In days gone by, it was considered good business practice to treat your customers well. They were handled promptly, courteously and with genuine respect.
Thank goodness those days over.
Today’s customers are disposable. As soon as their credit card details have been processed we can cut them off, forget about them, and ignore them when they need our help.
Why? Volume. There are a more people out there with credit cards than ever before. Even if we sell to hundreds or thousands of people a day, do you know how many more are out there?
308 million in the US and 61 million in the UK alone. So who cares? Greet them with a smile, process their payment and push them out of the door as quickly as possible.
And the icing on the cake? Most people won’t even be surprised.
We all have our horror stories of terrible customer service. I still rate Barclays Bank as the worst service provider in the world, but there’s no shortage of contenders out there. And the people who complain? The world is full of them. Their voices will be lost in the crowd.
Embrace the concept of the disposable customer. Pursue, process then abandon them.
