We’ve all seen the movies about people who find a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. There aren’t many convenience items at these petrol stations, and they charge a lot for both fuel and any food they may sell.
When we watch these scenes in movies, there are no other buildings nearby, and there’re often two men leaning back in chairs and watching a car go by every hour or so.
On a Lonely Desert Highway
We’ve all seen the movies about people who find a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. There aren’t many convenience items at these petrol stations, and they charge a lot for both fuel and any food they may sell.
When we watch these scenes in movies, there are no other buildings nearby, and there are often one or two men leaning back in chairs watching a car go by every hour or so.
When a car does stop, these men seem to enjoy the fact that their customers are upset about having to pay outrageous prices for things they may need.
This is an easy-to-understand example of the law of supply and demand. People have a “take it or leave it” attitude because there is a lot of demand and not enough supply. We’re suffering this attitude a lot at this moment in time (2022) – in all types of businesses.
When people want something a lot, either or both of these statements can be true
- The price will be more than they might think the item is worth.
- Customer service might not be as pleasant as they would like.
In the past some businesses thought they could act this way because their customers had nowhere else to go. When there was only one place to buy something in a small town, that thing ended up costing more than it would in a large town or city.
Some online businesses such as these mentioned in a Which.co.uk survey, still think and act in ways that make customers believe they don’t care much about customer service.
This way of thinking and acting won’t work anymore because an online store is nothing like a petrol station in the middle of the desert. A shop on the Internet is more like a newsstand in Piccadilly Circus. If a customer doesn’t like how you treat them, they can go to the next stand to find out what’s going on.
Knowing this helps to make it clear that every online business should have great customer service. In the end, what do you have to gain when you give poor service? What good reasons are there to say that it’s OK to treat your customers badly? Have they got any other options?
Thanks but No Thanks
It might be mildly funny to watch old movies where there is a desert in the background and two old men are rubbing their hands in anticipation of the cars that didn’t fuel up in the last big town. But when there is a lot of supply, such as there is online, there is no reason to raise prices or supply awful customer service.
If you treat every customer like they are your best, you won’t have to think about how to treat them.
