By Luc Wade, Marketing Director of Hive Business
Did you know there are just two types of drivers in the world: those who buy new cars and the rest of us. Movement between them is one way traffic because even if second hand cars are your most reliable defence against pouring money down the toilet I can promise that one day you will, inevitably, find yourself sombrely wrapping your hands around a steering wheel and imbibing that intoxicating leather on a showroom floor.
It happened to me on bank holiday weekend and it was the last thing I expected. Actually, it was the second to last thing I expected. The first was the incredibly poor customer service I got at VW. And when I say poor, I mean breathtakingly bad.
Here’s what happened. Shortly after my wife and I decided we wanted a car we walked into an Audi garage. We were served tea and coffee while our two little girls received biscuits and toys to play with. Four or five charming members of staff interacted with us until an incredibly patient man presented a range of vehicle options to suit our needs and arranged a test drive for another time without children.
Then we popped over to VW. No one greeted us so we found a man, who said gravely: “There are so many options I couldn’t begin to tell you what you need. Give me your email address and I’ll send you the car builder app, then you can design the car you want and come back to discuss it.”
A pretty efficient way to get a customer’s back up, you’ll have to agree. Back at home, we thought we might like to see a VW California T6 with a pop top roof, so we phoned up to see if they were going to be open on bank holiday Monday. Yes, they said, but we would have to book an appointment because the show van was kept locked so people couldn’t touch the upholstery…
This all seemed incredible to me, especially after the emissions scandal. I felt let down; I suppose I had been expecting and was even (despite my aversion to becoming a sell out new car buyer) looking forward to a really slick customer experience a la Apple, MasterCard or British Airways.
It reminded me that there is in fact only one kind of customer in the world: a happy one. I will not be buying a VW; they’ve lost their chance with me forever now. The thing is, it would be really easy for them to stop this kind of shambolic experience being repeated. A bit of training and some decent management oversight. VW isn’t exactly short of cash for that kind of thing. I wonder how many other customer facing businesses are blindly turning away easy pickings as we approach the third decade of the 21st century.
A great many in dentistry, I’d say. One of our clients was baffled recently when sales didn’t improve following his Invisalign discount promotion. On investigation we discovered the front of house team was turning away enquiries if callers weren’t already registered at the practice. This problem was even easier to fix than the VW app gaffe I got caught up in, but more damaging.
Negative experiences are almost always shared with friends and family (and sometimes blog readers, haha) but, seriously, with big treatments like orthodontics people take extra care to shop around and ask people they trust for recommendations. It’s very bad news if the feedback they get isn’t good because dental practices don’t (yet) have the global brand prestige of VW to rise above it; they operate in much smaller catchments and can only trade on finite goodwill.
In customer service, and especially in dentistry, you have to eliminate negative customer experiences and nurture trust building behaviour among your team. Constantly. It’s really not about the clinician anymore. And it’s certainly not about a stupid build your own car app.
Luc
If you’d like to develop your brand or discuss your sales process, give me a call on 01872 300232 or email us at hello@hivebusiness.co.uk.
