Second Rule of Business

At the start of this month, I set down in this space what I have always seen as the First Rule of Business: “When someone comes to you and says, ‘Hello, I would like to give you a lot of money now,’ you say, YES!” It continues to amaze me how often one encounters situations in which a company will literally make it impossible for you to do business with them, especially when (as is usually the case) the competition will usually be only too happy to take the business being blown off. But as several of you have pointed out, most business mishaps are not quite so blatant; in general, you are more likely to encounter situations in which a company merely makes things difficult for the customer.

This brings me to the Second Rule of Business: Do Not Annoy The Customer. Again, you would probably think this is obvious. If we annoy the customer, he or she may well decide to go elsewhere and do business with a company that is not, currently, annoying him or her. Consider, for example, the case of a retail store with multiple cash registers, but only one person available to operate them. If there are two people in line, you might decide to wait in line until your turn comes up; however, this possibility becomes increasingly smaller as the line grows. If there is another store nearby that sells the same merchandise, you may decide to go there instead, especially if you become aware that there are additional cash registers (and additional employees) available but the store is making no effort to use them to speed up the line. If the competitor does have adequate staffing (and reasonable checkout lines) you may not, in fact, ever return.

Admittedly, this is a difficult situation to manage properly, and retail managers spend a lot of time learning how to run these operations smoothly. I will also concede that when a store (or a company) is operating at capacity (e.g. all check stands open and ten people in line at each one) there is very little the manager on duty can do about the situation. However, there are many related issues. In retail, stores that are consistently out of stock of what you want to purchase; on the Internet, web sites that are consistently down when you want to make a purchase; in food service, empty restaurants that can not seat you because they don’t have enough staff on duty; by telephone, tech support that can not diagnose your problem, or tell you how to fix it; all forms of telephone-based customer service with wait times measured in hours or days instead of minutes – all of these are simple cases annoying the customer. Of, in effect, inviting the customer to take their money and go elsewhere.

It would be nice to believe that this behavior occurs only in large companies, where customer service is not made a priority, and customer service personnel receive the same salary regardless of how often they break the Second (or First) Law of Business. Regrettably, in the consulting practice we saw examples of this sort of idiocy in small business ventures and even non-profit organizations. By the same token, I can refer the reader to any number of large organizations that appear to have taken these ideas to heart – Nordstrom being only the most famous example. The key factor will always be the importance placed on customer service, not just at the point-of-contact level, but at all levels (and by all levels of management). Because unless you make this an absolute priority, I can almost guarantee that you or someone who works for you has already broken the Second Law of Business – and will again…