Whether you are a one-person company or a huge corporation and you’re in the service business, make sure your customers can – easily - get in touch. Put a contact number or email address on every page of your website. Make your organisation – and the executives within it – accessible.
If you don’t feel confident about publishing the email addresses of your executives, then ensure you do have an info@ address (or a contactus@ or talktous@ or hello@). Some way of getting in touch.
But that is only half the story. Having a generic enquiry email address is only effective if it is someone’s responsibility to action. Make sure someone is checking – and dealing with – your info@ address.
It might be an enquiry about a piece of new business or a customer complaint. Either way, it matters.
I had a disappointing customer experience in a restaurant/cafe. A company who failed in their brand promise. I thought they had a good brand and they would be grateful for me talking the time and trouble to feedback. I wanted to email the CEO but could not find his email address in the public domain so I wrote to him c/o the info@ email address that I found on the company website.
That was 13 days ago.
And I have heard nothing back. No acknowledgement. Nothing.
And that lack of response has dented their brand equity*. It might only be feedback over a £2 cup of coffee but that oversight has the potential to damage their reputation. So stay on top of customer feedback, whatever business you are in.
*but I’m giving them a second chance and have filled in an enquiry form on their website: let's see if they are listening.....
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
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The postscript to my own experience is that when I completed the enquiry form, I found the company were listening. An email back from the CEO within 24 hours. Good that they are on the case with that customer feedback mechanism; bad that they never dealt with the original email.
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