What Creates Frustrating Customers?

Customers can be frustrating.  Depending upon your recent interactions with customers, you may be thinking, Can be?  You might say, “Customers are frustrating!”

What often generates frustration with customers is satisfying their requests.  They contact your business and state what they want.  You and your staff give them what they want, and sometimes they aren’t happy.  At times they complain about little things that aren’t quite right.  You fix one of those complaints, and another pops up.  Each one annoys you and your staff further until you do not want to have anything else to do with those customers.  At that point, you are willing to do whatever it takes to get those customers off your back.

Your problem with these customers began when they first contacted your business.

“Tell me about it!” you say. 

No, I’m not being sarcastic.  When they told you what they wanted, you took them at their word and helped them get it.  You didn’t ask questions to find out if they actually knew what they were talking about.  In this day and age of customers researching online before they buy, customers contact us with what they want.  However that doesn’t mean they know what they really need.

Today more than ever customers want to be educated.  They want to understand.  That’s why they research online.  As businesspeople, we can help them immensely by giving them the benefit of our expertise, which only comes from experience.  We know our products and services better than customers do.  We know what has worked and not worked for other customers.  We know information that they cannot find online or anywhere else.

How do you share your information with them?

Ask questions.  Rather than fulfilling their requests immediately when they contact you, take time to ask them questions.  Use these to clarify what they want.  While they may think they know what they want, when you ask them questions you may discover that they want something else.  What they really want may not be satisfied by what they think they want to buy. 

If you find that to be the case, direct them to what will truly satisfy their wants.  Tell them why you recommend it.  Display your expertise and credibility in the process.  They will respect you for it.   They will appreciate your telling the truth and sharing your knowledge.  They will discern that you have their interests in mind.  As a result, your will sell them what they really want.

Best of all, you will create a truly satisfied customer and avoid future frustrations.

This week's marketing trivia challenge is What have you done to deal with frustrating customers?  E-mail me your answer.

What Customers Want

“I’m frustrated,” my customer stated emphatically, leaned forward in her chair, and looked at me intently.

“I have a customer with a problem,“ she continued, “and I contacted my vendor to take care of it.  I have gone through seven different individuals at the vendor, and no one wants to solve the problem.”

“Did you get it resolved?” I wondered.

“Maybe,” she replied.  “I finally called the sales rep, and I think we have come to an agreement.  Either way, I will take care of my customer.”

Sadly, her experience with the vendor is all too typical of many customers’ experiences.  They attempt to get someone to solve their problem, but no one wants to take responsibility, and possibly a loss, to solve it.  Instead, the retailer says “contact the manufacturer.”  The manufacturer says “contact the retailer.”  The customer bounces back and forth between the two with increasing frustration. 

What customers want is their problems solved.  They want products or services that solve their problems.  If a problem occurs with the products or services, customers want that problem solved, too.  They want all this done with clear communication and truthfulness from the businesses with whom they are dealing. 

That seems simple, doesn’t it? 

Evidently not.  To customers, businesses seem all too eager to take the customers’ money with the promise of solutions to their problems.  If the problem is not solved, however, the same businesses often do not follow through.  They leave the customers’ original problem unresolved and possibly add another one on top.  Instead of getting a problem solved, the customer now must give more time and attention to two problems.

Some businesspeople forget that the purpose of business is to solve a problem for customers.  That is why the business exists.  That is why customers come to the business.  If customers did not have a problem for that business to solve, the business would not have a reason to be open.  To serve your customer, you must solve the customer’s problem, whatever that takes.

My customer operates that way.  She and her staff always follow through and solve the customer’s problem  They give customers peace of mind.  That is the key to her business’s success.  She knows what customers want and makes certain they receive it.  Her focus sets her business apart and differentiates it from the competition. 

How well is your business solving your customers’ problems?

This week's marketing trivia challenge is  What positive experience have you had in solving a customer’s problem? E-mail me your answer.