It is a world where the customer can find out, can tell others and never forgets – consistency is cheaper than an apology!
Be Consistent and you will win! Especially because your customers are so very very clever and will tell you – and everyone – if you aren’t!
Some food for thought
Inconsistency implies unreliability
We order a health food product pretty regularly from a particular company – we do it on line or we phone the order in. It arrives within 3 days of our ordering, along with regular friendly communication in our e-mail. I recommend them every chance I can.
On the other hand. I order supplements from another company and they are regularly out of stock or they don’t ship the complete order – either way they put me in a position of having to call them, fight my way through their phone system to speak to someone who apologizes (!) and attempts to fix the situation. They don’t and I have since moved on and told everyone.
The last company was consistently bad – maddening!
Inconsistency creates doubt and hesitation
Everyone knows, the longer someone takes to make a decision the less likely they are to buy. This is an arena that we have created ourselves because our customers have an expectation that they will be able to make a decision quickly or react immediately based on information they have been given. Inconsistency causes frustration – and folks won’t listen to you or buy from you if you put yourselves into that box as someone who confuses them and isn’t easy to communicate with or understand. People cannot listen to you if they are questioning you at the same time!
I will talk more about inconsistency next week - Let’s focus on what you are doing to remain consistent with your customers! How do you know that your customers value your communication and deeds?