Isn’t It Strange The Way Some People Behave?

This is a true story.

Three years ago I was sold a framework for an online membership site for the purpose of distributing educational recordings to purchasers and subscribers using an online platform.

Well, as things go, this “plan” actually got away from me. One thing led to another and I never got around to ACTUALLY assembling the recordings and building the membership site.

You know how it is…. other “more urgent” things start taking priority, and soon that great thought that seemed to you to be a very good idea at the time gets put on the backburner as other more urgent things are prioritised.

The good news was that the membership site had an annual renewal fee, which is billed to my credit card….

And so when I saw that annual fee debited from my card after one year of no activity, I thought to myself:

“There’s the inspiration I need to get my thoughts together and really start building this thing”

Of course that didn’t happen….

No. Another year down the track and the membership site was still but a thought, and a third payment is taken from my credit card…

Well, I thought to myself:

“This year I am definitely getting this membership site happening”.

The funny thing is….

The funny [strange] thing is, that during these three years of paying for the membership site, nobody from that company made contact with me to ask whether I needed any assistance?

Nobody….

In fact, nobody from that company ever contacted me to let me know in advance that my annual membership fee was about to be deducted from my credit card they had on file.

And by the looks of my story this far, it is quite obvious that at ANY point in time, a helping hand would have been quite useful and welcoming to me.

So this year…

So this year my credit card expired. It passed its expiry date. It needed a new card that needed to be activated [by me] with a new expiry date.

And so I thought that my membership site people would need to contact me for that new expiry date?

Well, no, they simply took it upon themselves to guess, and then process, a new expiry date for that same credit card.

Which kind of shocked me…

But it did inspire me to send them some recordings that I needed to have them put together in an online membership access site for me…

And so that’s what I did.

And then guess what happened…

Absolutely nothing.

No reply.

No acknowledgement.

No reaching out.

Despite my continued requests for some acknowledgement and feedback about what the next sequence of steps needed to be.

So here’s what I did….

I contacted my credit card company and informed them of the fraudulent processing of my card, and to immediately reverse the reaction.

I contacted the membership site merchant supposedly providing me with a membership site, and informed him that I was not doing any more business with him, and that my credit provider was voiding the last transaction.

It’s a miracle!!

Well, upon receipt of this instruction from me all of a sudden the excuses started coming thick and fast and the membership site guy started trying to put together a product for me.

He even started to build the membership site all of a sudden, after no activity or acknowledgement at all in a two week period after I had been in touch with him and sent him the recordings.

Well guess what?

It was too late.

In the school of life, you cannot keep writing in an exam after they call for “Pen’s Down”.

In the school of life, your homework is rejected if it is submitted late.

Sadly for this guy, “Last Drinks” had been called and the bar was closed.

What a hide….

After being paid three years’ worth of fees and not having to deliver one little thing, the membership site guy had the hide to contest the credit card refund …. YES REALLY!!

He submitted a protest to American Express.

What a hide indeed…

On another note…

Recently I had been following up with a dental practice that had expressed an interest in some of my coaching programmes.

And it’s funny, when you leave a message on their service that tells callers that:

“We value your call”

And

“I’ll return your call as soon as possible.”

and they don’t return your call [and they hope you go away so they can stagnate in inactivity].

You have to wonder at the fact that the dentist’s actions, or inactions, are actually saying more about them than them NOT returning the call and manning up about their own inadequacies.

The Lesson Here Is This:

Congruency is so important.

If you make a mistake, take action immediately and be seen to be taking reparative action to rectify the situation as best you can.

If that mistake includes seeking help and then feeling overwhelmed, man up about the overwhelm

The fact that you sought help in the first place is indicative of the fact that assistance is required.

If that assistance needs to be instigated with a “softly softly” approach, then that soft approach is better than no assistance at all.

But communication is the key… and great communication is the real answer.

If you cannot communicate well with your customers, on a regular basis, don’t worry….

Your customers will leave you and soon you will have very few people that you will need to communicate with…

*****

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Call Jayne on 1300 378 044 or email Jayne@theDPE.com for more details.

*****

Have you read my book , How To Build The Dental Practice of Your Dreams [Without Killing Yourself!] In Less Than Sixty Days.

You can order your copy here: Click Link To Order

*****

The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.