Lessons learned in SaaS startups: Chapter 3. Love your customer.
They say “the customer is always right” and “the customer is the one who ultimately pays your bills”.
It’s true. But they say this through gritted teeth whilst they process that refund, preparing in their mind the angry vent that’s about to go on Reddit.
I used to work in my Dad’s computer repair shop when I was a teenager. I love and respect my Dad, and he ran a successful business for years, but unfortunately customer service was never really his strong point.
I remember being at the front of the shop talking to a customer who would be asking about why the cost of the repair was more than originally had been agreed, and I could hear my Dad at the back of the shop huffing and ranting loudly about the customer, as I awkwardly tried to explain the bill to the customer (who heard everything!).
Nowadays customer service is all virtual. We get emails in, which are converted to tickets in our CRM, and those get viewed in a browser and replies are sent back in real-time. There is no shop, no door, no counter, and the only facial expressions we see are those stupid emojis that struggle to relay any type of emotion.
However, somehow we do still manage to convey ‘tone’ in our messages, and this tone is the vehicle we have in order to make our customers feel respected, valued and… well, loved.
Love a customer? Sure. They are people after all.
They are more than just ID numbers or email addresses with avatars, who pay your bills. Even though we don’t see them in the flesh, they are still the same people who would come in to my Dad’s shop and have an issue with something, or would say how pleased they were with the service.
Real people, with real problems that they are trusting you to solve.
So my mission in my startups is to try and think about our customers as real people, and love them. Love their business. Love their organization. Love their non-profit. I try to do my best to visualize their situation, and help them improve it — whether it’s through a project management tool I’ve built, or an invoicing platform, or a real-time team collaboration tool.
One of the luxuries we’ve had in our newest startup is being able to meet people here in our city, interview them and get feedback for how they currently communicate in a team and how we can improve that. We take them for a coffee or a beer in the local brewery which is 1 minute away from the office. We talk about business, we laugh and joke, and we build relationship. They then trust us, and we trust them as long-term customers.
This is loving the customer. It’s just as important as knowing your customer.
Love your customer.
