When somebody promises me something and fails to keep up with it, I feel let down and annoyed. The trust I have on the person takes a heavy beating. It’s just not me that feels this way about broken promises, so does everybody else. It takes a lot of time and effort to win back the trust. So it makes all the sense in the World to make good on your promises.
In a business, both the sales and support teams are known for promising a lot to customers. And, the chances of over promising during a sales call happens to be on the higher side. To acquire a customer, one has to jump through a lot of hoops. Customers tend to compare your offer with that of the competitors and to close a sale, the marketing team might have to go overboard at times.
I’m not saying that sales persons tend lie to a customer to get them onboard, but they might offer something that’s not part of the standard package to close the deal and end up not informing about the same to the rest of the team.
So, when there is a support call and the customer is demanding something that’s not part of the plan, but was promised of the same, you might be looking at a messy situation. Going by the book or keeping all concerned parties in the loop would help avert such a scenario.
In the case of the support team, they tend to drop the ball frequently when intimating the expected resolution time for the issue to be fixed. From a polite request to an outright demand, customers always strive hard to get their issue addressed ASAP, if not right at that very moment.
Sticking to the standard resolution time and communicating it to the customer is not going to be pleasant. But, allowing the support team to use their judgement to escalate support requests for a quicker resolution that’s well in advance than the standard resolution time intimated to the customer, will for sure sweep them off their feet.
Okay, the moral of story is, it makes for an unpleasant experience for both you and the customer if you overpromise and underdeliver. What say you?
