One of my former SCORE colleagues, Tuck Aikin, wrote the following article about unraveling human contradictions to protect a business’s reputation several decades ago. Some of the data contained in the original article have become stale with time, but the message remains as true today as it was when Tuck penned them.
We, humans, are a peculiar species. We’re supposed to be at the top of earth’s intelligence list possessing far superior rational thinking capabilities, yet often we’re completely contradictory: parents put bicycle helmets on their children, but on an outing, the parents don’t wear them; we don’t vote, then we complain about what our elected officials do or don’t do; we buy cars on the basis of their color; we become impatient with sales clerks for taking too much time when we have no other pressing matters to attend to; we spend an extra 75¢ on gas driving to find a filling station that’s 3¢ a gallon cheaper.
Wise businesses learn about these irrational yet predictable customer desires and behaviors, often called “hot buttons,” and accommodate them. Other businesses don’t, with the inevitable consequence that such firms inadvertently build a poor business reputation, an uncontrollable force that can work for or against the company.
Ironically this seems to happen more when business is booming than when it’s not. Thomas Watson Jr. of IBM said, “The worst business decisions are made in good times, not in bad.”, and it’s true.
Last year my wife and I contracted to have a custom home built, and we were assured that the project would be completed in February. Since the resort town we’re building in has been in a construction frenzy, we were pretty sure our contractor’s projection was overly optimistic, so we discounted what he said and figured we’d be finished in April or May. As it looks now, our house won’t be habitable until the middle of September at the earliest.
Before starting, our builder inquired about our desired completion date, and we perhaps foolishly told him that we “…aren’t in a hurry because this will be a vacation home.” What we didn’t know was that our contractor had three other houses underway, including his own. So, for months there would be a tradesman here and there working at our place when there could have been many, but we didn’t complain because we weren’t in a hurry, and we knew he was working to meet other customers’ deadlines.
Then in early July, after we knew one of his other jobs had been completed, the lack of progress on our place just got to us. Even though there was no logical reason for us to be anxious to have our house finished, our threshold for pain had been crossed. It’s kind of like waiting for an unusually long stop light when you’re just out for a pleasure drive – you just get angry and impatient anyhow. There’s no reason for it, that’s just the way it is.
Despite our frank discussions with our contractor about minimal progress, it continued. And there is his biggest mistake. When the bloom comes off the construction flower, as it most surely will, our builder would be foolish to give our name as a reference when he really needs the business. He has seriously damaged his reputation, which is something that takes forever to rebuild. With most of us customers, reasons and apologies for delays are appreciated for a while, but then we just want results. Perform, we say, or we’ll take our business elsewhere.
So what should a business do to protect its reputation?
Learn the customer’s “hot button(s)” and address it/them immediately.
Under promise and overperform.
Don’t establish policies or procedures that bruise your good customers while trying to control damage from your bad ones (e.g. check acceptance policies, accepting return merchandise).
Realize that everyone has a limit to their patience, and make sure you don’t cross it.
Tuck Aikin was a former SCORE colleague of mine for many years until his retirement. Tuck is a prolific writer and wrote small business-themed articles for the Colorado Springs Gazette for many years. As a co-mentor, Tuck was my inspiration for me starting this blog. The preceding post is reproduced with permission from the author.
