Eagerness to win customers makes people forget how to keep existing ones

WE ARE now in the second half of the year and if you have done well in your business and acquired many new customers in the past six months, bravo to you. Well done! You know how to win customers. But do you know how you are losing them?

For far too long, much has been written and spoken about how to win new customers and too little focus have been put on how businesses are losing them.

Very often, SMEs and new start-ups especially are so eager to win new customers that they forget about paying attention to keeping existing ones.

Recently, I had the misfortune of having a tyre puncture while on the road.

Since I was a member of a very well-known automobile assistance service, I immediately dialled the number to request for help.

After several attempts to dial in, I finally got through and relayed my situation to the person answering the phone. I was told that help would arrive within 40 minutes. So I sat and waited. Thankfully, that part of the road was not totally deserted. Cars were driving past but there were no pedestrians.

After 30 minutes, I decided to call up the service provider again to check if help was near and indeed arriving soon. A different person answered the phone and was not polite.

He said I should just be patient and wait as after all, I just made the first call 10 minutes ago. Instead of assuring me that help would arrive soon, he continued to argue with me about the time of my first call. I was flabbergasted and disappointed.

I decided to search online for a tyre shop in the vicinity, found one and called up to see if they could send someone over.

Five minutes later, a mechanic from the tyre shop arrived to help put in my spare tyre.

I drove to his tyre shop thinking that they would definitely asked me to replace the flat tyre with a new one which would set me back a few hundred ringgit. But to my surprise, the tyre mechanic recommended that I continued using the existing tyre which he had patched up. Everything was done in less than 10 minutes and for only RM35!

The moral of the story is that for all the money put into marketing promotions and communications, that well-known automobile assistance company has just lost me as a customer. And that tyre workshop, which obviously did not spend a single ringgit on marketing, has just gained a new one.

The staff of the tyre workshop was sincere and did not try to sell me something immediately. It was also about meaning what you say, which the mechanic did.

He said he would arrive within 10 minutes and he did. On the other hand, the bigger automobile assistance company gave false promises, followed by denials when confronted. Who would want to pay money and not get what they pay for?

Later that day, famished from my ordeal, I walked into a rather empty restaurant. I was thinking service should be prompt since there was only one other table occupied and there were about six waiters standing idly around. Alas, I was wrong again.

Although I stared intensely at them for a good five minutes so someone could come to take my order, the waiters were either too busy looking at their handphones or talking among themselves. I walked out and decided to patronise their competitor next door. Their competitor gave very prompt and attentive service and better food at a cheaper price too!

I wondered if the owner of that empty restaurant knew why his restaurant was empty and why he was losing customers, because now I know why.

The fact is that the cost of acquiring a new customer is much more than keeping an existing one. If we are running a business that provides services and products, we have an obligation and responsibility to our existing and regular customers, simply because they are paying us on an on-going basis.

The question is whether we know who they are and how we may have lost them if they are no longer returning.

Jeanisha believes whether we are running a business or working for one, it is important for us to mean what we say and keep our word. At the end of the day, the people who pay us (customers or bosses) need to know they can count on us. Talk to her at [e-mail]