Top 7 Ways To Lose Your Customers

Most of us are involved in some form of business acquisition for our respective companies. We all know that winning business often requires a significant investment in time, resources and energy and that the thrill of the chase is an exciting one. Isn’t it a shame that sometimes the customer, who you worked so hard to win, cancels the order during the initial stages because someone somewhere has let them down. Here then are seven tips to help you lose your customers.

1. Pass the customer around – whatever you do, make it virtually impossible for the customer to get what they want when they call you. Make them work by asking them to repeat themselves then to add that bit extra, get someone who doesn’t know how to transfer a call to accidentally cut the customer off!
   
   
2. Rely on technology – forget the people and buy the best technology, then put it in front of your customer service operation. Best to make it really difficult for the customer so that they get confused and when they don’t make a choice, route them to a really poor quality answering machine. In fact why not buy a system then fit your strategy around it – do like many companies do and buy a wonderful system for recording customer’s details that does not make it easy for your own perspective.
   
   
3. Forget about training – just do what so many companies do today and put staff on the telephone without an iota of training. Better still, make sure they can’t be easily understood and are good at arguing with customers.
   
   
4. Don’t reward loyalty – forget about all those loyal customers who have been with you for years. Instead go out of your way to attract new customers with better deals and tell your existing ones they can’t have the same special offer despite how long they have been with your company and how much they have spent.
   
   
5. Ignore the millions of people with speech or hearing difficulties – if you operate predominantly in the consumer sector then ignore all those who may not be able to communicate effectively with you - after all, who wants another x million potential customers! You can even ignore customer feedback entirely – why don’t you develop your services and ignore what your customers want. Don’t ask them – they won’t know, so why waste your time?
   
   
6. Forget about third parties who work with your company – all those companies who work for you and communicate to your existing and prospective customers. Don’t invest time in working with them – after all, if they can’t help a customer then who cares, or if they give wrong advice and you get sued for misinformation so what?
   
   
7. Forget about service – just sell, sell and sell. Don’t waste time on nasty topics such as service – customers don’t care about this so why bother? Just give them a keen price and rotten service and they’ll come back in droves.

Jonathan Farrington is the Managing Partner of The jfa Group http://www.thejfagroup.com. To find out more about the author, read his latest articles or to subscribe to his newsletter, visit: http://www.jonathanfarrington.com You can now also read his weekly blog for dedicated business professionals: http://www.thejfblogit.co.uk