Thanks to our great customers, our business is continuing to grow at a
steady, uphill rate. With this increase in business, we seem to notice the
beginning of customer complaints about our turnaround time for processing
orders.
At first, I became "paranoid" and thought I was doing something wrong.
I forced myself to work 20 hour days, eliminated my social and family life
completely and ignored anything else that didn't pertain to business.
Unfortunately, this approach did not solve the problem. I ended up running
my body down and became so ill I was confined to bed for almost 4 days.
So, what did I gain?
Then, I received another complaint about our turnaround time a few weeks
later. But this time, instead of getting "paranoid," I sat back and analyzed
the situation. The 3 complaint letters had one thing in common _ they were
all from beginners in mail order. My long-time, repeat customers had not
complained in the least _ just 3 beginners in mail order.
So, I telephoned one of the people who complained and learned they had
expected their order within 4-5 days after they mailed their original
order in. Since it had been 2 weeks since they ordered, they labeled our
turnaround time as "very poor." It suddenly dawned on me that they were
expressing the same behavior all beginners experience _ lack of patience!
But, they aren't entirely at fault.
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