My wife called a party supply store yesterday that she’s done quite a bit of business with over the past 15 years and has also referred many customers to as well. She asked an employee if they had a particular type of straw for snow cones. She’s currently working on a pretty good sized event with lots of kids attending. The employee told her they were out of those types of straws right now. It never dawned on the employee to ask when she needed them. No effort was made to say when they would get more straws in or if they could order some. My wife has bought these straws from them before. The employee then told her they get them from a local restaurant supply business. My wife thanked her and then called the other business. They not only had the straws but they were cheaper. She also found out they had other supplies she needed at about a 40% savings. Guess what? The party supply store just lost a 15-year long customer and advocate to another local business. They didn’t lose the customer because my wife was upset but because the party store employee happens to be the best advocate for the competing restaurant supply store. We’d call this employee a Vampire. She’s sucking the lifeblood, the advocates, out of this company.
The moral of the story is… pay attention to your phones. The owner is as much to blame as anyone for not monitoring the phones. Do you have any Vampires in your organization? You may never know unless you actually shop your own business. Sadly, this is a common tale. If you don’t mystery shop your employees and take your phones seriously, you’ll never know if your company has a chapter in this horror story. Odds are, if you’re not paying close attention to your phones, you may be headlining the story.
