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It's Only Common Sense: It's the Little Things

Editor's Note: To listen to Dan's weekly column, as you've always done in the past, click here. For the written transcript, keep reading...It’s the small things that make the biggest difference. Many in our business, and in most businesses in general, think that just building a product is enough. They actually get bothered when their customers complain about the shipping count being wrong, or that some of the paperwork is wrong or missing, or that the quote was late or wrong.

Some even get upset when the customer complains that the boards just don’t look that good even though they are perfectly functional. Many companies don’t think that these things are important; once they deliver a functional circuit board, their job is done and that’s all that should be expected of them. And that’s why such companies will never be considered great.

Great companies takes everything they do seriously. They consider everything important, from the way they answer their phone to the way they handle customer issues, to the way they package and ship their boards. All of those things are important because in the end, it is all your product and all of it makes up the customer experience.

I know companies that have a terrible time getting the count right when they ship boards. Then, when the customer calls to complain and to get the paperwork fixed, they grumble and moan about the customer being picky. Think about that for a minute. The customer gave you a delivery date and you took that seriously because you understood how important that was, so important that you moved heaven and earth to get the boards out on time. That way the customer would have the boards when he needed them.

But then, if the paperwork is wrong, he is not able to process the boards into his system until he gets that squared away. See what I mean? Any way you look at it, the customer was not able to use those boards when he needed to use them because the count was wrong. Doesn’t make much sense, does it? The same applies to getting the paperwork wrong, not having the certs, or not have the invoicing correct. All of these things hold up the customer's ability to use the boards just as much as if you had never built and delivered them on time. The frustrating thing is that it truly is much easier to get the paperwork right, to get the count right, than it is to build those boards on time.

How about the way you answer the phone? Look, I don’t care how tight money is, have a real person answer the phone, even if you have to set up a system where your people take turns--I don’t care. Have a real person answer the phone. This has gotten so bad that now companies use the fact that they have a live person answering the phone as a selling point. I don’t blame them. They have every right to be proud of this if no one else is doing it.

Look, you are spending thousands of dollars on sales and marketing to get people to call your number, so what’s the point of pissing them off once they call in? You know everyone hates those answering systems with the directory and extensions and the first three letters, blah, blah, blah. That’s what we want, our customers good and angry before they even talk to you. I’ve got an idea: Hire the salesperson who sold you that stupid system in the first place, because that’s the greatest salesperson you’ve met in the past year!

Okay, one more little thing while we’re at it. This one is so simple that I cannot believe people don’t do it: Keep your customer informed. Talk to your customer, tell her that her boards are on schedule or, more importantly, if they are going to be late. If the customer knows that her boards are going to be late she can do something about it. She can rearrange the scheduling in her company to absorb the delay. In addition, it makes her look like she knows what is going on with her vendors. She’ll love you if she knows. She might not like the news, but she will certainly appreciate the heads-up.

If, on the other hand, you surprise her, if the first time she finds out her boards are going to be late is the day after they were due, she’s going to look bad. She’s going to look like she is not on top of things and, to her peers, she is going to look incompetent. Remember, the people in her organization are going to blame her for your boards being late. She is the one who is going to take the heat and, in the end, she will make sure that you feel it as well. That is certainly not a good thing.

Here are a few more little things that can make a big difference:

• Document all communications.
• Write your quotes addressing customer requests and concerns exactly.
• Make sure you shop is always clean and up to date. After all, you want to be known as a high-tech company.
• Always act professionally.
• Do everything on time or ahead of schedule--everything.
• Treat your own people as you want them to treat each other and, more importantly, the customers.

I could go on because there are literally hundreds of things you can do to become a great company. Can you think of a few? I would suggest that once a week you set aside time to meet with your team and come up with your own list of things to do on your way to becoming a great company.

It’s only common sense.