Well, over the holidays I had two of our own recommendations for small business owners bite me in the butt. Matt and I talk about have systems in place that don't allow you to miss important steps in business; and we encourage to have a contingency plan in place too. Two times this past fall I got sloppy and now I'm paying for it! So I thought maybe we could all (and mainly me) learn from my mistakes:
1. I accepted a credit card payment from someone I didn't know. I took an imprint of their card which includes the credit card number and their name. But that's all. The card got declined, but the customer walked away with the product. Those of you that have read the book, what should've I have done? I should have wrote down their address, email address and phone number to follow up in case that happened, not to mention to follow up from a customer service point of view. And even better - I should've called in the number right there on the spot instead of waiting until after the event.
2. Throughout Kingston I often get asked by clients to buy my book, and if I have a copy on me I give it to them right there and then (don't want to loose the sale, right?). However, sometimes the customer doesn't have exact change on them or we don't have a pen to write down a credit card number, etc. Since I usually know these people I'm not worried as I can follow up with them about payment... if I remember that is. In 2008 we have probably given out 5 books to people and forgot to write down who. It's hard to follow up when you can't remember with who. Trucker readers what should we have done? Write it down right there, or leave ourselves a voicemail if we don't have a pen; have one master record of accounts outstanding; follow up with 48 hours of delivery, and the list goes on.
So, in looking back, what did you miss in 2008 that you'll be sure to fix for 2009?
PS - if you one of the 5, consider this your follow up and please pay up! Thanks.
1 comment:
I had exactly the same thing happen to me in an Ottawa show last year. It was a mother and daughter “team”. They waited until we got really busy knowing that we probably wouldn’t call in their credit cards right away. When we did call in - both of their cards were declined. I ran all over that park looking for them and magically they were gone!
We were very persistent in calling in on the mother’s card for a couple of weeks or even longer after the show……….and guess what? It finally worked and we got our money!!! However the card the daughter had wasn’t even registered anywhere. Thankfully the amount the mother spent was the larger of the two sales.
Anyway, it taught us that no matter how busy we get - call in the card Right Away. Usually customers are friendly enough and don’t mind waiting.
Jayne
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