Who rang the doorbell?
A noisy night at a hotel made me swear I would never return. I went back anyway. What that teaches us about keeping customers.
During one of my trips to Chennai in August, I stayed at a hotel I have been going to for the last few years.
Late one night, a group of guests were shouting in the corridor outside my room. I called reception and the guests quietened down for a while. But they came back after an hour or so and rang my doorbell twice at around 1 AM. I never found out who told them which room I was in, but that is not the point of this story.
I wrote to the hotel after checking out. They replied the same day, but I was not happy with their response. It took a few emails back and forth, and I was so upset that I told myself I would not go back.
However, on my most recent trip to Chennai, I stayed at the same hotel again. As I was going up in the elevator to my room, I found myself wondering why. Just two months ago, I was certain that I would never return, and yet here I was.
The reason is simple. The location is excellent, the price is fair, the rooms are comfortable and the breakfast buffet is great. It works really well for a productive work trip, and most of the time they get it right.
This made me think about our own business.
We also have our share of bad days. A delivery that goes out late, a quality issue, a call that was not returned. Each time, there is a chance the customer starts thinking about alternatives. What I realised is that a customer does not leave because of one or two bad experiences. A customer leaves when there is nothing else holding them back.
So the real question is, what is holding our customers? For the hotel, it was location, price, comfort and breakfast. For us, it could be product quality, consistent delivery, fair pricing, the ease of dealing with our team, or years of trust. The more of these we get right, the more room we have for the occasional miss. That is the kind of resilience we should build in our business.
Of equal importance is how we respond when something does go wrong. The hotel replied on the same day. I did not agree with everything they said, but I was not left waiting. Most customers will not even write to us. They will just quietly go elsewhere. So every complaint we receive is an opportunity, and the speed of our reply is the first thing the customer judges us on.
Try this with your team this week. Ask what is holding our customers, and how we can make it stronger, so that even when something goes wrong, they still come back.
I hope this helps you Shoot to the Top!
