So you have decided to setup your own business. By far the simplest process was setting up the company formations. You have a cool company name, nice looking website – a great brand. Well done, you have done the easy part of UK company formations. Now come the difficult aspects of running your own business. The biggest part, is finding lots of customers. Once you have the customers through the door, you have an even harder job. You need to keep them. Successful businesses have a high customer retention rate. You cannot afford to be losing customers to competitors because you slipped up on customer service for example. So how do you make sure you don’t lose customers unnecessarily? Luckily while there might be a hundred and one ways of doing so, there are only really a few main reasons companies lose their customers. Here are the top reasons.

I absolutely hate it when a company says they are going to do something, and don’t bother. How about a real life example, which just happened to me? On the whole, the company hasn’t done a great deal wrong. Fortunately when I don’t have an Internet connection, I see it as an opportunity to get out in the real world! However some customers aren’t so cool, and will go up like a bottle of pop with the slightest provocation.

I am writing right now because I have no Internet connection. It’s my fault because I lost my login information, not my provider’s. Yesterday I rang the company to confirm the details. Unfortunately the portal that hosts the details was unavailable, but they would get back to me within an hour with the information I needed. I was quite impressed they were making the effort to manually get the details for me. Better than that, they called me back within ten minutes and exceeded my expectations. Unfortunately while my back was turned, my Mum binned the piece of paper with the details on! So I called again and as before, I was told I’d be called back in fifteen minutes. After an hour, I chased them only to be given the same line. What irritated me is that I had been told fifteen minutes. The lesson to be had here- if you tell your customer you are going to do something, make sure you do it. If the situation changes, inform them. Had the company phoned me after fifteen minutes, apologised and told me to wait a day, I’d have found something to do. I actually ended up getting very irritated with them as they repeated the excuse a further two times.

This shows the importance of managing expectations. If the company had informed me apologetically I’d have to wait a day, I’d have been fine. If they had then fixed the problem quicker than that, I’d have been happy. This is why the McDonalds brand is so successful. You know what you are getting every time you buy a Big Mac. The McDonalds hand book covers everything from how long the burgers are grilled before frying to how much sauce is applied. It’s very hard to go wrong this way. Not like when you eat out in a restaurant and are wowed by the food, only the next time you visit, you experience a different chef and different food. Make sure you set expectations at a reasonable level, and try and beat them. Never go beyond the expectations you have set.

Remember finally, you will never please every customer. In fact, some customers love being a menace! These kind of people normally had something bad happen to them at one point like they were without their Internet connection for a day. In a all seriousness, in 9 years of running different businesses to varying degrees of success, and with customer service from the below par to excellent, I know you cannot please everyone. There are plenty of customers that cause problems and then through their own stupidity, blame you! Ignore the problem customer and focus on the customers that count by following the advice above.

If you require guidence with company formations talk to Optimum Formations. Optimum Formations can provide help with UK company formations.