Why do so many companies make it so difficult to give them money? Here are just 5 ways to make me take my money elsewhere?
- Don’t have a website
- Have a website, but don’t provide contact details
- Have a website with contact details, but don’t respond to my queries
- Don’t return my phone calls
- Break your promises, or make unreasonable promises
I bet you are thinking that your business would never do any of these. These are not difficult things to get right; they really are the basics. If you can’t get these right, how are you going to get a complex task like implementing a 5 year growth strategy right?
In this week alone, every one of these has happened to me several times, when trying to work with both small and large organisations.
Hi Craig
I’ll have your money!
More seriously, I’m not sure I agree that a company should have a website to get my money. But I think it’s an unforgiveable sin to have a website and give an email address or web contact form and then never reply to the email contact.
Companies seem to prefer telephone communications. However I insist on paper (or cyber) trails so that it can be clear who said what when. I guess that may be why shady businesses avoid written correspondence? (Hm, the national airline is the biggest defaulter in my experience, but perhaps I’m the only unhappy customer in South Africa…..)
I have to add that website designers may be at fault too. I am involved with an organisation where we found that the queries from our website were going into thin air, never to be seen by anyone again. Hence an actual email address is far preferable to a website contact form.
It certainly does appear that many people in South Africa promise things too blithely and do not follow up with solid service. Keep wondering what has entrenched this attitude, and how we can turn it around.
I recently made an enquiry with an overseas company about a duplicate deduction from my credit card. It was my mistake – I had forgotten that I had signed up for repeat service if I did not cancel, and I hadn’t cancelled. Within 24 hours, they had not only refunded the second deduction, but the first one as well, which was far more than I had asked for. I would like to hear about any local company providing the same service.
Best wishes
Jacquie