As business owners we’re often trying to do a hundred things a day, and very often we're trying to do two or more things at once because, well, there's just so much stuff we have to do each day.
And that's when it's very easy to make a mistake.
Like I did the other day. Okay, it wasn't a biggie, and I was able to put things right quickly. The customer was really pleased – in fact, I suspect, MORE pleased than if I hadn't made the mistake in the first place.
When mistakes happen, we have to deal with them. And in my experience the more upfront, open and honest we are the better our customers like it. Handled (very) well, bad things can even turn out to be a positive for your business.
You see, your customers won’t hate you for mistakes that you’ve made, or for things that have gone wrong – providing you ‘fess up and sort them out – they'll hate you for not putting them right.
Bad things create a ‘moment of truth’ in our relationship with our customers. In most cases, how we react and respond is what determines the outcome – not what happened in the first place.
It’s not enough to just fix the problem. The best companies go further than their customer could ever expect, and so the negative becomes a positive – because of how the mistake was dealt with.
So embrace your mistakes, and see them as opportunities to strengthen your customer relationships.
As you know, business is all about relationships…
