5 Amazing Ways You Can Screw Up Customer Satisfaction (And How to Avoid Them!)

Recently, my wife Melissa and I bought a new car. To be honest, I wanted nothing less than to go to a car dealership and contend with the games that often give sales people a bad name.

But I must say, we had an incredible experience!

In fact, if you are in the market for a new or pre-owned vehicle in the Phoenix area, I recommend you go meet my new friend Craig Rusin at Chapman BMW (I promise I’m not getting any kickbacks on this!).

At any rate, after leaving the dealership, Melissa and I reflected on the experience we dreaded at the start of the day compared to the fantastic experience we actually enjoyed.

So we started talking about all the things Craig might have done to screw up our customer satisfaction. (Talking about what might have happened, vs. what did happen is a testament to Craig’s excellent service!)

Here’s the list we came up with:

1. Talking too much

This is also known as feature dumping. This is when we rattle off a list of information about our product or service, hoping one or two of the features excites our customer and turns them into a buyer. (Aka: shooting in the dark.)

If you want to provide a better customer service experience, stop talking! Instead, ask questions about your customers and their lives. In other words, get them talking!

2. Not listening

Amy O’Connor, from our team at Shore Consulting, tells a story about how her doctor asked her how her kids were doing and then, less than five minutes later, he asked her the exact same question again. Seriously?

Talk about a great way to ruin your customer’s satisfaction. What else is he not listening to?

3. Wasting the customer’s time

People are busy. You might be a great person, but the reality is, your customers probably don’t want to spend an entire day with you.

Look for opportunities to save customers time during the sales process. And whatever you do, don’t let interruptions on your end — phone calls, email, texts, etc.— stop your conversation with them.

4. Making it your mission to sell your customer something

I know what you are thinking… “Wait a minute, trainer boy! Are you telling me to not sell something?”

Let me explain.

You do want to sell something, obviously. But your mission should center on helping your customers solve the problem that brought them to you in the first place. That means you need to go through a discovery process to uncover the customer’s mission.

We needed to buy a car because our old car simply died and it was a major pain point for us (especially give my travel schedule!). Craig joined us on our mission to fix that pain.

5. Use clichés

What I loved about Craig was that he did not hide his humanity behind some cheesy sales persona.

He expressed empathy and compassion, he told the truth and he didn’t use a single sales cliché like, “What’s it gonna take to get you into a car today?” #Yuck.

I encourage you to take some time and review your sales presentation from the customer’s viewpoint.

Are you in danger of violating any of these 5 principles?

And what else would you add to this list?

Get yourself a fresh perspective on serving your customer and you’ll find more opportunities to change someone’s world!