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• www.mckinseyquarterly.com McKinsey & Co have long been regarded as one of the worlds’ premier consulting groups. As such, accessing their services is normally outside the realm of most small to medium businesses. You can however gain access to some of their thoughts and strategies by subscribing to their free quarterly newsletter that contains some great articles. The latest edition has an article on CRM which is a must read if you have customers.

A client of mine recently had the following experience. Their office hot water cylinder wasn’t functioning properly and therefore needed attending to relatively urgently. They looked up ‘plumbers’ in the Yellow Pages and phoned a company whose advertisement reads (and still does) ‘On time or it’s free". The plumbing company stated that they would be there at 10am. At 11am, they still hadn’t fronted, so my client phoned to enquire as to what was happening. "They will be there shortly", came the reply. Suddenly remembering the claim in the advertisement, my client said, "I guess this means that there will now be no charge". "Oh yes there will, because on time means within two hours of the stated time and it’s not yet midday".

It will come as no surprise to you that my client told them to jam their service and to this day has probably told over a hundred others of his experience. I, like my client, would never knowingly use a company that operates in this fashion.

On time means on time. Not within two hours, not within one minute. Late is late, period!

Be sure to set specific appointment times with your customers. If you are in real estate property management, sending out a letter advising your tenants that on a certain date you will be inspecting their rented property sometime between the hours of 9am and 5pm is totally unprofessional. Set a specific time.

A pet peeve of most people is to be kept waiting. Some professionals, particularly doctors, are notorious for keeping the customers waiting. I find this situation totally inexcusable. The only reason it occurs is because doctors wish to maximise their time by overfilling their schedule ,and in doing so pay absolutely no regard for their patients time.

I personally have adopted a policy of waiting no more than 10 minutes for appointments if, after having arrived on time, I have been given no acceptable reason as to why the person I am visiting has failed to show at the prearranged time. My time is precious and so is yours. If you don’t place a high value on your time, no one else will.

Now I am not being so unrealistic as to believe that you or others will always be on time. Sometimes unforeseen circumstances prevent you from keeping your appointment, but please, please, please, inform your customers as soon as you know that you are going to be late. Most people are understanding, provided they are told in advance.

Set specific appointment times with your customers and be sure to turn up on time, everytime.

Until next week, many happy customer returns!

Graham Harvey B.Com APS

Graham’s new book, Seducing the Vigilante Customer – winning strategies to guarantee the return of happy customers and healthy profits, is now available at your favourite bookstore.

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