What makes a customer take their business elsewhere? And what brings them back again? This true story happened to us. It reveals why the customer experience is the new competitive battleground.
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Early in 2015, we got some very bad news. One of our best-loved corporate clients announced they were taking their printing elsewhere. We were gutted.
To find out why this happened, we launched an internal investigation. Had we missed or messed an order? Were we late with a crucial delivery? Did we let ourselves down with poor quality outputs? Had our sales and customer service touchpoints lost their mojo?
We didn’t come up with a conclusive answer, even though no stone was left unturned. So we bid our client a polite goodbye, then retreated to heal our hurt pride and make double sure that other important clients were consistently happy with our performance.
Then, eight months later, we received a call from our ex-client. It went something like this:
“Hello, we’ve been having an internal review and we’ve decided that our move from Soar was a terrible mistake. We’d like to reinstate our printing relationship with you so long as you want to address a couple of small issues. The reason we moved our account last year was we’d been approached by another company who offered us such astonishing rates and unbelievable service that we really couldn’t ignore it.
“However, it has come to pass that these claims of higher efficiency and reduced costs just weren’t sustainable for them and they dropped the ball on so many fronts, so often, that it has really compromised our quality delivery our brand managers require.
“We’d have to say that not having you as part of our team has really left a hole in how we operate effectively. And we’ve missed you. Not only that, but we now appreciate all the other things you were trying to do to make our lives easier.”
The Soar sales team were gobsmacked, putting it mildly. After we’d picked ourselves up off the floor, we addressed the few issues raised and welcomed our client back with open arms and no hard feelings.
Learnings from this story:
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Never burn your bridges. New Zealand is a small country and a “no” today could become a “yes” tomorrow.
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If you focus on being better, bigger will take care of itself.
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Think one customer at a time and take care of each one the best way you can.
Want a better print customer experience?
See how Soar Print looks after customers, talk to Peter Lloyd on 021 457 199 or email peter@soarprint.co.nz about engaging in a FuturePrint® audit to determine how we can add value to your business.
Read case studies involving Soar Print customers.
