I sent an email to my account representative in an effort to prevent a problem with an order. I got no response. Three possibilities came to mind:

• She took care of my concern but didn’t bother to tell me
• She was out of the office and did not have her email forwarded to someone who could ensure prompt attention
• She did not understand my concern and simply dismissed the email without following up

None of these left me with a good feeling. I felt like I had dropped one more well-intentioned email into the abyss.

Are you leaving your customers suspended in uncertainty? 

Think of how many problems you could prevent and how confident your customers would feel:

• If you and your employees always took a moment to confirm receipt and provide some indication of when you would follow up
• If your customer service representatives always forwarded their email and phones to another representative when out of the office so that important messages receive prompt attention
• If you and your employees always clarified confusion with a quick phone call

Even when short-handed, you can make this happen. Consider the following:

• If you prevent a significant problem, your quick response will have taken far less time than the rework.
• If you retain a customer, your efforts will have taken far less time than winning a new one.
• If you find yourself answering the same questions or managing the same concerns over and over again, you have found an opportunity to take preventive action. What is driving your customers to raise these issues repeatedly? What can you do to prevent it? What information can you provide? What forms or web pages might you amend? What preventive phone call might you make?

I won’t know until my shipment arrives whether my email failed to avert a disaster. Why would anyone want to leave their customers suspended in uncertainty?