Before you listen to your customers

Your customers may not be telling you the whole story

When small businesses are interviewed and asked about their advantage over mass merchants, chain stores, big box and online businesses, the default answer seems to be “customer service”.

If the business owner is asked to elaborate on their answer, the comments by existing customers online as well as those seen in the store and throughout the community come to the forefront. “They all tell us how much they love our business”.

We think the “customer service” answer and how it was obtained is a bit biased. Let’s ask the business owner how often, or if, they have looked at their business on Yelp or Google places. Frequently the answer is they have not looked in those places to see what others have to say.

This past week I was visiting in my hometown. It is a small community in the northwest hills of Arkansas. In the community the only grocery store is a Wal-Mart.

When I visit, there is a favorite ice cream I enjoy. Produced by Yarnell’s, it is called Whoo Pig Chewey which is a salute to the University of Arkansas Razorbacks.  Visiting the store I found many flavors of ice cream by Yarnell’s but none of my Whoo Pig Chewey.

People working in a Wal-Mart are easy to identify by way of their sleeveless vests and I happened to find one walking down the aisle. Their name tag identified them as a department manager and I asked if the frozen foods was their department.

With a confirmation, he asked what I was needing help with. As I spoke, he explained the product was not going to be made by Yarnell’s this year as they did not renew their licensing agreement. He further stated that he understood that Yarnell’s was expected to have the same product or something very similar with a new name.

While his product knowledge was impressive, what happened next was amazing. He said, “Let me call the vendor and see what I can find out”.

As we stood in the ice cream aisle he took his cell phone and called someone named Jack. Their conversation went back and forth with questions and comments. And when he hung up, he told me Jack did not have any definite answers at this time.

While I make a point to visit many businesses to gather these experiences for my writing, I am not used to someone making this much of an effort. Far too many times when a customer walks into a business and finds an empty spot where an item they want resides, they get an answer in the vein of, “We are out of that item. The sales rep should be in soon and we will reorder then”.

As a fourth generation business owner, while I hold my tongue, I want to sarcastically ask if they have heard of a device called a telephone and that this sales representative or the manufacturer might have a phone they could call to replenish their inventory.

I do want to see every small business thrive. I have a love for them that no other business could match. However that love requires a similar feeling from them.

Is this person at Wal-Mart a fair example of the service you can expect in their stores? No; there are too many “war stories” of customer service to believe they have found the secret to customer service.

However, before we as small businesses “hang our hat” on saying we have great customer service, we need to hear what others are saying about us, and what any competitor is doing. Definitely we need to do this before we listen to our customers and believe what they have told us.

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