Most of the time, we learn from our mistakes, or even better, we learn from other people’s mistakes. This is a story in the latter category that will exemplify exactly why you want your ENTIRE team thinking about growing your business strategically.Two weeks after visiting UConn for a college tour with my family, I received this letter from the Best Western in Storrs, CT, explaining why they charged my credit card on file $200. If you read the letter you’ll see that they found “a joint” on the desk. And since smoking in the rooms is against their policy, they charged me a $200 fine. I was more entertained than angry because I knew a quick phone call would resolve the issue. When I explained to them that I was traveling with my family and none of us smoke, they would for sure agree there was some misunderstanding and refund my card. Maybe even offer an apology for the inconvenience. Right?Nope.The details of the story can be seen in this video I put on Facebook which received over 10k views in the first 24 hours. Word of mouth goes a long way on the internet, good or bad.Remember United’s debacle with the guitar player that saw his guitar getting thrown around on the tarmac? Watch this entertaining music video called United Breaks Guitars to bring you up to speed. They didn’t respond too kindly at first to his request for help. But, funny enough, after 17 million views on this video, United is more interested in helping resolve the situation.The Lesson: Treat your customers well. Build a good relationship with them and you win. D’uh, right? Not always. We’re often faced with a revenue opportunity or a cost savings that makes it really tempting to grab the short term gain. And most of the time, you will gain, but eventually it catches up to you in one form or another. Customer attrition goes up, or even worse, some country music band writes a catchy song about it and now you lose new business as well.Enter PropFuel: Remember, you can’t have every conversation with every customer, nor do you want to. You hired a team to help execute and deliver. They’re the ones talking to customers every day. As the leader of an organization it’s your job to make sure everyone is aligned in their thinking and the company values. We want to make sure everyone is pointing in the same direction.PropFuel is the platform that asks your employees and your customers targeted questions to uncover opportunities and to get everyone thinking about the business strategically. You shouldn’t be the only one in the company driving growth and thinking critically. Get your entire team on board helping you grow the business. Build stronger relationships. Start conversations with your employees and customers. And drive growth in your business.Let PropFuel help you grow your business. Targeted questions on a weekly cadence. Set up a time to meet with me or simply learn more about how we can help: www.propfuel.com.
