Companies are constantly looking for an edge, some way to differentiate themselves from their competitors. There’s a limit to how far they can compete in terms of price, so they turn their attention to other areas. Advertising, location and staff training are obvious areas, but they all cost money and take time, and are generally focused on attracting new customers and generating new sales.

But what happens after the customer has spent his or her hard-earned money and then finds something wrong with the product or service? This is where we find a major difference between companies: those that make the effort to deal with these inevitable problems effectively and those that don’t.

Previously most companies didn’t really care too much if a disgruntled customer vowed never to buy from them again, and tell all their friends how bad the company was – after all the sale had already made, and anyway how many friends could the average person have?

With the increasing ubiquity and time-saving potential of the Internet though, it’s becoming a very different picture. Many people check references on the internet before making major purchases, checking not only the quality and suitability of the product, but also the companies selling that product. Essentially individual consumers are finding a voice in the growing number of whinge sites and consumer pressure groups on the web. Where they might previously have had the ear of perhaps a few dozen, their bad experiences can now influence many thousands of potential buyers. Given a choice, how many people would willingly spend money at a company they had heard something bad about, regardless of expensive advertising or prime location?

On the flip side people are more likely to spend money at a company they’ve heard good things about. Accounts of individual experiences can be far more influential than advertising. The odd thing about companies that respond poorly to after-sales problems is that this is often the least expensive way to distinguish themselves from their competitors.

Getting this right is not straightforward. Unless a company has a well-entrenched policy about dealing with these issues, individual staff often don’t have the authority or skills to make decisions, and often there are no proper escalation procedures to get the issues addressed by someone who does have the appropriate authority.

I recently experienced this when I had a problem with our alarm system. I phoned our security service to tell them our panic buttons weren’t working. Two weeks and many phone calls later they finally sent out a technician who checked the system and left an exorbitant quote listing a string of components that needed replacing. I queried the quote and was told it was all in order, so reluctantly I authorized them to proceed. Another week passed with no response. I’d complained several times to various people in the technical department without any joy, so I finally decided to speak directly to the manager of the technical department. It turned out he was part-owner of the company and he responded immediately, personally coming out to the house within an hour. He found I’d been grossly over-quoted, and sorted everything out before the end of the day. He has the right attitude, but he hasn’t communicated it to his staff.

Proper response and escalation procedures and regular communications with their staff would go a long way to avoiding these frustrating problems, and the cost to company would be negligible. Besides if only one customer was saved from moving their account elsewhere in anger it would be worth it.

Arno is one of the directors of getclosure! He has extensive experience in IT design and development and was responsible for creating the getclosure! complaints management system. Click here to read more about Arno.