When you go into business, you want to make a sizable amount of profit that will give you the lifestyle you’ve always wanted – a lifestyle where money is no longer an issue in your life. This includes not having to worry how you’re going to pay off bills or credit card debts or how you’re going to deal with an unexpected circumstance, such as an accident and a resulting hospital stay. That’s why many people are looking to have their own businesses, to control their destinies and make more money than they are currently making.
Unfortunately, some businesspeople will start to look upon money as being the only objective worth pursuing. They often forget about establishing a good relationship with the customers who do business with them. These businesspeople think, “They should be happy; my product is that good. Plus, I can always get more customers.”
The problem in that thinking is that it is much easier to keep the customers you already have and have them purchase from you again because you’ve already demonstrated that your products/services were worth the money they spent on them. That’s often the most difficult part of business: Getting the customer to trust you enough to make that first sale. If that first sale goes well, then it’s easier to make a second or third sale from that customer.
Unfortunately, many businesses seem to forget this fact, thinking that for them to become more profitable, they have to go ahead and get more and more customers. And while getting more and more customers is not a bad thing, neglecting your previous customers while seeking these new customers is a bad thing. This includes providing poor customer service (including answering questions and assisting them in setting up software, etc.) to those previous customers. This will lead to many of them not ordering from you again, so even if you gain the new customers you are seeking, they’ll only take the place of those previous customers, not be added to them, which will lead to you not making more profit as you had wanted when seeking these new customers.
For more information on how customer service can affect your business’ profits, read “Customer Service Profits.”
