We’ve all heard the mantra that it is more cost effective to retain your existing customers than to acquire new ones. Yet over the past few months, I think a lot of businesses have forgotten this!
A few weeks ago, I booked in for sclerotherapy (I have strawberry patch on my chest that I was born with). The clinic had moved from the suburb next to me, to Mt Lawley and instead of finding something closer I still booked with the same Dr as I had been to see him a few times.
He was always running late with patients, as all Doctors seem to! On average around 15 minutes.
I had made my appointment for 9:45am so I didn’t have to fight traffic and could then go to the city to work. I don’t live far from the city either only around 10 minutes in no traffic. I turned up right on time at the new location. Which to be honest was next to a dodgy looking GP clinic, where I could see a tonne of people waiting. Not really private like where they were located before.
The receptionist finally came out to greet me, after I rang the bell a few times and told me it won’t be long. Then 10am came. She said she was just calling the Dr…he wasn’t even bloody there! She got off the phone and said he was running late, I asked how long he’d be and she couldn’t tell me. I asked her again if they had my appointment booked and she said yes.
She called back after I insisted I needed to know how long he would be. Another 20 minutes. My exact words were “are you goddam kidding?” She said she was not. I told her I had moved appointments around, driven from south the river and have been waiting here for 30 minutes and the Dr isn’t even here. I told her that this was awful service and I wouldn’t be returning, this is not how you run a business.
I even followed up with an email. And you know what, there was crickets. Nothing. Nada. They didn’t bother reaching out to me, but they still thought it was a good idea to keep me on their mailing list. There was such a disconnect.
They had lost a client for life and a client that would tell people how bad their service was. I have never ever kept a client waiting for 40 minutes (or even 5!) Lucky for them they don’t have reviews turned on their Facebook page, and I am not one to publicly write a bad review, but I would have.
Last week, I was at the Chemist getting medication for my daughter who had croup. The Pharmacist greeted me by name, asked how my daughter was doing at kindy and suggested some extra vitamins for the family, because well kindy kids are snot bags ?. I was back in at the chemist yesterday and the Pharmacist right away asked how my daughter was doing.
That my friend is great customer service! I will never go to another Pharmacy. I love my one.
What was it with the other place and their bad service? I for one think the Dr makes too much money and has the clinic as a side project and the staff weren’t trained on how to handle a customer complaint, so they did the worst thing you could do. They buried their head in the sand.
Customer service needs to be at the centre of your business. I cam across this quote which I think sums it up.
“To over-deliver in service to a customer is by far the most valuable thing to a business. Because there are only two ways to improve the operations of a business: increase sales or decrease costs.”
