One-step shopping

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Are you easy to do business with, really? We love telling customers we’re a “one-stop shop.” What about helping them “one-step” shop?

Here is a series of follow-up, fundamental questions you should ponder to become more streamlined in your sales and service process.

• Do you respond to phone calls within minutes or a couple hours…or the next day?
• Are you, or is someone in your company, accessible by phone before- or after-hours? How about weekends?
• Do you give progress reports on bigger projects you’ve undertaken for customers…or do you keep customers wondering what the status is?
• Do you fully explain your pricing and other terms?
• Do you walk new customers through their first invoice?
• Do new customers receive a welcome kit that includes specific contact information for future sales, support, accounts receivable and emergencies?
• How often do you ask about anticipated needs?
• Can customers return or exchange products easily?
• Do you proactively give support information to customers to help them use your product or service more effectively?
• Do you coach your behind-the-scenes personnel to be better customer advocates…or do you just complain when they aren’t?
• Does each customer have its own “profile,” easily accessible, so anyone in your company who may speak with the customer can be up-to-speed instantly?
• Can you take orders by fax? By email? By EDI? Through your website?
• Do you have a call frequency for checking in with customers to ensure all of their needs are being met?
• Do you guarantee anything in writing?
• How often can a customer count on one-call resolution to problems?
• Do you teach your customers anything? Do you offer this as a value-added service or do you charge for it?
• How fast are you about fulfilling orders vs. your competitors, honestly?
• Do you systematically show your customers you appreciate their business?

These are questions you’ve got to have solid answers to these days. And here’s the thing: fewer and fewer customers complain. Why? It adds steps to the buying process. It complicates things. It adds procedures and hoped-for return phone calls.

Instead, they switch vendors.

You’d be wise to implement tactics for ensuring your company, and you personally, are easy to do business with. Rather than give you the answers, you should get a feel for what you could improve simply by asking them and pondering them.

Then take action to change course immediately if you’re not that easy to work with. Introduce one-step shopping to your customers. It’s 2006, don’t make people jump through hoops to buy from you. It’s too easy for them to buy from someone else.