Don’t lie to your customers, they’ll know.

Trust is the foundation for every relationship.  In our personal relationships, bonds with family members, friendships and marriage are built on this one word, trust.  Let’s face it:  people do business with people that they trust too.  Just recently, I went to a dealership to buy a new car.  I fell in love with the car, but didn’t trust the guy trying to sell it to me.  I walked away and right on over to the dealership down the street.

Gary Lemke, Publisher for CRMAdvocate recently posted a blog that speaks to the need for organizations to be consistently authentic. I couldn’t agree more.  Authenticity needs to not only be consistent; and it needs to be apparent across the enterprise.  Trust has to live in the face to face transactions of the retail store world, and also in your call centers via your call center agents.  If your customers are lacking faith in your authenticity, you better believe they will let you know. 

“I just think I could get my TV fixed a little quicker than this. I called the company I’m talking to now and they said they outsourced it to another company. The other day, when I called and was talking to them, I was told that, that company outsourced it to another company. How about outsourcing it to somebody that will come out here and fix my TV? That’s all I ask, for somebody to come out and fix it.”

“When I call, asking for information about something being shipped, and you lie to me and tell me it’s already in the hands of FedEx, I don’t know how else you can improve other than to quit lying and fess up that the d*mn thing didn’t ship. Pretty clear for you?”

“Every time I call, I get a different story from you people.  One person tells me technical support can handle my issue.  So I am transferred to technical support.  Technical support tells me they can’t help, but customer service can.  When I talked to customer service, they explain that it has to go through sales.  The sales department doesn’t want to hear from me about this stupid laptop not working, they just want to sell me some more of your crap.  I’m sick of it!  I have yet to hear the same answer twice to the same exact question from anyone!  Stop telling me lies and fix my d*mn laptop.”

“I’m just getting the runaround and cannot get concrete answers. It’s like I’m speaking to a politician. Thank you.”

Happy Tuesday!

~ Dr. Jodie Monger, President

Photo Credit:  www.callcentercomics.com