How a moron does business - the case of the "Cookies, Cakes & Cartridges" business (cont.)

# 2: The delivery guy is running late. So do this: Ring us.

"Hello Mel. It's Mary here from Cookies, Cakes & Cartridges. I'm terribly sorry Dave (personalise it) is running a little behind schedule because the traffic has been much heavier than expected.

Is it okay if we deliver the cartridge tomorrow? (Get the customer's permission) I'm very sorry for the inconvenience - we always strive for a perfect scorecard.

Dave will call on you first thing in the morning (ambiguous, Dave can turn up at 10 and that'll still be okay) and he'll have an extra cake for you as our way of saying sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks for your understanding Mel. Bye."

# 3: The delivery is a day late and they didn't bring the cake.

Time for some major groveling here because the business sucks and you know it.

Here's a choice of 3 actions they should have taken - what would you do?

1. Phone call apology. Written apology. Extra cake. And no charge for the cartridge. Eat the cost, cost yourself $100. With a policy like that you (as the business owner) won't be tolerating crap performance from yourself in the future. If you do, it's gonna hurt your hip pocket.

And you'll probably keep the client, win back some goodwill and get some positive word of mouth because of what you did.

2. Free cake. $20 discount. Phone call apology an hour after the cartridge and/or cake was delivered.

3: Phone call apology. $20 discount voucher off your next order.

I can't wait for the Mud Cake to arrive tomorrow - it will either be a Cheesecake or won't show at all!!

It's tough to make a buck out there in the business world. Make the most of every customer. They're the ones who pay the bills, feed the kids and pay the mortgage.

If you do mess it up (and we all do), make things right for your customer as quickly as possible. It's the right thing to do - not only for your customer, but for your business as well.

(By the way, that old saying "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"..... should actually be "Hell hath no fury like a woman who didn't get her cake." Mel and Jo are angry!!)

Brendon Sinclair