The Best Gift for Your Clients and Customers
Companies often struggle this time of year to find ‘the perfect thank you gift’ for their customers and clients. Here’s the best one I can think of:
Keep Your Word.
That’s it! Just do what you said you would do. Keep your promises. The promises you have in your ads. The promises in your mission statement. The promises you make in casual and not-so-casual conversation with those who give you money and keep you in business.
Common sense? Apparently not. A lot of people don’t seem to get this. They make promises to make you go away right now, so they won’t have to think about how upset you’d be if they said what they really meant, which is “No!” or even “Hell No!”
See, I don’t need another calendar or cup from my vendors. I need them to deliver goods on time. I need them to provide the services they promised. I need to be able to run my business with the assurance that I’ve chosen the right CPA, the right Contractor, the right Promotional Company.
Recently I’ve had to waste untold hours following up with a CPA that created havoc in my business with his recommendations and then severe lack of follow-through. I’ve had to spend money, time, and energy fixing a mess a contractor created. No matter how many calendars and gadgets either of these people gave me, it wouldn’t give me back the time and money lost.
All I wanted was for them to Keep Their Word. That’s all.
At best, the downside of not keeping your word is that people talk. And they blog!! At worst, if you require us to constantly come back to you to get you to keep your word, attorneys can get involved.
Running a business and a household is stressful. People need help. That’s why you’re in business. Your solution, whether it’s a service or product, provides relief for the stress; provides a solution for the challenges.
If you don’t keep your word, you ADD to the stress. If you make us chase you, you add exponentially to the stress. And that’s just dumb. Why? Because people don’t just stop being mad and go away. They might not make noise for a while, but somewhere, somehow, that upset at your lack of follow-through will show up again. Harvard Business Review said it best…
“Conflict arises from people’s needs, and needs unmet do not go away. They just lie in wait for the next opportunity to express themselves. Which, in organizational life usually means they will continue to get in the way of something we want or need to get done.â€
Management Update
Harvard Business Review
Be smart this year. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Keep the ones you make, or at least find ways to mitigate the problems caused by your lack of keeping them. Create standards in your company to insure that problem customers are not being created by employees who don’t understand this.
A hui hou (till we meet again,)
Beth
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Beth Terry is a Certified Speaking Professional and Trainer who travels the world conducting training programs and speaking to conventions and conferences. Her high energy and humorous programs are filled with common sense, practical, memorable and do-able tips and tools. Topics: How to handle crazy times and difficult people, Overwhelm, Stress, Change, Difficult Customers, Difficult Employees, Difficult Bosses.
Her books, Walking in a Crowd of Angels * and 101 Ways to Make Your Life Easier are Great Ways to get your loved ones motivated and inspired over the holidays and into the new year. Order today!!
© 2007 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc
* While supplies last. We are down to the last box last 30 of our First Edition copies of Walking In a Crowd of Angels. This is the book that was distributed at the Pentagon to families who lost a loved on in the attack of 9/11
