WEB BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

Took the family up to Port Macquarie on the NSW North Coast recently so my daughter could play in an annual soccer tournament. Last year we stayed at Beaches Holiday Apartments, a top facility if you’re looking for Flynns Beach accommodation. Unfortunately, this year we left our booking too late and they were booked out. So an alternative was found, a resort known as Flynns on Surf.

First impressions weren’t great…cockroaches in the kitchen as soon as we walked in, more in the bathrooms, and the second bathroom had practically no water pressure. Still, we overlooked this as everything else was generally good and we were close to Flynns Beach where the team were meeting.

At the end of the tournament the coach - who was also staying at this resort along with several other families from our team - decided to have a team get-together at the resort’s recreation area. But, apparently it was against the rules for non-guests to use the facilities. This is understandable, and the owner was well within his rights to make an issue of it. We should have at least sought his permission beforehand. Our mistake.

But what left us totally stunned was the way Basil…he even had a similar stature to John Cleese…decided to handle the situation. Instead of quietly taking aside one of the guests and saying “If there are people here you have invited who are not guests you’ll have to ask them to leave” he proceeded to shout at the whole group… in true Basil Fawlty tradition…and demand that any non-guests, who he humiliated by making them raise their hand, vacate the premises immediately.

That was bad enough, but he then started yelling at the kids in the pool, saying if they weren’t guests they must get out of the pool immediately. Now, if you want to piss off a parent big time, just yell at their kids.

Basil then left and returned half an hour later, when most of the group had left but a few were still cleaning up, to ensure his demands had been met. More angst. More confrontation.

Now, what Basil seemed to forget was that many of the people in that group were his PAYING CUSTOMERS, attending an ANNUAL EVENT. The rest of the group were POTENTIAL PAYING CUSTOMERS also attending an ANNUAL EVENT. A smart “customer service professional” would have seen the opportunty and said to the non-guests “I’m glad you’re enjoying our facilities, although we don’t really allow non-guests to use them. Maybe you’ll consider staying here next time.” He could also have said to the coach “Why don’t we see if we can do a special deal and book the whole team in for next year?”

As it was, it’s highly unlikely any of our team will return to Fawlty Towers. 

So, how does this relate to the online world?

Your website is not the only way your potential customers find you online. In days gone by, people would relate their experiences to their friends. Bad enough, if the experience was bad. But now they express their feelings online. They make comments in forums. They blog about you (just like this). The effects are far-reaching and permanent. Try Googling “Dell Hell” and you’ll find references to a bad customer service story that happened 4 years ago. And even a company the size of Dell are powerless to stop it.

Social media effects companies large and small. Customer service affects every business.

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