhere to be found.
It really doesn't take much to put a message of reassurance out there, and before someone says 'we dont have the money for a support person', what are you even doing then????
You don't value your customers?
You don't think their concerns are valid?
Folks, if you don' put your customers absolutely first, at the top of the priority list, you don't have a business. You have a disaster waiting to happen.
At the beginning of this article, I stated that I am most definitely not the shiny example of perfection when it comes to online business. However that is something I always prioritized with mine. We hired an entire staff of people to make sure our customer complaints and concerns were addressed. We had a 1-800 number simply to reassure our customers, we were there when they needed us.
We made it a priority, we made sure our community knew, we valued them.
I cannot for the life of me, understand why companies in the day of bots and silly AI chats, don't put customer service and customer retention at the top of the priority list.