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Last year, when every customer mattered, I began taking customer loss seriously. After experiencing tumbling revenues and tight budgets for more than three quarters, I could not afford to simply shrug my shoulders and say, "There's always one more!" every time a customer left. There wasn't always one more out there and makeup wasn't on the top of every family's must have list. Mom was more likely to sacrifice her skin care and makeup than to ask her husband to skip his weekend golfing. Women are wired differently - and they are my customers!
To make a long story short, I got hit with a double whammy. With an already saturated local cosmetics market, I felt I had to have slick advertising to offset the deep discounts and coupons my competitors were offering. Big mistake. I ended up attracting window browsers who stopped in for the free gift but offered no promise of a true, lasting customer-service provider relationship.
Second whammy? I had an utter product failure that cost me customer trust. I buy products from my sponsored franchise but I do have some say about how which products I purchase. I won't go into all the gory details but I did present my customers with a product that I lacked the punch it promised. The results were disgruntled customers that essentially fired me.
Here's what I did to get them back.
I contacted the company.
I reported the problem and demanded assistance. Apparently, I wasn't the only franchise owner having issues. I was promised a wholesale refund for the failed product and received an apology for the problem.
I took responsibility.
I didn't pawn off my failed product on the franchise, I took personal responsibility. I began by addressing the problem with a personal letter to my customers. I offered a sincere apology concerning the product's performance and offered a full refund.
I followed through on my refunds.
I reviewed each sale and made contact with every customer that made a purchase that I had contact information for. If for some reason, they didn't get the apology correspondence, I offered a personal apology. Then asked how they would like their refund.
Finally, I made appointments with customers to review their suggested product lines and offer tried and true products.
I did whatever I could to build relationships. In some cases, that did mean offering a small one-time discount or one free makeup session. I pledged to never offer products I hadn't first tried myself.
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