Having a consistently, well-executed policy of an immediate response to customers, prospects, and partners is the most overlooked and underutilized competitive advantage in business. It’s actually difficult for me to write about this, because it’s so obvious, so powerful, so simple, and so available to anyone that I am in disbelief that anyone wouldn’t use it.
Immediate response applies to communication with customers, prospective customers, and partners (vendors, collaborators, suppliers, etc.). It goes double, triple, or quadruple for any of those entities that are experiencing a problem. The idea is that I will respond to those people as quickly as I possibly can, or I will have a system or process in place that makes it happen automatically.
When I say automatically, I most definitely do not mean an automated, canned, one-message-for-everyone approach such as: “Your e-mail/call/message is important to us. We will get back to you as quickly as we can.” All that shows is that once upon a time, somebody programmed an auto-response because they weren’t competitive enough to give you a real response. It also says, “We’re busy working on something more important than you. We’ll get to you when we have some extra time. Here’s a canned response to hold you off for a while.”
The goal is for a real person to respond in real time in such a way that it differentiates your performance from anyone else they do business with. You want to set the standard here. You want to demonstrate that their business is the most important thing in your world. You want them telling stories to other people (prospective customers) about how amazingly responsive you are, and that you don’t just say you value their business and their time—you prove it.
Brian Will Get Back to You Immediately
I was in the market for a new Website designer/manager. I change my site fairly often, so it was important to me that I hire someone who responded quickly. I asked a couple of my friends who they used and would recommend, and they both said that I should contact a guy named Brian Kraker. They both said he did great design work and also said, “He’ll get back to you immediately if you have a change, problem, or question.
I hired Brian and, guess what: He truly does get back to me immediately if I have a change, problem, or question. I’ve since recommended him to colleagues many times.
Joe: Brian, why it is so important to you to respond quickly to customers?
Brian: I work hard on responding quickly to my customers. I’ve been on the other end when I’ve contacted the customer service/support team and it takes days or even weeks before hearing anything back from them. It’s a very frustrating thing. So when I started my own business, I made it my goal to respond back to my clients as soon as possible. It reminds the customer that I’m always here for them, and they appreciate that!
Joe: How important has immediate response been in the success of your business and in continuing to build your business?
Brian: Responding quickly to e-mails has been incredibly important in the success of my business. I depend on word-of-mouth referrals. Some 95 percent of my clients have come by word-of-mouth. If I’m not doing a good job with my current customers, then they wouldn’t share my contact information with their friends/colleagues. I wouldn’t get a continual flow of new clients, and my business would hurt from it. I rely on my clients just as much as they rely on me. So I know it’s crucial to make my customers happy, and the best way I can make them happy is to always be there for my clients and respond to their e-mails and phone calls whenever they reach out to me.
A New Standard of Performance
An immediate response to customers has become such an expected standard of performance these days that I shake my head in disbelief at those who think customers will accept anything less. Not long ago, I sent an e-mail to a small company that used to provide Internet marketing services for us. The next day (already too long!), I received a reply saying the person I was trying to contact wouldn’t respond to me because he was at a business convention in Philadelphia.
What? Do they not have Internet service in Philadelphia? Is he seriously not checking e-mail for five days? If he’s not, did he not make provisions for someone else to handle his customers? And if he didn’t do that, did it not occur to him to send his customers advance notice that he’d be unavailable?
I fired the company.
Real-Time Response
Reality check: You can’t be slow to respond to customers today and expect to be competitive. Another reality check: “Slow” means taking longer than “now.”
I’m not talking about an unreasonable expectation on the part of customers. I’m simply talking about a new definition in a new customer reality. Immediate, real-time response has become the new reasonable expectation. Either meet that expectation or lose customers to those who will.
It used to be that when all else failed in trying to reach a service or product provider, you tweeted. Now it’s become the first line of communication for lots of consumers and business-to-business customers.
Sorry. That Won’t Work for Me
I was working with a company that was proud of its 24-hour response promise to customers. I used the punchline from an old joke in telling them, “Sorry, but your 24-hour response time wouldn’t work for me as a customer because of where I live.”
Someone finally asked, “Where do you live?”
“In the 21st century,” I said.
Obviously it’s your call. You’re certainly capable of immediate response to customers. Anyone is. If your excuse is that it costs too much money to staff for immediate response, I’ll simply say that it costs you much more to not do it. If your excuse is that you’re a small or even a one-person business, I’ll say “So am I. But I do it.”
Immediate response to customers, prospects, and partners is something you can start doing now, as soon as you finish reading this sentence.
Excerpt from “MAGNETIC: The Art of Attracting Business” by Joe Calloway (Wiley, November 2015).
Joe Calloway helps great companies get even better. A business author, advisor, and speaker, Calloway’s corporate client list includes Coca-Cola, IBM, Cadillac, and American Express. Calloway is the author of five business books including “Becoming a Category of One,” which received rave reviews from The New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, Retailing Today, and others. His newest book, “Magnetic: The Art of Attracting Business,” is published by John Wiley and Sons.
