Your staff could be the nicest, most caring reps on the planet. They could be the kind of folks everyone loves to work with. They are good listeners and respond to your customers questions quickly and accurately.
But what if after the sale there’s no follow up on promises? What if delivery times slip repeatedly and no one bothers to tell your customers?
This happens more than it should. Why? I believe it’s because no one is charged with taking responsibility for informing customers that their purchase will be late. It falls on the customer to call when the merchandise doesn’t arrive when promised.
When the customer is forced to call, then told the delivery will be late, s/he is more likely to be upset. “You knew the shipment was going to be late. Why didn’t anyone call me?
They are right. You have, at the least, disappointed them, and more likely delayed their processes. If they had known the shipment would not be arriving as promised, they could have made other plans to work around this. Now that they are calling a day or week after the promised delivery, they have to scramble. This can cause chaos and most likely some financial fall out. Their customers will now be upset with them.
See the mess that could have been mitigated if someone were charged with contacting customers as soon as it was known a shipment would be late?
Don’t assume your reps are proactive about this. Most avoid these calls as they know the customer won’t be happy. However, they are creating not just an unhappy customer, but an irate one, when the customer has to call your organization.
Today check on whose responsibility it is to notify customers their purchase will be late. Then build into your systems a way to check that those calls are being made.