At MeloTel, we believe that excellent customer service has a lot to do with expedience. Our customers trust us not just to deliver on our promises, but to do so quickly. In today’s world, things are generally expected to happen pretty fast. We’re no longer living in a society where people understand that they have to wait for packages to arrive. Of course, this is still the case in many industries. But “can’t you just email that to me?” is a question heard a lot in our industry.
The point is that people expect fast delivery. And while not everything a company promises can be delivered in the blink of an eye, it is important to provide clarity as to when your deliveries can be made. Perhaps, it’s more accurate to say that dependability is a primary ingredient of excellent customer service. In other words, delivering by a promised time is even more important than delivering quickly.
Here are five drawbacks to missing your deadlines:
1. You’ll lose the confidence of your customers. Earning your customers’ trust is hard enough as it is. You can’t take it for granted. Knowing that they have options, most consumers give businesses one chance – that’s it – to make good on a promise. If you promise your customer delivery by a particular date and that date is missed, your customer isn’t likely to place his/her confidence in your brand again.
2. News of your poor reputation will spread. Never let it be lost on you that we’re living in a social media-crazed world. The second your company has disappointed a customer, countless people will catch word of it via their Facebook and Twitter accounts. This damages not just the relationship with the customer you’ve let down but the many other customers and potential customers you have or could have.
3. Your profits will dwindle. It is likely that you sell the same products as your competitors. But when your reputation for not delivering on time is becoming widespread, it makes you susceptible to losing customers who may actually have been happy with your services before. Now, they have become nervous about continuing their working relationship with your brand. People don’t tend to want to shell out money for companies who cannot meet their deadlines.
4. Potential returns. In many cases, people need products delivered to them by specific dates for specific reasons. If those dates are missed, the products become no longer useful. As a result, you’ll experience an influx of returns. Of course, this also impacts profit margins as you’ll have to both provide refunds and find ways to restock your shelves with items you expected to have already moved.
5. You’ll need to revamp your company image. It may sound drastic to suggest that your company may have to start from scratch when it misses its deadlines. And we’re not quite suggesting that. We are, however, saying that you’ll need to take a look at your policies and rework them so that you’re not making the same mistakes in future. As well, you’ll want to make sure that you satisfy your disgruntled customers by offering compensation of some sort to make up your missteps.
At MeloTel, we make on-time deliveries a top priority! For more information about our fantastic VoiP-based Commercial Phone Services and the FREE telephones that come with them, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-888-MELOTEL or use the “Live Chat Support” feature on our website!
