The expression, “being too big for your britches,” simply suggests that someone has become arrogant, conceited, or presumptuous, often after a success or a change in status. When you reach a certain level of success, of influence, or of recognition it is vital to remember your roots. Your roots and business core message are two paths that brought you to this point.
After following a certain business for several years, attending their various webinars, and purchasing several of their products, I made the decision to make a purchase of one of their higher level offerings. And here, is where their branding and my experience took different paths.
Their branding explains they are committed to your support and pride themselves on their customer service.
Imagine my surprise when I sent an email with a question about what to anticipate if I participated in their “XYZ” program and got a reply from a team member. While the team member said they would pass along the email to the intended person for their response and in the meantime proved a partial answer to my question I still had some questions. My question stemmed from this partial answer that the person replying didn’t seem to understand what I was asking.
My question, to me, was simple: Is this program more of an accountability group or more of a training program? I’m interested in the learning opportunity and am interested in the training. I don’t need accountability to do what I intend to do. By nature, I’ve always been a self-starter.
After waiting a week, I never got a reply from the intended face-of-the-business nor did the team member reply. The answer to my question lingered. I was feeling less warm fuzzies about this experience, the supposed strong customer service, and was having some doubts about this purchase.
So, I attempted again plus brought up the fact that when I made my purchase there were to be multiple bonus trainings included and these were to be available at specific release dates. At this point, several weeks had passed since the purchase date, I’ve never received any emails for how to access any of these weekly bonuses on each specific date that was in the advertisement. Several of the weekly dates have since passed, would I still be getting access?
The team member once again replied to say the face-of-the-business was busy, apologized for the delay, and I’d get access later. Huh? When? Via which portal?
I’d signed up and had access to a courses portal but that contained nothing. I was now their customer and the face-of-the-company apparently didn’t time for their customers like they so loudly and repeatedly emphasized in their marketing.
Clearly there’s an issue.
Here is where having the right team members in place makes all the difference. I have been in the position of being one of these team members who provides customer service and is the contact person the customer interacts with.
A better approach is to:
- address each question/concern the customer has.
- go back to the internal support team to troubleshoot where the gap in communication or execution is happening to deliverability can take place.
- send a message to the face-of-the-company to get involved with a personal note to this customer to assure them that the customer is important to them. (Yes, this can be a note that is delivered via the team member, but it needs to more than a canned swipe file response.)
The experience the customer receives needs to match what the brand is all about.
If your marketing is talking about YOU being available to your customers and you’re too busy to interact with them even once, you are NOT being authentic in your marketing.
This will catch up with you.
When you’re composing your marketing messages, keep them real. It’s perfectly fine to say you have a team and to have a support team member reach out. Train your team to be responsive and not to allow the customer to have to reach out repeatedly for answers to simple questions such as “Is the program intended for accountability or training?” Train your team to know the basics and have access to who can provide this critical info when inquiries come in.
