In this article, I want to talk about the main business organization mistakes that I constantly encounter as an ordinary consumer.
If you make these mistakes in business, then advertising becomes completely useless. All your expenses go down the drain. Even if advertising brings in new customers to the business (which is not always the case), even in this case, some organizations manage to ruin everything. Not even some — many, many organizations.
In a previous article (see Why Advertising Doesn’t Work) I talked about one small episode from my life, from my experience as a simple consumer. I went to an auto parts store and they sent me there. And there were many such stores of spare parts in the city. Therefore, I have now become a regular customer of other stores. How many more like me?
So, what mistakes in advertising or business organization make your efforts to attract buyers useless?
Why ads don’t work?
1) The first mistake — why advertising does not work — there is no feedback on advertising
You turned to an advertising agency, and they made you an awesome layout that you immediately fell in love with. The layout is really great: bright, beautiful, attracts attention, shows your products… But…
But it has no feedback. If I, as a consumer who saw your advertisement, suddenly wanted to buy something from you, I don’t know how to do it? There is a beautiful girl on the advertisement, the product that I want to buy is shown, but where can I buy it?
There is no phone number, no address, no website — no contact information. Of course, if you are a manufacturer and sell mineral water throughout Russia, then you don’t need contact information — you can buy goods everywhere. But if you are a store, or a small chain of stores, it is extremely important to provide contact information.
Often contact information is indicated in advertising, but it is so difficult to see that people still do not notice it or ignore it.
Therefore, the first conclusion:
If you have already spent money on advertising, then you should make sure that it clearly shows how you can be contacted. Moreover, contact information should be in a conspicuous place, should be conspicuous.
A good example is a taxi. The rooms are simple and memorable. It is immediately clear how to place an order.
2) The second mistake — your communication channel is not working
Let’s assume that the advertisement shows a way to contact you and place an order for your product or service. The second common mistake is that the connection does not work.
In one network, we launched home delivery. To do this, handed out leaflets with a phone number where you could make an order. And just before mass distributing leaflets to the entrances of our future clients, I had a brilliant idea — to call the number indicated in the leaflet.
This thought, by the way, came very timely. I called…and didn’t get through. No one answered the phone the first time. I was able to get through to the landline phone only from the fifth time. After this incident, we changed the landline phone to a cell phone:
— cell phone — always with you;
If you miss a call to your cell phone, you can call back.
Second conclusion:
Always check the communication channels that you give in your advertisement. They may not work or may not work as they should.
The client must call the first time. He should not have problems with contact with you!
3) The third mistake — an incompetent person is in touch
So, we have already passed the fool test:
— advertising contains information about feedback and
— It is easy to contact your company via the specified communication channel.
And now a more difficult moment — who will answer the client on the other end of the line? How interested is this person in giving information to the client? How competent is he to give this information?
It often happens that when you call the phone number indicated in the advertisement, you get the answer:
We do not provide such services;
— I don’t know, call back later;
— I’m hearing about this for the first time.
The person answering the customer’s request on the phone number listed in your advertisement must be aware of what the advertisement was about!
You can specify not only a phone number as a contact:
— you can specify the address — then the person who applied to the specified address should be met and competently advised;
— you can specify a contact e-mail — then someone should respond to this e-mail;
— you can specify a site, which, in turn, should also contain contact information!
Conclusion three:
Make sure that the contact details indicated in your advertisement to potential customers are not only answered, but also answered competently.
If you have entrusted your employees to respond to incoming customer requests, you should periodically check how they do it. To do this, you can arrange secret checks and control calls.
4) The fourth mistake — the client was answered in such a way that he will no longer contact you
Service is a great thing. I sometimes find myself thinking that I don’t want to go to a store that doesn’t serve me well.
Gone are the days when people went to the store, ran to the store, tried to get into the store. Now the time has come when the store runs after its customers.
There are too many firms offering similar goods or services even in small towns. And in the conditions of competition, it is not the opportunity to buy something that comes first — you can buy it in many places.
SERVICE comes first.
If I got bad service at the grocery store:
— they did not give a package for goods;
— they were rude, for example, they said that I “itself is to blame for the fact that sugar is poured on the floor”;
did not say hello.
I will not go to this store again, because. There are five more stores nearby.
Conclusion Four:
Make sure your service is better (or at least not worse) than your competitors. This will be a key trump card in the fight for competitors.
And the first step, where this service will manifest itself, is the response to the client to the contact indicated in your advertisement.
You will never get a second chance to make a first impression!
5) Fifth mistake — the client was «pushed»
The last mistake is not doing what you promised the client.
I had one case. I needed to have my phone repaired. I turned to one company, whose sign I saw on the shopping center. The first impression was great:
— I was consulted;
— accepted the order;
— they promised to call when the spare part for the phone arrives by mail — approximately in a month.
I was quite satisfied. After a month, I began to worry. After one and a half — he came to the company where he made the order.
I was again assured that the spare part would arrive in a week. But even a week later, the part did not arrive. More precisely came, but it remained only to receive.
A week later, the master left, for family reasons. And only he could get a spare part.
As a result, I have not been able to repair the phone for 2.5 months instead of the promised one month!
Conclusion five:
Never promise customers what you do not deliver. It is better to be safe than to set up the people who place an order with you.
These are the top five mistakes I’ve come across in customer service. You have probably come across these and similar situations in your life.
All these mistakes lead to the fact that your advertising will not work, no matter how much money you invest in it.
Therefore, before investing in advertising, you need to make sure that you can work out the incoming flow of requests from your customers by 100%.
