Starting a Small Business

How to Keep Customers

The most important thing is to know exactly what your customers think of your establishment (not just a quick or flippant answer).

There's a superb example of the quick and meaningless responses that customers make in one of the Faulty Towers episodes. John Cleese went on to make an absolute fortune from making training videos about customer service and suchlike.

For those who are unfamiliar with the BBC series, Faulty Towers is a Hotel run by Basil Faulty. His antics around the hotel are hilarious in their anti-customer malevolence. However, one particular scene shows a number of dining customers grumbling to each other about the quality of food and service, yet when the hotelier, Basil Faulty breezes past the tables, he asks if everything is ok, and each of the diners say something like “yes fine thank-you”. I suspect nowadays, the average customer is more likely to complain than back in the seventies, but still the joke works because we recognise the situation from our own experiences.

To find out really what your customers think, you will need to take the time to talk properly. Just like with sales, it is time to ask questions and LISTEN.