The Rule of 100, or Bad Customer Experiences Travel Fast

Mark From Marketing Says...

It's late winter here in Mark Land, and Old Man Winter is making a bitter last stand. Everybody's in a bad mood. It's far too cold to be outside, and there just isn't much playing at the movie theaters that's worth $12 to see.

So, the Dutch Girl and I went to the local shopping mall, just to walk around a bit and be out of the house. We found ourselves in one of the big national-chain candle shops. She picked out a candle, and dutifully stood in line at the cash register to make her purchase. The item was on sale, of course, so she was willing to wait a while as the sales associate checked-out other customers.

 A while turned into a longer while. And then longer. There was clearly An Issue in progress ahead of us between the young sales clerk and an older customer. There was a disagreement regarding how a sale item's price had been marked, and neither the clerk or the customer were in any mood for compromise. After some additional argument, the customer stomped away from the cash register, leaving the item she intended to buy on the counter. The sales clerk stared daggers at the dissatisfied customer's back as she left the store.

Then she glared at the Dutch Girl.

You can imagine the transaction that followed. "Brusque," and "borderline hostile" best describe it.

"Well, that was unpleasant," said the Dutch Girl as we left the store. "I'm not going back in there again, ever." "Neither will that lady in front of us," I replied.  "That kid behind the counter just cost the store more than a single sale. She made at least three enemies for the company, and more people will hear about this than she imagines. Her store manager probably doesn't even know about how expensive a temper-tantrum that was, but he or she may find out."

What I'm referring to is another durable rule of marketing, which I call "The Rule of 100." It's a simple rule, and can be applied to situations far beyond marketing. For the retail and service industries, however, the implications of the Rule of 100 are vast – and potentially expensive – to the small-business or shop owner.

The Rule of 100 goes like this. If you, as the owner, or a staff person who deals with a customer, fails to treat a customer in a courteous, professional manner, that customer might come away with a Negative Customer Experience. If that experience was particularly bad, not only will that customer remember how bad the experience was, he or she will be extremely motivated to tell someone else about what happened to them in your establishment. By name.

How motivated will he or she be? He or she might tell as many as 10 other people – friends, family, people in church, even total strangers – about the horrible way they were treated. If the story is a good one, these 10 people may tell as many as 10 of their friends, family and others about "what they heard" about your establishment. Like a stone dropped into a calm pool of water, concentric waves of bad news about your store or shop will travel outwards from this single, bad customer experience. Eventually, as many as 100 current or potential customers will have heard about how poorly you or your staff treat customers in a surprisingly fast amount of time.

And as bad as single customer encounter can be, consider the effect to your store's or company's reputation if the employee shared their bad day with several other customers that day. Potentially hundreds of people could know about his or her bad day at work by the end of next week, and have a negative image of your establishment.

No amount of savvy marketing or clever advertising can immediately overcome this sort of negative, word-of-mouth promotion. And how many sales went somewhere else, all because of one temper-tantrum?

Here's what you need to remember about a negative customer experience:

·         Customers, particular retail customers, always expect a good customer experience.

·         Customers will not tolerate a bad customer experience. Ever. A good price for a product or service will make up for it.

·         Customers will always tell their friends, family and others about a bad customer experience they had, but won't always mention a good experience unless it was a remarkably good experience.

·         News of a bad customer experience always travels fast.

The only way you can counteract this sort of negative publicity is to make sure that it never happens in the first place. It's difficult, since most everyone has an off-day once in awhile, but it's an important challenge to successfully meet if you're managing staff who deal with customers. And it's harder still to manage yourself, if you're the one having a bad day.

It's possible that the store manager, or the supervisor on duty that Saturday at the mall candle store was busy helping other customers, or otherwise wasn't aware of the sales clerk's melt-down. But it's easy enough to spot a team member who's having an off-day, and it's always best to move that person away from the customers to another task as quickly as possible. Stocking shelves might have been the better job for that clerk to have handled that afternoon, at least until she could have regained her composure.

When it comes to working with customers, I learned one of my favorite rules about customer service in my first professional job. It was from a sign that hung above the counter, where we staff people could see it, but the customers couldn't. It read:

"The customer may not always be right. But the customer is STILL the customer, and it's better to take a lump we didn't earn, and keep that customer as a friend!"

Amen.

 

Mark Paulson is a marketing communications advisor and strategist with extensive experience in for-profit, charity and professional membership association settings. No matter the channel or setting, he is an eloquent communicator who can tell your organization's or product's story to your customers or specific audience groups.

Copyright ^©Mark E. Paulson 2013