Don’t forget your customer when things go wrong!  Storms create problems. Technology fails. Sometimes we have a personal crisis that affects our business, especially when our business is small. Whatever happens behind the scenes, every business leader must have a plan to manage and respond to your customers’ needs.

When it comes to communication, you have more customers than you think.  When things go wrong, your customer, patient, client, re-sellers, etc. need enough information to be able to make their own contingency plans. They will hang in there with you when they know you have considered them. Sometimes how you handle problems builds loyalty. Maybe the smaller business who looks clients in the face has an advantage over larger corporations, despite their abundant resources.

Last month a major technology provider with a 99.9999% uptime record went down. They went down big. They spent the better part of the day fixing the problem. OK. Things happen. Here’s what shouldn’t have happened: Their customers and re-sellers couldn’t reach them to find out what happened. All their US phones were down. All emails were down. Their tech product was down. The sound of silence was deafening. For a few hours it seemed like the US operations had closed. What happened? Their phones, emails, and products were all on the same system. When parts failed, customers couldn’t reach them to find out what was happening. Re-sellers were equally in the dark and unable to advise their customers. This company now plans to put email and phones on different systems. They also intend to utilize Facebook and other social media to make themselves accessible.  It’s a good step.

This month a different vendor has had recurring problems. The phones worked, but you got voicemail and no return calls. The web-based online chat seemed to work but the message was that all representatives were busy. Again, re-sellers were in the dark as much as their customers.

If the big guys fumble the customer communication ball, what can you, a small business owner, do? – Plenty. Sometimes smaller organizations shift gears faster.

Here’s my checklist:

1. Know what kind of things can go wrong and the specific person/people you should call to fix things.

2. Get the technical people to work ASAP.

3. Shift gears INSTANTLY. Your job as business leader is to get in front of your customers to let them know that you are on top of things. If all you can say is that you are in the process of finding out what happened, and then say that. Don’t leave people guessing.

4. Manage your communications team – yes, you do have one.

a. Have contact information ready in advance. You need to know the names, emails, and phone numbers of anyone who will be talking with your customers. This might include your answering service, your virtual office manager, your front desk receptionist, anyone who provides sales, customer service, communications, technical support, etc.

b. Control the message. Plan the communication script. And share it with your communications team. It can be risky if you leave them alone to make up answers. I am a re-seller for one of the vendors mentioned above. I was promised a month credit for one of my clients and I intend to hold the company to that promise.

5. Build in redundancies whenever possible. We look for vendors with good back-up plans. (Most of the time this works!) We use different cable companies to support our phone system and work from different locations. Our email uses a different technology platform than our phone system.

6. Build in communication opportunity redundancies, too. Make sure your customers can reach you via phone, fax, email, Facebook, LinkedIn, alternate emails, forums, your outsourced service, etc.

7. Follow-up. Keep people in the loop. When the problem is fixed, let people know they can resume business as usual. Let them know what happened and what you plan to do to prevent the problem in the future.

No matter how much we plan, life will bring surprises. If you your are proactive, act responsibly to mitigate harm, and communicate effectively, you will go a long way to generating goodwill. If you’d like to see how we handled an issue a few years ago, visit this post: http://wp.me/p1l5p6-V Watch the video. The artist was clever!