In today’s business world you can find plenty of examples of companies going the extra mile to surprise and delight their customers. They send handwritten notes, transform a normally-boring pre-flight safety announcement into something funny, etc. Everyone loves pleasant surprises!

No one, however, likes unpleasant surprises – especially those that stem from poor communication. My friends’ recent experience is a great example of this.

Poor communication = lost customers 

Catherine and John were heading out of town for a concert and needed to board their two dogs for the night. They decided to try a pet boarder that they hadn’t used before.

Catherine called the company and explained she’d like to drop the dogs off around 2:00 on Saturday afternoon and pick them up late Sunday afternoon. How much would this cost? “$50 for the two dogs,” the business owner said.

On Friday the company called and asked if the dogs could be dropped off by 11:00 am instead of in the afternoon. “Sure!” Catherine replied. “No problem.”

But when John picked the dogs up at 4:00 on Sunday, the $50 fee had doubled to $100. Why? Because of something that wasn’t mentioned. This pet boarder charges $50 per day, and counts anything over 24 hours as another day.

Needless to say, Catherine and John were not happy with this unpleasant surprise. Not only will they avoid this establishment in the future, there’s a good chance they’ll be telling others in their small town about their poor experience, too.

Pay attention to what you tell your customers 

At the very minimum, you need to ensure that the information you provide is clear, complete and accurate.

For example…

• Prices: Are you clearly communicating your prices and pricing-related policies?
• Products: Are you providing accurate descriptions of your products and services, including providing accurate photos of physical products?
• Values: Are you upholding the values that you tout in your marketing materials?
• Consistency: Is your communication consistent across platforms?
• Typos and other errors: Have you proofread everything? Sometimes something as simple as a typo or a misplaced or missing punctuation mark can completely change the meaning of a sentence. A popular example of this is the difference between “Let’s eat Grandma” and “Let’s eat, Grandma.” Without the comma, Grandma is the dinner entrée, not the dinner guest.

Learn from this pet boarder’s mistakes! Don’t let poor communication ruin your company’s reputation, and/or prevent new customers from turning into repeat customers.