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View All Press Releases| Mulady Solutions | 01 Sep 2008 |
Newsletter - Getting to the root of your problems pays dividends
A recent survey by the Office of Fair Trading revealed that problems with products and services cost UK customers an estimated £6.6billion last year. This equated to 542 complaints for every 1000 customers.
More shocking was that only approximately 64% of customers officially complained which leads me to think, what happened with those 64% of customers and as importantly what happened to the remaining 36% - did they just vote with their feet?
Effective problem solving should be at the heart of any organisation, we often only contact companies when we have a problem and will form an opinion on that company based on how well or how badly that is handled.
One of the main problems is a tendency to fire fight internal or external issues rather than provide a long term solution.
By drilling down to the root cause (and this is not always the obvious one) you can come up with a solution that will prevent re-occurrence.
An example goes back to my days of vehicle contract hire where a customer reported a problem with this van regularly breaking down. We repeatedly put the van into a garage to diagnose the problem and after a number of visits and great expense there was no improvement. After speaking to the customer at length, we discovered that he was piling so many boxes into the back of the van it was hitting the interior light – hence the battery running low.
Asking the right questions at the beginning would have saved us and the customer a considerable length of time and money.
Look carefully at the current situation, the root cause and the potential solutions before making a change that will ultimately improve your profitability and help retain your customers.
