Guest post by Marcel Oudejans.

My grandfather, a talented craftsman, used to tell me to “measure twice, cut once” when we worked on a project together.  I would be irritated with the ‘extra’ work that I needed to do, but I soon overcame this initial impatience when I found silly measurement errors moments before causing permanent damage to the materials I had to cut.  Relieved, I would do another double-check & fix the error before my grandfather found out!

I recalled this advice when I called my bank a few weeks ago to cash a 32-day notice account in preparation for a gift I wanted to buy.  Assuming that the telephone consultant had completed the transaction, I was later surprised and disappointed to find out that the transaction had not taken place at all – leaving me without the funds available to purchase the gift.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t written down the consultant’s name or the transaction number, so the bank is now unwilling (understandably) to provide the cash immediately without incurring a penalty fee.

Now, if I had checked that the consultant had, in fact, completed my request before assuming that he had done so, I may have discovered the error. Equally, had I written down the consultant’s name and the transaction reference number, the bank could have found the error and corrected it at their expense.

I therefore recommend that, as consumers, we should always “measure twice, cut once” when communicating with service providers – and always keep your reference number in a safe place.

Marcel Oudejans is a Corporate Infotainer who is passionate about inspiring his audiences to deliver more “magic moments” to their customers in their customer service, sales & marketing.  Marcel is the author of “The Serious Business Owner’s Guide To Creating Customers For Life” (free trial edition here) & provides more tricks, techniques & strategies on his blog, http://www.performmarketing.co.za