A cardinal rule of branding (heck, of just running a business) is to NEVER make promises you can’t keep. But many companies are in such a hurry to grow and promote themselves that their lips get ahead of their ops and support.
For example, my business partner and I have an e-commerce site for which we’re starting to get lots of traffic. Our hosting company couldn’t seem to fix a problem with the speed with which users could access our site, so we decided to move our site to another hosting provider. In our discussions with the second provider, Gate.com, they reassured us that, on the rare chance that our site went down, their tech support would be on the case ASAP. In fact, they post the following language on their Web site: We’re here to help with 24/7/365 support.
So we moved the site, and two weeks later, late on a Friday night, our site went down. We were the ones that noticed it, so we called customer support and started getting messages and voicemail. After finally finding a customer service rep, he told us that their support people don’t work on the weekends. So much for 24/7/365 support.
After forwarding us to a tech support person, the individual couldn’t tell us what the problem was or when we could expect to have or site back online; all he provided were hazy, cryptic answers to our questions. Back to another promise on their Web site: Our extreme support team is staffed around the clock to quickly and efficiently solve your problems. We have developed a thorough selection, training and continual real-time monitoring process to ensure your issues are solved in a timely manner. Again, a line of marketing BS based on their response. (Note: this is why most people hate marketers and ad agencies … because desperate marketers and agencies are willing to say anything for a buck without verifying if their claims can be backed up. If you are looking to hire a marketer or ad agency for your company or business, call their clients – better yet, call their clients’ customers – and make sure their ethics match their mouths). 24 hours after our site went down, the people at Gate.com still couldn’t tell us what the problem was or when they would have it fixed. And so on…
What can you learn from this little experience of mine. First, never use Gate.com, a company that breaks their promises by providing awful customer service and horrible tech support. Second, never, ever make a promise you can’t keep. Eventually you will disappoint the wrong person, and negative word-of-mouth has a penchant to spread much faster than the positive variety.
