Companies spend an enormous amount of time, effort, money, and energy trying to get people to make a purchase, and when they do, they completely drop the ball when it comes to customer service. This is an issue every business needs to factor into their marketing strategy. It makes no sense to spend money on advertising or clicks or direct mail or leads and then fumble the whole campaign because of inept customer service.

I have two examples that illustrate this. I won’t name any names because my purpose is not to rake these companies over the coals but to simply illustrate a point.

Both sell information over the Internet. Both heavily market themselves. Since I’m a “sucker” for marketing information and how-to products I made a purchase from both companies.

From Company #1 I paid for a subcription to a newsletter with access to all its archives. Everything was going just great, the “congratulations for your decision to purchase” email had me all excited. Then I clicked on the access link they provided and entered the username and password I had just paid for.

Error: access denied.

I did this fifty times and finally went back to the original email to find out how to contact support. Clicking their link sent me to their online trouble ticket service. I started a ticket and then sat there disappointed. I never did hear back from them.

That’s not what you want your customers to experience just after they make a purchase.

To brighten my spirits, I purchased another product from Company #2 that I had been looking at for a few days, this time an eBook. Everything looked great, credit card was processed and I received an email with a download link.

Guess what? This download link gave me a “404: Not found” error. I was incredulous! Twice in one day! Obviously this is a problem for many companies.

To make matters worse, following the customer service instructions in both cases yielded no response. I only got results when I went outside the normal procedure by posting to their forum, or finding out who owned the domain name and emailing them directly. In one case I Googled the customer service number (previously hidden and undisclosed) and was able to make contact that way.

Needless to say, by the time they worked it out I was no longer interested in the products and I asked for a refund.

I’ve sold thousands of digital products over the years and it isn’t that difficult. When the credit card is processed you automatically take your customer to a download page, and you automatically send them an email with a link to the download page. This isn’t brain surgery.

In their case they lost not just one sale, but all additional sales I could have made, plus all the sales from people I might have recommended them to. Or, think of how much worse it could have been – I could have posted my bad experience to any number of blogs and online forums and named names. That kind of negative buzz can kill a company.

You don’t want that happening to you. When you craft your marketing campaign be sure to factor in your customer service functions. Poor customer service will derail the most brilliant marketing strategy.

I’m beginning to think that inept customer service is the real reason why companies have problems with marketing. I could devise a brilliant marketing strategy, write some killer copy, and give their website an extreme makeover – but if I don’t help them address what happens after the sale is made then the result is a lot of one-time sales, no testimonials, and no referrals. Repeat business, testimonials, and referrals are major components of your successful marketing strategy. Screw up the customer service and the whole campaign suffers.

This is particularly true with online companies. Many people are already reluctant to do business over the Internet with someone that is unknown to them, and many of them are still reticent to give out credit card information over the net. So you have to go over and beyond the normal call of duty if you intend to do business online.

Be that as it may, the online companies are the absolute worse when it comes to customer service. One thing these companies know how to do right – the credit card process works like a charm! Beyond that it’s a crap shoot. Most of them hide behind a computer. If there’s a problem (and there usually is) getting in touch with someone is nearly impossible.

Case #1: Yesterday I purchased some software online that I had an immediate need for. The credit card was charged in two seconds. I got a confirmation email which was supposed to unlock my trial version. I got the email, but the message said there was an “error” in producing my code. Someone would contact me. Yet another example of failing to deliver what the customer has paid for. Had I been an e-commerce noob I might have panicked and called the credit card company to report a fraud or a scam. Instead I sent some nasty emails and about twelve hours later someone finally sent me the code I paid for. I had to have the software so I had to put up with this ineptitude. If it had been a discretionary purchase I would have said forget it, give me back my money.

Case #2 – This morning I sent an email to Yahoo customer service and got the following auto-response:

Hello,

This is an automated message regarding your recent request for Yahoo! Postmaster Customer Care Support. We have received your message but due to a temporary problem we wanted to let you know it could take up to a week until you receive a response. We apologize for this inconvenience. Thank you for reaching out to us. We look forward to helping you!

Sincerely,
Yahoo! Customer Care

**Please do not respond to this message as no one will receive it.

Why am I not surprised?

Bottom-line for you: you spend a tremendous amount of time, effort, energy, and money trying to get customers. Doesn’t it make sense to spend at least an equal amount of time, effort, energy, and money trying to keep them? It’s a lot easier to keep a customer than to get a customer, and it’s a lot more profitable.

For example: a large hardware chain in my area advertises how friendly and helpful their smiling employees are. But when you actually go visit the store the salespeople are exactly the opposite. If this has happened to you then you can appreciate how annoying it is. That’s sales and marketing dissonance.

The sales clerks in these stores are so bad we started making jokes about it:

“How many of their employees does it take to help a customer?”

“Twenty-one: One to say, ‘I’ll be with you in a minute’ and twenty to turn away and look like they’re too busy to help.”

Now imagine our reaction when we watch television commercials that show smiling, friendly, helpful employees who go out of their way to help you find every little flibbityjibit you may need. Our reaction is to laugh hysterically. Believe me, that is not the kind of response you want your marketing campaign and advertising dollars to generate.

This kind of problem is simple to solve: get your sales people to start acting the way marketing describes. Lowering marketing’s expectations is unacceptable. Sales has to figure out how to carry out the marketing mission. Hire, fire, or re-train people until they can do it right.

We were forced to visit this store today and found something encouraging – no less than half a dozen different employees smiled, greeted us, and asked if we needed any help. The difference was shocking. It will take a long time to undue their reputation but they are making steps in the right direction. Perhaps someone is reading my blog.