Walking Your Talk – Ethics and Authenticity

It’s been a while since my last rant – I think I’m due.

I’ve recently had dealings with a company I thought I had come to trust. The person at its head talks a good game and appears to be committed to the things the company says it is. (And no, I don’t want to give names – at least not till everything settles). But the truth is this company doesn’t carry through on promises made, doesn’t deliver when expected and never returns emails or phone calls in a timely manner. And there are two different seminar companies I’ve had to contact once a month about delivery on products they promised at the seminar. One of them finally told me the product I had been promised as part of my enrollment (an audio of the event that could have been slapped onto a CD as was) was proving to be too much trouble to edit and therefore, would not be forthcoming.

This is a real hot button for me. If you’re not going to be able to deliver on a commitment when you say you’re going to, at least get in contact to say so. Everyone has things that come up. You’re not going to be able to keep every commitment; it isn’t humanly possible. It just isn’t. But communication is the way to keep your customers satisfied and loyal.

There seems to be a growing tendency, or so it appears to me, towards a feeling of entitlement among some business people; as in not needing to be available when customers call or not needing to be timely with details when someone else needs them.

I’m a talkshow radio host, as you know, and I have a royal dither of a time trying to get my guests to provide bios and information I need in time to prep my shows. It’s almost as if it’s a case of mind over matter – they don’t mind, I don’t matter! Not good, people.

It’s sort of like athletes who let their fame go to their heads. They conveniently forget that it was their fans who got them where they are in the first place and they owe them a debt of gratitude and at the very least, attention! We are nothing without our customers/clients. If we want our businesses to continue, we need to at least pay attention to their requests and deliver the level of service they have come to expect from us and which kept them opening their wallets to support us to this point.

When you encounter a vendor/provider who is not paying attention to you as a consumer, or when you encounter a business that proclaims excellent customer service but doesn’t return phone calls, remember the feeling of frustration and not having been served. Remember that nastiness in the gut that comes from suppressed anger and do what you can to avoid that happening to YOUR customers.

It’s all very well and good to have tons of first-time buyers, but it’s the repeat customers who keep you afloat and give you recommendations. I know I was a staunch advocate of this company I’m trying to get action out of, but no more. Now that trust has been broken and replaced with suspicion and a firm resolve not to recommend them to any of my clients because I can’t be sure my people will be treated right if I do.

Recommendations Are Earned, Not Standard

When you go to a restaurant and are well treated, you leave a tip for the server, don’t  you? When you get lousy service, however, do you leave one?

Recommendations are like the tip. They need to be earned. A gratuity in the restaurant business used to be something received for service above and beyond what was expected. Now, it’s become a common practice to leave a 15% tip no matter how good or bad the service is.

Remember these points when you’re at work:

1. Your customers/clients got you where you are. You owe them.
2. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. No excuses.
3. If you cannot deliver on a promise, at the very least communicate.

You Have To Walk Your Talk. You Are Your Product.

If all you want to do is sell someone else’s, get a job at your local megamart! You got into business in the first place to be of service (no matter what you’re doing, that’s the purpose, folks); to either make something better than what was in existence at the time, or to provide a product that was missing in the marketplace. But all that goes away if you don’t have a system of ethics you adhere to.