Don't pretend you care - or a customer may call your bluff.
Let me illustrate.
I recently booked a reservation at a spendy and apparently well-regarded hotel, located in a major American city and boasting a complete concierge staff. In other words, a hotel that should be up to any challenge a guest could throw at it.
I had no plans to throw any particular challenges their way. But then I received a pre-arrival email from the GM inviting incoming guests to "write back to me with any requests you may have - even attach a photo of something special to you that you'd like us to provide on your visit."
I thought this was lovely - fantastic, really. And I replied with a simple-simple!-request.
Nobody answered.
I tried again. Again, not a word.
On my third try, I got a reply (this is now well into the second day of effort on my part).
"No, we do not carry that" was the single, less-than-a-sentence reply.
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Fine. I don't mind brown-bagging it, but why pretend otherwise?
When you're in business and you claim to care/to be willing to go the extra mile/to customize, you'd better mean it. Or you're shooting yourself in the foot, Maxwell Smart.
Join Micah and Dave Carroll of "United Breaks Guitars" fame in a Social Media Today free webinar on Aug. 14 called "Heard it from the Gripevine: How Customers Complaints Are Hurting Your Business."
© 2012 Micah Solomon, author of High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service