Customers Don’t Buy Annoyance
Whether you’re pitching for new customers or supporting existing customers, annoyance doesn’t sell.
Recently a company pitched me on its much hyped platform, offering a webinar as product demo. Throughout the webinar, the presenter talked so fast (think crack head fast) it was hard to follow. In the beginning he announced he’d respond real time to questions posted by viewers, but in fact he did not. He hyper hyped a series of freatures, perhaps thinking viewers would get all the information they needed to sign up for the ‘special offer.’ Repeated viewer requests for the promised product demo were ignored, as were questions about product functionality. An auto response suggesting viewers contact tech support with those questions was the only response.
TIP: If you’re pitching your company’s product, keeping pre-pitch promises is key to building a prospect’s trust and interest. Being annoying fails to sell your product.
After the webinar, I contacted tech support, requesting the product demo the webinar had promised (or any product demo they could offer). Four different tech support didn’t bother to read my request. They sent me links to the webinar recording which of course did not contain the promised product demo. The third tech support person even told me I wasn’t comprehending they’d fulfilled my information request! I responded he wasn’t paying attention to my question. With the pitch not fulfilling their own promise, tech support not getting the point and being insulting, I quickly decided the company was clueless and employees were incompetent communicators, therefore the company was a loser.
TIP: If you’re providing tech support, make sure you listen or comprehend the customer’s request or issue before responding. Failure to comprehend the customer’s request of issue is not support, it’s a waste of time and makes you look incompetent.
A day later I received another email from another tech support person declaring the company has no product demo videos. (duh?) He did offer a solution so I could view the product. It involved gaining access to an existing customer’s account. Although he provided a link, I didn’t go there. The company had convinced me I didn’t want to be their customer. Maybe they have a great product with incompetent sales and support. I’ll never know. But I do know I’ll never do business with them.
TIP: If you cannot provide what you promise the customer, they won’t be a customer. If you don’t respect your existing and potential customers, they won’t be customers.
©Donna Earl 2018
Donna Earl is an international expert in Customer Service. She specializes in helping technical help desks deliver world class customer service. To use this article, Contact Us for permission.
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