Empathize With Customers
There is nothing worse than being in a situation where your pocketbook is at the mercy of experts in an area that you know very little about. I just got back from a car-repair shop in Minneapolis, where I had to get my car towed due to its reluctance to start when I turned the key in the ignition.
I know nothing about cars, and car-repair shops are scary for that reason. I cringed when the guy at the desk told me that it might cost $100 for the mechanic to simply open the hood (the coat hanger that I was previously using to open the hood fell out and was rendered unusable). Then there was the fact that the car wouldn’t start up. Oh boy, was I in for it!
Thankfully, AAA took care of my towing expenses, or else the final $174 bill would have been much higher.
As I was waiting for my car to get fixed, the dollar signs painfully whizzing past my brain, I had a moment of clarity. Some of my clients probably feel the same way when they ask me to fix a website issue or build a website from scratch. That is, my clients mostly know next to nothing about what it takes to build a website. That’s not a dig on them, quite the contrary. We can’t expect to know everything about everything – that’s what experts are for! So, we hire a mechanic to fix our car, a web guy to build our website, an accountant to do our taxes, etc. All of these experts are to a large extent given free reign to charge what they deem appropriate (and what the market will bear), and we must grin and take it. We have no other choice in the matter, except to learn the trade in question, but who has time for that?!
Next time someone asks me “how much?”, I will have much more empathy for their situation. They are probably scared, gripping their checkbook and bracing for the worst. Like me at the car-repair shop earlier, they will have to trust the expert (me) to do a great job at a fair price.
Great post.
I always feel more at home with auto mechanic who takes the time to explain things thoroughly and gives other options (if there are any). There’s nothing worse than having a mechanic (or any other type of expert) explain your situation in as little words as possible and then give you a price. I sometimes want to know why it costs as much as it does.
That’s why it’s important in sales or customer service to be thorough and explain as much as your customer can comprehend. They’ll be more accepting of your final price instead of bitter. And if that’s the case, you could expect repeat business or referrals from this person.
Great insight, Chris! I couldn’t agree with you more!
p.s. I LOVE Copycats Media! (They pressed my last album – myspace.com/cryns3)
Nice!
I hope the people you worked with here were helpful and informative. I used to work in the sales department here, so that’s where my insight came from.
The folks over at Copycats were totally awesome and even helped me to get this creative and cool glossy effect on my album cover, which turned out EXACTLY as I envisioned it. Mucho props to the kind folks over there!
The excellentest post, Toby.
I’ve been there and done that with cars and mechanics (and dentists)
Ah yes! The ol’ dentist – always a treat!