This week I received a call from my uncle:
"My son has been in an accident and he has been flown to the trauma hospital by Life Flight."
Wow, what a call. Fortunately, he was not seriously injured but until that was determined, a few hours, we all did a lot of soul searching.
What's really important?
What do I care about?
What do I wish I had said during our last call?
All these and many more questions and thoughts flowed freely through the family and friends mind during the wait for information.
The point: Be thankful for every day because we have no guaranty for tomorrow.
Do you realize that many of your customers and referral partners are waiting for your call or e-mail also?
During that wait, they are having a difficult time thinking good thoughts about you. They are worried and they need to hear from you. Remember, there is no such thing as too much communication but there is definitely a problem with too little communication and even communication for which you have not prepared yourself for adequately.
One example of a recent issue is an experience I had with a rep at our merchant account provider. We recently had an underwriting issue that required the escalation of the question to upper management. Our rep with the company set the expectation that an answer would be forthcoming in a few days. Well, you know me. By the end of the next day after a "few" days had come and gone, I expected and wanted an answer. I needed an answer. I had referral partners waiting on an answer. But, this person's idea of appropriate time and customer management is to not follow up with his customers until he has the answer to their question. Do you do this? This drives me crazy and absolutely destroys referral partner relationships.
During the "few" days process that took two weeks, my business partner company/referral source kept asking me: What's going on? What could I say, "Well they will not call me back."
Can you imagine my reticence in making that statement to my referral partner after I had built up this company/my "guys" in their eyes? How could that situation have been improved? All they had to do is first establish a reasonable time frame expectation and then stay in touch to update me. I prefer news, even bad news, rather than no news and so do your referral sources and customers.
I know that many originators and processers and underwriters have this same failed policy. But I can tell you that if you follow this policy, you are losing customers respect and your referral partners business as a result of it.
Now of course, I am not talking about the person that calls every five minutes. But even if we are talking about them and the other referral partners that are more reasonable, the first step is to establish expectations.
* When can they expect to hear from you?
* When do you return calls?
* When do you respond to emails?
When you establish these expectations, it is critical to live up to your commitment. I am very impressed with the company/person that calls precisely at the agreed upon moment a day or two or a week or more ago. Time is something we can all keep.
So be thankful and don't keep your customers and referral partners in the dark too long. Instead, establish expectations that you can live up to and then live up to them.
