Is your business easy to do business with?

This week I have been thinking about why businesses make life complicated for their customers – I am sure your time, like mine, is very precious – and I like to do business with companies that make doing business as easy as possible.

Sure, agreements need to be comprehensive and documents need to be detailed but why do so many companies make life more complicated than necessary for their customers?

I have to put a good word in for my bank here – Westpac. I have a banker who is extremely helpful, he tries to make my life easier and as a consequence I often refer business to him in turn. And so it goes. So why is it so hard for so many companies to understand that making life easier for your customers gives you more referred business?

Telecommunications and utility companies definitely do not understand this concept.

The complete frustration of not being able to deal with the same person – the call centre, the telephone, on hold, the dial 1 for this and 10 for that – none of this is conducive to good business and it doesn’t make sense. I would love to know the economics of some of the cost measures that companies have undertaken that surely must lead to loss of business – that business which is so hard to get back!

Of course, this short-sighted company behaviour opens the door for small business to give the service that some large companies lose, and we see this happen particularly quickly in those industries which have a low barrier to entry.

But perhaps we are about to see a return to personal building business service. I notice a particular insurance company is now advertising the fact that people answer its phone. Having a person at the end of the line is now giving some businesses a competitive advantage!

Making life simpler for customers relates to many parts of a business:

• Telephone response
• Signage
• Product instructions
• Written communications
• Websites/digital communication
• Payment and delivery systems

What parts of your business could be made simpler for your customers, your staff and you, and in turn become more profitable?

To read more Marcia Griffin expert advice, click here.

Marcia’s latest book, High Heeled Success (pictured left), and is a frank account of building a business from a solitary sales person to a multi-million dollar business with 4700 sales consultants around Australia and New Zealand. Contact Marcia to purchase. Marcia’s latest venture is skin care company griffin+row.