How Rapid Growth Can Cause Businesses to Ignore Their Customers
Customer acquisition, order fulfillment, and customer support are the most important pillars of most businesses’ humble beginnings. Then, things start to take off, often faster than expected, and everyone scrambles just to get the orders out and keep things moving with too many delays. Things that were once important, such as customer support and relationship building, become less of a priority because there just is not much time available for such matters. Customers’ needs become less and less important, and customers start to feel ignored.
Rapid growth often comes with the following growing pains:
- Delayed order fulfillment and shipping
- Delayed responses to customer inquiries and messages
- Ignored social media comments/posts from customers
- Generic or rushed responses to customers
- Sloppy or incorrect orders
Suggested solutions:
- Hire more employees or unpaid interns
- Clearly state your policies to make sure customers know what to expect from your business
- Become more open and honest
- Don’t be afraid to take responsibility for mistakes and apologize, but don’t make a habit of making the same mistakes over and over
- Abandon the script and train your staff to engage in genuine communication with customers
Your primary goal should be to make sure that no customer is left behind. Without customers, you really do not have a business. Always keep that in mind, especially when things are going well. You never know when tough times may arise and you will need your core customers to remain in business.