Is It Inconvenient To Do Business With You?

 By Kyle Reyes

Do you really want people to do business with you...or do you just want to say that you own a business?

It's a fair question.  Perhaps it's a question you never thought you'd be asked...but it's still a fair question.

Allow me to explain.

We have the unique privilege of working with all sorts of businesses.  Retail.  Restaurants.  Service-based professionals.  Car dealerships.  You name it - we work with them.

And while we selectively pick our clients based on individuals and organizations that we know have a strong process in place...we see many other businesses that seemingly could care less about making it easy for customers to do business with them.

Take, for example, the John Deere affiliate for Home Depot.

We ordered a lawn mower for our house.  What a FUN experience that was.  After four days of comparing reviews (GASP - you mean customers actually USE those reviews?), we decided that the rebate pulled us in.

After about a week, I received a phone call from John Deere.

"Sir, your mower is ready for delivery.  We're even going to have someone show you how to use it!"

So here I am thinking that the company actually values me as a customer.  Until, of course, they let me know when I could take delivery.

They don't do holidays.  Ok.  They don't do Sundays.  Fine.  They don't do Saturdays.  Now you're pushing it.

They don't do before 9....or after 5.

The window of delivery?  Sometime between 9am and 1pm.

Listen - I get it.  Half of our country doesn't work any more.  But those of us who DO work - and, ahem, who are buying the freaking lawn mowers - don't exactly have the luxury of keeping an enormous window open to make it easy for YOUR company to take our money.

So again, I ask you - do you really want people to do business with you?

A family friend mentioned to me earlier today that he recently visited a car dealership - twice.  Thank GOD it wasn't one of our clients.  He walked the lot...looked at cars...went in the showroom - both times.

And not once did someone come up to him and say hello.

"Oh well," he said.  "I guess they didn't want my money."

Perhaps it's time that your business takes a good look at the customers it has...and the customers it wants to have.  Are you making it easy for them to buy from you...or to decide to head over to the competition?

Let me make it really easy for YOU to do business with The Silent Partner Marketing.  Email us today by clicking here.  Perhaps this article inspired you to consider having us mystery shop your business for a start.

----

Kyle Reyes is the President and Creative Director of The Silent Partner Marketing, a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology.  You can find him on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.  He's the Chuck Norris of marketing.  It's outrageous - we know.  That's kind of the point.