This is Part Three of a five-part series: Joy of Honesty in Business
Dishonesty is so rampant we can hardly be bothered to take offense:
- A previously recorded message insists that our call is important, but apparently not important enough to answer.
- A letter arrives marked “Important! Open Immediately” — a sure sign of unwanted solicitation.
- A privacy policy surreptitiously allows a company to sell our email address; we’ve given up the fight; say a prayer to the patron saint of spam filters.
- A vendor sends you a mail-merged, thank-you note; your last name is misspelled and in all caps.
- A corporate mission statement places customer satisfaction first, then throws up layers of bureaucracy to distance customers from those with the knowledge and ability to solve problems.
Almost all our business interactions are tainted with these half-truths, actions incongruous with words. All smoke and mirrors. Half the time it feels like companies are doing just enough to not outright lie . . . but only just.
Do you want to be different from 99 percent of other companies? Be honest. Be genuine.
I’m not the first to recommend this, but how do you go about “being genuine?”
- Admit when you’re wrong, quickly and genuinely.
- As soon as something isn’t going to live up to your customer’s expectation — or even your own internal expectations — tell them. Explain why there’s a problem and what you’re doing about it.
- Send hand-written letters. Second-best, send typed but personalized letters.
- Newsletters and blogs should contain useful, interesting articles, not just plugs for your product.
- Instead of pretending your new software has no bugs and every feature you could possibly want, actively engage customers in new feature discussions and turn around bug fixes in under 24 hours.
- A human being answers the phone as fast as possible.
- Emails are answered in under 15 minutes by a human, not an automated reply. If it’s going to take a long time to answer, a short response buys you as much time as you need.
- Send emails from real people, not from info@company.com.
- Send personal emails.
It’s true that most of these ideas take time and effort; that’s exactly why they work! That’s why your competitors don’t do it, but that excuse isn’t good enough for you. You know that thrilling your customers is how you keep customers, how you earn their business even in recession, and how you get people to fight on your behalf when the budgets get cut.
People do business with people they like. Communicate quickly as yourself, and be willing to admit shortcomings.
In other words, be a real person.
Do you have more ideas for how to build genuine customer relationships? Join the conversation; leave a comment.
This post originally was published Jan. 26, 2009, on Jason Cohen’s blog, “a smart bear.“ Check there to see comments and more tips from his readers!
Jason Cohen founded Smart Bear Software, maker of Code Collaborator, a tool for peer code review and recent winner of the Jolt Award. He took Smart Bear from start to multiple millions in revenue and 50 percent profit margin without debt or VC, then sold it for cash. He also is a founding member of ITWatchdogs, another bootstrapped startup which became profitable and was sold. He’s also a mentor at Capital Factory (like TechStars or Y-Combinator in Austin). And, he’s the author of Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review, the most popular book (35,000 copies) on modern, lightweight methods for doing peer code review effectively without everyone hating life. He blogs at “a smart bear.” Email him: jason (at) asmartbear (dot) com
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