Who needs customers like Statler and Waldorf?

Thankfully not all customers are as vocal as these two. Yet, I'd rather be told I'm doing something wrong, so I can put things right ;-)

I know everybody bangs on about the importance of good customer service, but few seem to follow through on it :-(

Part of me truly believes that most online retailers don't mean to provide poor customer service but are let down by lack of understanding or haven't really given it much thought. As a customer and owner of BoudoirBabe, I feel a responsibility to look inwards at my website from a customers point of view. Is my website well signposted, are my FAQs up to date, any broken links, script problems or 404 pages?

If a happy customer tells one friend, an unhappy customer will tell everybody!
The crux of it is that business would not exist without customers. If you have customers, you have to have customer service.

So why do we put up with such poor service?
I know us Brits don't like to complain, but the level of poor customer service is so endemic that we actually expect it. I expect that when my TV or washing machine breaks, I'm going to have to spend ages on the phone and days waiting in for engineer appointments that are a no show trying to get it fixed!

Surely you can't please everyone I hear your sigh?
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. If your Customers have a positive shopping experience, they're 5 times more likely to recommend your website.

Every time somebody interacts with my online shop I have an opportunity to impress them and reinforce my brand values. Generally it's much cheaper to retain customers than it is to recruit new ones. So I think it's really important for small business' like mine to look after existing customers.

This will probably sound obvious but it's something that I think many small business' forget. The quicker and more efficiently you get something resolved, the cheaper it's going to be for you.