I recently had two experiences that prove the importance of a good communication system. I share these with you (the names have been changed to protect the guilty) so that you can use this in your own strategies.
Situation #1: I have a cell phone that belongs to a national company that offers services in Puerto Rico. I kept the number so that my parents don't have to pay long distance charges to talk to me. They can call me whenever they want to. However, when the system dies in Puerto Rico, so does my cell phone. A couple of weeks ago the company hit a snag in their expansion efforts in Puerto Rico and they left us without service for five hours. The interesting thing was that if you call any cell phone with this company, you would hear a message about the phone being disconnected. Now I don't know about you. If I hear a phone is disconnected, the first thing that goes through my head is that you did not pay your bill on time. I have a few business cards running around with that number. I can only hope that nobody called on that day.
Situation #2: My bank offers 24 hour internet banking. The other day, their system died. They posted a message saying that they were in maintenance. Even though this type of situation usually occurs in the middle of the night, this was noon. The next day, we were notified by text message, email and on the website that there had been a malfunction, apologizing for the possible inconvenience, etc.
If this was your company, which would you prefer? And just in case you are wondering, I am still waiting for an apology from Stupid Mobile about their situation. What I know about the problem I got from the newspapers and Facebook. Be careful how you treat your current clients. Business is not just about getting new clients. Business is about keeping the ones you have already.
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