Tuesday, April 9, 2013

...those doggone Customer Expectations




Over the weekend, my husband and I decided to make a run to Wal-Mart.   I needed to put gas in my car so we decided to go to Sam’s Club first.  We were about fifteen minutes early so we drove on to Wal-Mart and shopped. When we returned to the gas station it was twenty minutes passed the time they were to open and no one was in sight.  It was frustrating as a consumer to sit there and know they were supposed to be open, but obviously the employee in charge was really late. 

Do you know if that is happening with your customers?  If you have employees are they delivering everything they promise to the customer?   Are they on time, do they do good work, do they take the responsibility of their job seriously?  

It’s never a bad idea to do spot checking.  Like calling a customer to make sure that your employees are delivering top-notch service and something you would do yourself.  If not, the customer may come to you with the complaint, or they may just move on to another business without every letting you know they were not satisfied.  That customer may leave and tell a lot of people about that bad experience with you and not report it to you. 

Spot checking allows you to reach out to the customer, making sure they know that you know they are there and are getting what they need.  It’s the same thing when you go to a restaurant.  When a manager comes over and asked how my meal was, if everything is OK, I am more likely to back there, knowing a manager is taking the time to actually ask people about their service. 

As for Sam’s Club, I’ll go back there, but the Kroger gas station got my business this week.  


Suzanne Cormier
Executive Director
BizWorks (Small Business Incubator)
Follow Suzanne Cormier on Facebook and
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