Common mistakes can kill your small business, but most of them can be easily corrected or avoided.
Today’s Bad Example: Breaking your promises to customers
I asked for some examples of small biz mistakes on Twitter, and you answered! This time, let’s combine two real-world examples of mistakes:
BarbaraKB Not “call me back” in the 24 hours that they promised. If it will be 48 hours, then just say that. ;-)
jnswanson smilingly give great directions to another location… but with the wrong highway number.
In both cases, the person representing the company broke a promise to a customer by providing bad information.
Right now you are probably thinking that you don’t do this, that you give only good information, and that you don’t break promises. Think again. During your every day conversations with customers, you will inevitably make a mistake, or circumstances will change and keep you from doing what you promised. It will happen, and it probably happens more than you think.
Solutions
This is squarely under the customer service heading. I can’t claim a magic knowledge of your business and your customers, so I recommend a few favorite sites that consistently share good advice on serving your customers.
Once again, Zane will probably come up with some better advice than I did on this one!
Your Assignment
Together, we are going to try to help each other out of these most common, deadly mistakes. You can use real world examples, real small businesses. Write it up, take a picture, or shoot a short video. Take care not to embarrass the offenders! Key point: include suggestions on how to do it right!
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Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
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