Five Ways to Torpedo Customer Relationships
November 18, 2009 by Mary Ellen
“I’m not going to play with you!”
Easy as that the five year old lets you know it’s a no-go.
What if business communication happened just as transparently? Truth is: it does. We just fail to recognize and respond to the symptoms.
See if you recognize failed relationships in the following:
- No return call. You’re following up with a potential customer, partner, or volunteer and there’s no response. You place spaced, repeated messages (to various numbers) leaving your name, phone number and reason for calling and get no callback. Emails get no response. Get a clue: there is no relationship.
- Right commentary, no follow through. You’ve probably experienced this situation as a meeting in which commitments were made and then nothing happened. “I’ll get back to you,” means different things to some people. In fact, some people use the phrase as carelessly as “Have a nice day.” If this is your experience, assume the worst. There IS no relationship.
- Missing in action. A cursory glance at the two previous situations may lead you to believe they’re the same. Not so. In my experience, particularly with solopreneurs, even a “contract for services” does not dictate an appearance or a response. (If you work with a vendor missing in action, you know the frustration of continually attempting to close the connection.) Do I need to tell you there is no relationship?
- Answering a different question. It’s amazing that direct questions elicit unrelated answers. Once again, when you continually experience this error message and re-directing doesn’t work, the relationship will not move forward. No relationship exists.
- Intermittent activity. The holiday season brings intermittent activity to the forefront. Networking reaches a maniacal force with parties, luncheons and get-togethers meant to make up for a year of sporadic contact. Guilty parties say, “See you next week at the expo.” My response of “I’ll try to do that,” could simply be translated as “No, thank you.” A relationship valuable enough to warrant my time does not exist.
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Same goes for potential biz referral sources. If by the fourth or fifth coffee or lunch date there’s not even a glimmer of possibility…time to move on. Otherwise, you end up getting your “brain picked” for free and nothing in return.