With billions of people using social Media, a facebook post, instagram post, tweet or social media post can go viral in minutes. Keep this in mind when dealing with your customers. A customer may give you a good review online of you do a great job. But in today’s world, if a customer has a bad experience, they will let the world know immediately through social media. Gone are the days when businesses can have bad customer service and easily move on.
Let’s examine the following Scenerio. A client made an appointment at a hair salon. The client pays a $100 deposit to secure a time slot. The client arrives early to the appointment to find that the salon owner is not there. The salon owner is an hour late to the appointment. The client pays the remaining $150 for the work for a total of $250 for the service. Two days after the appointment, the client sends the text below to the salon owner asking What to do about their hair that is not done correctly. The salon owner does not respond. 12 hours later, the client sends a second text asking for verification that the first text was received.
The Salon Owner responded with the following:
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Hello, how are you? When I realized you texted me, it was late and I was still at work, so I was going to respond this morning. Please give me time to respond. I do not handle any business before 9am so I ask that you please respect my time. I’m not sure what type of stylist you’ve been dealing with, but I’m a professional and I handle business as such. *:) happy It looks like your closure is sliding. Thursday and Fridays are pretty busy for me as it is the start of the weekend. I only have late afternoon today and tomorrow around 4:30 available. I am not working in the salon on Saturday. If this evening or tomorrow evening work for you, let me know. I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks! Renee’ Bennett |
A photo of the actual email is below:
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This email is an example of poor customer service from a business to a client There are several things that the business owner did wrong.
1) The salon owner chastises the client for contacting her saying: “Please respect my time”. – Businesses should never be rude to clients. Even though the salon owner was late to the clients appointment, She still expects the client to respect her time and not contact her.
2) The salon owner fails to offer an apology – We all know that sometimes things go wrong in business. The first thing that a business should do is apologize. It does not matter if the business is at fault or not. The business needs to acknowledge and apologe for the problem.
3) The business owner did not make the client a priority. – At the end of the email, the business owner lets the client know when it’s convienient for the client to come back. This is not taking in consideration the client’s schedule.
Remember that your customers do not have to use your services. There are probably thousaands of other businesses that do what you do and maybe some who do it better. You should look at your clients as an asset and be grateful that they chose you.
How would you respond to this salon?