Making Your Small Business Stand Out

One of the best ways to improve the perception your customers have of your company is to ensure that they have confidence that you can handle their problems quickly and efficiently. The easiest way to illustrate this is with a couple of my recent experiences.

A laptop computer of mine experienced a hard drive failure while the computer was still under warranty. As I have been fixing computers for nearly twenty years, it was rather simple for me to run all the diagnostics and know for 100% certain that the problem was indeed the hard drive. As the computer was still under warranty, I called the manufacturer; after a brief "discussion" to convince them that I really did know what I was doing, they transferred me to their level 2 technical support, and an RMA was soon issued. Within 30 minutes of picking up the phone, my new hard drive was on the way, and I was firmly convinced that this company was going to take care of me.

On the other hand, my experiences with the company I bought a water heater convinced me that I should deal with a different manufacturer next time. In this case, as I know almost nothing about water heaters except how to light the pilot light, it was a lot worse. The first bad thing was that the problem happened on a Friday afternoon, and by the time I started to call for assistance, all the technical support people had gone home for the weekend. So finally, on the third day of heating water on the stove, I was finally able to contact the manufacturer. Unfortunately, hoping that the third day would be the charm was overly optimistic.

I made the mistake of NOT taking a day off from work to handle this problem with our 6-month old water heater. Because by the time we finally were able to get a technician to come out to fix the problem, it was Wednesday, and we had been taking lukewarm baths for nearly a week.

Can you see the difference in how these two companies in disparate industries handled the problems? Do you think the quality of support I received from the computer company altered my perception of the quality of service I received from the water heater company?

How does your company stack up to these two companies? Every company will experience minor problems and issues, but how does your company respond to them? Do you make it hard for your customers to get the problem fixed? Alternatively, do you try to make it simple? When you do talk to your customer, do you make them think it is their problem, and that it is their responsibility? Or do you take ownership and negotiate the appropriate outcome? Think about your response, both as a company and as an individual.