Is Your Business Customer Orientated?

Is Your Business Customer Orientated?As an online business your more than likely dealing in virtual time, with virtual products. Meaning that unless you are selling "hardware" or things that require "shipping", once a customer pushes the submit or buy button they expect what they purchased almost instantly. Yes, dealing in cyberspace has amplified the "I want, what I want, when I want it" mentality. But is it really a mentality or is it just the way it is with online shoppers.Do you have a money back guarantee, and if so you honor it?If you do have a money back guarantee and a customer opts to exercise that option, you can not get upset. You should simply refund the money with a smile and hope that one day this customer will return. One thing you can be certain of, and that is if you treat a dissatisfied customer like a pariah they will never ever spend money with you again or worst they will tell others about the horrible treatment they got which could potentially cost you more in terms of both customers and cash.People are fickle, that is just the way we humans are. Some have passive, let it roll off me attitudes, some are more assertive with a in your face, tell it like it is attitude. What works for one does not necessarily work for the other.Two weeks ago I attempted to install some new Wordpress software onto one of my domains, gilbertocintron.com. The hosting company had one of those one click install features, which in general are very good and can save one a lot of time. This time is was taking way to long. Being the multi-tasker that I am I of course began working on something else. After a few hours my Wordpress was still not installed so I called customer service. They checked, had me on hold for about three minutes than told me to wait 24 hours and if it had not resolved then to call them again. Well after 24 hours my Wordpress was still not installed so I again called. An aside here, after the first few hours I tried to manually install Wordpress, which I did, but since the host was experiencing technical difficulties even my manual installation was not working. So I again spoke to customer service, again was put on hold and after a few minutes was again asked to "bare with us" and wait another 24 hours. I was angry but sort of understood so I did wait. It had now been more 48 hours and still not Wordpress. I again called customer service, was put on hold and this time was asked to please wait an additional 12 hours. Now I was furious. I even asked the customer service representative if they (the hosting company) would be as patient with me if I were unable to pay my hosting fee on time or would they give me time. After an awkward silence this person stated that it is company policy to wait at least 30 days before taking action.I did what is in my best interest, I moved on to another hosting company. The other hosting company I selected is a small company, I like small companies because you tend to get more personal one-to-one support. At first everything was fine. Instant activation, my hosting account was set up and I began transferring in my domains and building websites. The first clue that there was trouble brewing should have been when I could not set up ftp. The company guy was actually irritated that I did not want my service set up the way he is used to working. I like to have individual ftp log in details for each domain. In fact I need to have individual details since I use Dreamweaver. To build and develop my sites. We could not get that to work so I tried using my trusty ole filezilla for ftp. That did not work either. Eventually I had no choice but to set up one ftp account and work with each domain as a directory within the main domain. Yes, I know that that is how it is behind the scenes, but for my own purposes and because of the way I work this was not beneficial to me. Note that the company guy did spend hours with me trying to figure this out. But silly me, I thought is was because we had established a relationship, a sort of online friendship, that was motivating him to go the extra mile. Having adjusted to this way of working, I began setting up my sites. Now remember, I already had lost days because of the downtime at the prior hosting company. So in my mind I was on warp speed to get my sites up. One of the sites that I am developing is a member site. I have this very good software (so good that I bought two license) that I have been using since 2004. I know how to install and modify this almost with my eyes closed. Yet I could not get it to work on the servers of my new hosting company. In speaking to the hosting guy, I was made to feel that I did not know what I was doing in fact, at one point I had to remind the guy that I would not tolerate being talked down to. Since this guy is in another part of the world, and our time zones are different it was almost like hoping that we were online at the same time. . After being unsuccessful at getting the software I have been working with for the past 6 years, I called for tech support.Because it is a small hosting company, and because I thought we had or were developing a friendship I was more lax in my demands. You see, I am the customer, the hosting company guy was being paid to provide a service. So yes, from that point of view I could demand service, but I didn't, I was accommodating - even though my timeline was the one suffering. Then, I did the thing that I thought was most beneficial to me and my needs. I sought yet another hosting company. After searching the web and the so called hosting review sites I chose one and set up an account. Instantly I could see the difference. This was not a small company, they have 24/7 tech support via live chat. The control panel is very easy to navigate and self explanatory. So I moved most of my sites to this new hosting company and within 24 had my sites up and running. NO DOWN TIME!I still had one or two domains on "my friends" hosting company but wanted to inform him of my move. Incidentally, he and I had all along been doing everything via Skype so the communication was instant. I knew that he was busy with his other customers and other business ventures and would constantly tell him that I did not want to monopolize his time. So I asked him if we could talk when he was less bust. He replied that we could and both went on to do whatever it is we were each working on. Several hours later he Skype's me to ask if we could "do this tomorrow because I am wiped out". From this statement I surmised that he assumed I was going to ask him for tech support which would require a time investment. That of course was not the case I simply wanted to informed him that I decided to move on, that his hosting service was not working to my advantage. Rather than understanding, or asking me if there was anything he could do to retain my business, he went on the attack. He took some of my comments out of context and in fact added his own words. He stated that I said that his service was no good, or something along those lines and I reminded him that I never mentioned that his hosting service was no good. I reiterated that I felt his hosting was beneficial to my needs. Well he was very upset, it seemed as if he almost took it personal. He kept going on about how his service was fine and then he said that he wasted hours with me, that I should have let him do the install of the my software himself. I had to remind him that it was me who was constantly apologizing and telling him that I did not want to monopolize his time, and that it is my prerogative, as a consumer, to move on whenever I wanted to for what ever reason I wanted to. My final words to him were I hope this does not sour what I thought was a blossoming friendship. His reply, I going off line now, to bed that it.The next day I got my little Skype pop up informing me that he was on line. I texted him the message "Hello Mr. XXX, I hope you are no longer angry and that we can still be friends. To date, I have not gotten any response.The reason I am writing about this situation is because as I've stated in my prior posts is that my new venture, my new focus is on guarding reputation. The thing is that as business people, nay as humans, we can not please all the people all the time. We never know how people will react and with the internet, people can post all types of things, negative things and ruin one's reputation. If, for example, I was one of those bitter, resentful people this blog could have a very different tone. It could be about me name calling and bad mouthing and posting it everywhere. It is as simple as using RSS. With RSS those feeds get picked up almost instantly and the message spreads virally throughout the internet.So, is your business customer orientated? Do you mix personal and business and then do not know how to separate one form the other when things go array in one? As difficult as it may be, maybe the internet is going to take us all to a more civil time, a time when a business persons only motive was the bottom line and as such knew that the key lay in his/her customers. Those were the days when it was oft said that "The Customer Id Always Right". You can argue this point of view all you want but if it is affecting your bottom line, you lose.