We've all been in a situation where you are placing an order and think to yourself, "I'm not sure they're going to get my order right". Regardless of industry, customers now have more leverage than ever due to the amount of competition in the market and therefore won't settle for subpar experiences. When you mess up a customer order, or even leave them thinking you did, their perception of your organization will be changed and you may have lost a customer for life.
Businesses, and particularly ones that sell B2B, need to do everything in their power to proactively remove any doubt customers may have about their ability to deliver on expectations. An easy way to accomplish this is to offer self-service alternatives (like a Customer Portal) that empower customers to order whenever they want and places responsibility for the actual input of the order in their hands, not your employees. Giving customers the ability to order online can be a massive differentiator for your organization and goes a long way towards protecting your business from the pitfalls of unavoidable human errors.
Keep your customers happy and they won't look elsewhere
Most companies spend valuable time and resources trying to attract new customers, so it's important that they place an equal emphasis on customer retention. And there is no quicker way to lose a customer than messing up an order. For fast food restaurants, a customer may forget about or overlook a mistake on a $5 order. It only cost them a few dollars and their expectation probably wasn't that high to begin with, so you have a decent chance of them returning in the future.
But if your company sells B2B and messes up an order, customers won't forget about a bad experience that cost them thousands of dollars and damaged their reputation with customers. Best case scenario, they will lose some trust in your organization and be skeptical of your ability to deliver on future orders. Worst case, they are no longer a customer and tell everyone in the market who will listen, "those guys screwed me over, you shouldn't do business with them".
Regardless of who you are or what you sell, order errors can create massive headaches for businesses and can ultimately be a company killer.
"They messed up my order last time, so I'm going somewhere else"
Ultimately, if customers don't have faith that your company can deliver on expectations then they are going to take their business somewhere else. It's a harsh reality but when you are one of many options in the market, and customers have other companies actively trying to win their business, they will not settle for bad experiences. You can spend as much time as you want building rapport with customers and growing relationships, but at the end of the day it's all about fulfilling expectations and providing value to your customers.
Ordering errors can happen for any number of reasons, whether it's your sales rep hearing the customer wrong or making a typo when manually inputting the order, and therefore it's essential to implement solutions that remove some of this risk.
By being on the cutting edge of B2B online ordering, you can differentiate from competitors in the market and avoid costly errors that cause your business to lose customers.
