It’s story time boys and girls.
Overwhelmed by running a business, a home, two kids and me, my wife decided it was time for a housekeeper to help out a bit. After research and multiple interviews, we found Tracy (name changed). She’s been working for us for about three weeks. Earlier this week, my wife came home at 2:30 to find that she had not come at 2:00 as agreed. Just before 3:00, my wife ran some errands. At about 5:15 she finally got in touch with Tracy and asked why she hadn’t come. Here’s her response:
“I couldn’t come at 2, so I came at 3 instead. And you weren’t home.”
The problem? She never communicated the time change to my wife!
Ultimately, this is a pretty simple example which was easily rectified. However, the point is that the most crucial step in effective communication and good customer service is to communicate. I don’t really care if you are a good communicator or not. I can work with a poor communicator, but I can’t work with someone that just doesn’t communicate.
Not attempting communication doesn’t just make it hard to do business with someone, but it’s as annoying as hell. It’s seriously frustrating as a customer.
My advice, if you are ever wondering as a business owner whether or not your customer wants or needs to know a specific piece of information, err on the side of caution and communicate.