It absolutely astounds me how often businesses get caught up with the latest technology in the pursuit of good marketing. Have you ever received inappropriate or misnamed automated emails after purchasing goods or services? I know you have. Everyone has because it’s happening everywhere.
I am getting really annoyed at being asked to do other businesses marketing before the transaction has been fully completed. I’m sure you’ve experienced this too. The second I’ve made a purchase or received a service I get a request to complete a survey or leave a review.
Here’s the thing it is not my job as the customer to do your marketing for you! Furthermore, asking me to do just that, actually annoys me and makes me like your business less. In general humans when they receive good service or are happy with the product they were sold, will graciously speak well of the company whether it’s online or offline. The focus seems too much on getting the review rather than completing the sale well and ensuring the customer is happy.
Here’s an example. Recently I engaged the services of one business. I was pretty happy with the service I received and was looking to organise a follow up appointment. In the days following my appointment this good experience turned into a negative and annoying experience. Let me explain what happened. Shortly after the appointment I received an email request for a Google review. I remember thinking “wow that’s a bit premature as I haven’t set or had my second appointment yet”. In my mind there would be further business to be done and maybe after that was completed would have been a better time to ask for a review. To me it felt that the order was all wrong.
I then received an email asking if there was anything I am needing help with. I thought “fantastic this is what I was looking for some customer follow up”. I answered the email with a couple of things I needed help with. To my shock that email was never answered. I then received maybe a day later another email asking if I would nominate the business for some business awards. This for me was when the irritation hit.
I hadn’t been contacted to see if I was happy or even to book in the follow up. The focus was all about what I could do for them to help with their promotion. They completely dropped the ball on delivering service. This is a dangerous practice one all too common with automation of emails. Businesses are putting their business promotion needs ahead of satisfying the customer’s needs. So, my dissatisfaction was growing. If I was a keyboard warrior I may have vented in a negative review. The business owner would have seen that and thought “oh she wasn’t happy” which is not the full story.
- A google review is only valuable for a business if it is a positive review.
- You don’t want to find out your customer is unhappy via what they write.
- You should have checked in with them way before they struck finger to keyboard. Customer Satisfaction is measured by repeat business and word of mouth referral.
- You need to connect with the customer and ask them if they are satisfied.
If you can’t do that you shouldn’t be in business. It’s as simple as that. When did this fundamental get lost? When did we get so busy hiding behind screens and keeping ourselves arms-length from our customers. We focus on the marketing doing with meaningless and damaging actions creating a perception we are doing a great job. Instead, we should be focussing on serving the customer fully. A good business is measured by repeat customers. They become advocates or raving fans, and this grows your business and builds profit and isn’t measured by google reviews. Let’s keep this simple.
Focus on doing a great job with your customers and the great reviews will take care of themselves.
