Is your company stingy?
by Andrew Smith on 04/02/08 at 5:05 pm
3 comments
Three events in the last few days left me shocked at how much damage companies are doing to themselves, probably without realising it.
I went to the Kirstenbosch Tea Garden with my wife. We had been given a “Tea for Two” voucher as a Christmas present from friends, and they baby-sat while we enjoyed an outing. The waiter took the voucher and explained that the tea involved various cakes and sandwiches, and a choice of tea or coffee. I’m sure this voucher cost a fair amount of money. My wife asked for decaf coffee. “Sorry mam, you’ll have to pay extra for that.” Youch. I understand that decaf is fractionally more expensive, but everyone knows that coffee is the most profitable item on the menu, so the extra cost involved couldn’t have been more than a few cents.
Today a friend received the bill from his daughter’s dancing teacher, and in the remittance section it said something like, “If paying via bank transfer, please include the proof of payment in this envelope. If you don’t, you will be charged for the bank statement print out fee”. Youch.
And finally, I asked a pool company to quote on moving our pool pump. They came around, did some measurements, and a week later they faxed a quote. Attached was an invoice of R280 for “call out fee for quoting”, payable within 14 days if I didn’t accept the quote. Youch. They had not mentioned this cost at all up until then. 14 days ended today, and true-as-Bob I received a faxed statement saying my “account” was now overdue. I didn’t even know I was a client yet. Their finance department is obviously more efficient than their sales department, because I have received no follow-up asking whether I want to actually go ahead with the work. Perhaps they never service any clients, and this is how they make their money.
I can see how decisions like this come about. An over-worked dancing teacher finally gives up trying to reconcile payments with students. A coffee shop starts leaking profit on patrons who push the limits, and decide to stick to the rules. A pool shop spends hundreds of man-hours quoting on jobs that never materialise.
But, please remember the “Youch” factor. You really don’t want customers saying that word and thinking about your company at the same time. It will undo the thousands that you’ve spent on marketing messages like, “We’re on your side”, and “How can we help you?”. I suggest syphoning off some of that marketing-spend and allocating it to free decaf-upgrades, in the faith that your customers will do some of the marketing for you.
The trend in 21st century is to try and form a relationship with customers. We engage through company blogs and get customers involved in designing and customisizing products. That just makes petty charges and beaurocratic rules really feel like a slap in the flace from a friend.
Just like you probably have generous friends and stingy friends, I’m sure you could list some generous companies and some stingy ones. Which type are you building?
Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew Smith.
sooo
Feb 7th, 2008
So true Andrew, so true. I’m not sure if you saw the post by Cher about when we went to a rather fancy wine estate and ordered the cheese platter which came with very little cheese and even fewer biscuits, but at a rather large price. When we asked if we could have a couple more biscuits, which we had seen down the road at another wine estate being sold for 50c (!) a packet, we were told no. When Cher wrote about it, the wine estate did, to their credit, immediately respond by apologising and inviting us back, by way of a personalised hand written letter, but somehow I still have that “youch” factor when I think about it and I’m not so sure I will be going back.
Mizasiwa
Apr 4th, 2008
I am in a large corporate that deals with the public and iv come fromone part of that company that literally thrives on its ethos that we are client centred. To the degree that naturally it is in my nature to be client centred even when im the client…Nothing gets up my nose more than when the ‘little’ things like youve mentioned gets overlooked. Most comanies say tehy are changing there outlook to be more client centred but there and their staffs actions show the complete opposite. I could give you a number of examples but it would only bore you to tears , and frustrate most. Isnt it funny that when your salary is literally being paid by your client most staff dont even have the courtesy to *smile*
Im sure you know bu they cannot hold you to that charge unless you signed and acknowledment of it – they are obviously not NCA aproved – sorry for them!!
PARSIMONIOUS: stingy — Jedword
Jul 31st, 2010
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