Showing Up

August 19, 2000 - Spokesman Review Your Turn column:

No-Shows, The Undependable Often Suffer Business Failures

One nifty aspect of having an office in the business incubator in Sandpoint is getting to know and learn from your fellow tenants. Right after our business, New Expressions, Inc., moved into our new office, one of the first people we met gave us a great piece of advice. He said that after 20 years in business, he'd learned the most important thing you can do to keep your clients happy is show up.

Showing up is an aspect of one of my favorite business (and personal) axioms: Do what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it. Showing up for work or an appointment is not only common courtesy, it's also fufilling a promise.

Promises should be important. In a world full of hype, mistrust and misunderstanding, it's becoming rare to find people who actually do what they say they'll do. It seems so obvious, but I'm starting to wonder if the real reason behind the high rate of business failures is just people not keeping their promises. I've had countless people fail to return calls and others who just plain don't show up for confirmed meetings.

Call me old-fashioned, but driving 200 miles round trip to be stood up is not my idea of a good time. This level of rudeness, frankly, astonishes me. After all, the term customer service means serving the customer. It doesn't mean lying to customers or saying what they want to hear just to get their money.

We're involved in the computer business and we know all too well that buying anything related to computers can be expensive. Choosing the wrong vendor can be even more expensive. Lawsuits and complaints to the Better Business Bureau about software and hardware failures generally come down to vendors not doing what they say they'll do.

And it's not limited to computers: my husband and I had a similar experience with a company that sold used tractors. Now they're out of business, too. Gee, I wonder why?

So at our business, we made a decision. If anyone takes the time to call us, yes, we will call back. And if we're asked about our services, we will answer honestly and not make any promises we can't keep. If we can't do something for some reason, we'll say so. And most importantly, if we're invited to a meeting, we will show up.