What would you do if you found out you had lost the opportunity to gain 132 new salon clients? Personally, I’d be devastated.

So, let me tell you a true story about something that happened to me recently.

Late last year, I ordered 8 cushion inserts online.  I ordered these particular inserts for 2 reasons:

1. They were eco-friendly – that got a big tick of approval, and
2. They were guaranteed to be extra plump (plumpi-ness was the big winner here for me).

So a week or so later, I received my 8 eco-friendly cushion inserts.  I can only hope they were really eco-friendly because they weren’t so plump. I was disappointed, to say the least.  My plumpi-ness expectations were not met. They were not even close. So, I sent a short email off to the suppliers outlining my thoughts and promptly received an email with apologies and a promise to send 3 extra inserts so I could plump up the ones I’d already received. Yay.  My happiness was restored! Well, weeks dragged by and no inserts arrived, so I sent another friendly email reminding them of their promise to send additional inserts. Nothing.  Not a peep.  As quiet as a mouse. Being nothing if not persistent, I shot off another email reminding them of their first reply promising those additional inserts. Deafening silence! Nothing, nada, zero replies. So what was a girl in need of cushion plumping going to do? Write a review of course. My review was precise and accurate with no naughty words used – just the facts. I was hoping to finally gain their attention. And here’s the interesting part. I still didn’t get any acknowledgement from the suppliers, but… so far, 132 people have not only read my review but marked it as useful to their needs. That’s 132 customers who, after reading about my lousy customer service experience, have most likely decided not to purchase un-plumpy cushions from this company. And all because they didn’t keep their promise to send 3 inexpensive cushion inserts and live up to their satisfaction guarantee. So, the point of this post is to ask you how you’re handling a less-than-satisfied customer? [bctt tweet=”Are you hoping they’ll just go away so you can get on with your day in blissful ignorance, “] …or have you finally realised the power of the internet over your business success? Do the sums for yourself, and work out how much 132 lost customers would mean to your business?  It’s a scary number to be sure.  Now think about what it would have cost them to re-supply 3 cushion inserts.  At the most and including postage I would hazard a guess at under $20. Moral of this story…If you have a satisfaction guarantee in your salon, be sure to live up to it.  And if you don’t, then you still can’t afford to let a customer walk away unhappy or angry. Whatever it is you have to do, you don’t want a nasty review about your salon or spa hitting cyberspace.  And if you already have a negative comment about your business floating around, deal with it.  Do it now. Resolve your customer’s complaints and turn them into a raving fan of your business. Get rid of those unhelpful and dangerous comments ASAP. Today, they can land a mighty blow to your bottom line, and faster than you thought possible. **UPDATE**  The latest notification I received from the review company has taken the number of reviewers to 245 **UPDATE**  06/05/17. 661 potential clients have now read my review.