For more than twenty years, I have been getting my haircut at the same place not far from my home. Lindsay, who cuts my hair today is both talented and a pleasure to connect with every six weeks. She knows how I like my haircut and we always talk about food, cooking, and family.
As I was leaving to pay, I asked the receptionist if I could schedule my appointments online. It would be so convenient to do, and I can avoid the typical 5-minute wait that happens every time I call.
She, along with her co-worker told me that you can schedule online, but you have to pay upfront, and sometimes it doesn’t work right, and you can’t schedule an appointment for a men’s haircut versus a women’s cut.
Wait, what?
So I went online and found a confusing, complicated form that didn’t work. Ridiculous. In today’s world, this should be simple and second nature.
I emailed the owner through his online form, and 10 minutes later he reached out to apologize. Wow, we screwed up, I’ll get this fixed. Thanks for letting me know it didn’t work.
Owners Care
As an owner, you always care more than your staff. It is your business. You will always care more than most employees. The receptionist who I spoke to probably figured — NMJ. (not my job). She didn’t say, let me get your phone number or email and I’ll speak to the owner, we will figure it out and I’ll let you know when it is fixed. The two receptionist acted like – gee, it is kind of screwed up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
NMJ.
For the owner of a business, everything is your job.
You better care about each of the friction points that get in the way of making a customer’s happy and a transaction easy. Technology makes it so easy that any hurdles are just unacceptable.
In corporations, where you have shareholders and employees, you often find people caring about their work if they are well treated. They’ll go the extra mile but not if they feel an unreasonable work environment.
That’s why the best employees are those people who care as if it was their own business. They are hard to find and worth more than you are probably paying them.
In the end, the owner has to make things work. She has no choice, or slowly the business will get clipped.
That’s who cares.
Do you need help uncovering the friction points your customers have to buy more from you? As a marketing professional, I may be able to shave some of the complexity away. Call me at 919 720 0995 or email me at jeffslater@themarketingsage.com – or book some time to talk on my calendar. (don’t worry, it is easy to use).
Photo by Adam Sherez on Unsplash
