Good customer relationships are built on trust, honesty and openness. If a business makes a mistake, then it’s always best to admit that error and apologise. Most customers bounce back from that really quickly but are less understanding if a mistake is covered up or denied.
Companies have traditionally included information which customers can access on their websites. For instance, for a retail business with bricks and mortar shops, it might be a list of opening hours for their various stores. These will vary from town to town and there’s an expectation that the various store managers will feed through the information about any alteration to opening hours. If the information online isn’t correct, it’s always frustrating for customers.
Utility companies generally tend to produce bills based on either a meter reading or an estimation, based on previous readings. However, they will make it clear on which type of reading the bill is based. This means that customers as less likely to worry if a bill seems higher than they were expecting for that period. It’s the messaging around the presentation of that data which matters the most.
Nowadays, many websites include live data feeds of some sort and customers, understandably, expect the information listed to be correct. If this business is a retailer, for instance, and the customer has registered with the website previously, then their loyalty points might appear on the home screen. In another scenario, a website might include ‘live’ details of road closures or any type of incident.
While website visitors have every right to assume that the information listed is correct, there are going to be times when it’s not. If they’ve just been into a store to buy some items and then check online straightaway to see how many loyalty points they’ve accrued, the system might not have quite caught up. If somebody else is checking for road closures, they might be a short lag with updating that information.
Returning to our original comment about openness and honesty when it comes to customer service, the best policy when sharing any data online is to include some sort of disclaimer, explaining that the information might not be completely up-to-date. If a customer sees this, it will probably be enough to put their mind at rest and not worry if all their loyalty points aren’t showing.
Occasionally, it might be that some data a business shares might have been incorrect and a website visitor might have acted on that information in some way. In this case, the best option for that business is to admit that there was a mistake or false alarm and apologise. Otherwise, this will simply undermine a customer’s trust in that data moving forward. It’s all about the appropriate messaging and being transparent.
If a customer saw a piece of data online and then it just vanishes, it simply erodes their trust in that business.
If a business is sharing data online it’s important to be mindful of how it’s presented. While it’s tempting to suggest that it’s ‘hard fact’, it’s probably more sensible to include messaging which simply says ‘recent transactions might not show as yet’ or similar. Then, added to that, if the data you share turns out to be wrong, admit the mistake. The more open and honest you are as a business, the more your customers will trust you.