Everyone makes mistakes! In looking back over the years, I’ve started a few articles with that simple phrase and I thought about going in a different direction; but those three words get the point across better than anything else I could say. There’s not a salesperson who has been working for more than a day that has not made a mistake, most of us make mistakes every day. Some of the mistakes may even be bigger than we would like to admit, but I’ll let you in on a secret: mistakes won’t cost you customers, but not fixing the mistakes will.

A few weeks ago I was getting a bite to eat while on the run from one appointment to another, and decided that a drive thru was the best way to go. That’s when the problem started; I still don’t know exactly what happened, but the person taking my order was highly unprofessional. I won’t go into all the details, but there was no greeting other than “What do you want?” and I heard three swear words. I don’t know if he knew the microphone was still on or not, but either way, it was completely unprofessional.

That was the mistake and I certainly understand that this one employee was not indicative of the whole company, and I would not take my business elsewhere because of this one incident. However what followed, or didn’t, is the reason why I won’t be back.

Because I was in a hurry I did not have time to speak to a manager that day; instead I sent an e-mail to register my concerns. I did receive a response from the home office saying they were sorry and they were forwarding the e-mail onto the store. So far, so good. Three weeks went by, and I heard nothing from the store and now it’s been over a month, and still nothing. That’s not ok in any business, let alone one that thrives (or should) on customer service.

I never wanted a free sandwich or a coupon, what I wanted was the company and more specifically the store to acknowledge there was a mistake. My only hope is that they did address the issue internally and that mistake will never happen again. I’ll never know if it was corrected because I won’t be back.

Mistakes happen but the professional salesperson acknowledges the mistake and then makes it right.

FINAO - Brad Huisken