Today I ventured into the real world with some errands that I imagined wouldn’t be any trouble. I needed to do some printing, I needed some type of voltage converter, and I needed to purchase a gift. Today I was also given three different examples of how to turn customers away.

I started my journey at a local Kinkos. Actually, I had called beforehand to ensure that I would be able to print something from the internet, rather than downloading it onto a flash drive. What the representative neglected to inform me of, was that printing online costs 5x more than printing from a flash drive, and there is a per minute usage fee to even use the computers. Annoyed, I left without printing a page.

Lesson: Inform your customers, it is everyone’s responsibility within a company to make sure your customers are knowledgeable about your services, and to clear up any possible misconceptions that the customer might have. Go above and beyond yes or no answers.

Next, I made my way to Best Buy. Being the leader in electronics, I assumed they would be able to accommodate my need for a voltage converter. I was presented with two options, with one being about $15 more expensive. The employee gave me a half-hearted anecdote about how the less expensive item didn’t actually work very well. Having previous poor experiences at Best Buy, I decided to call Radio Shack and ask what their offerings were. As it turns out, they had several more options, and the employee was able to explain to me exactly what I needed and was extremely knowledgeable.

Lesson: It is important to focus on gaining your customer’s trust. Employees can build that trust by being an asset to customers. Also, if customers aren’t convinced that they are getting the best deal, they will look elsewhere. The damage is compounded when the customer is right about getting a bad deal; what reason do they have to come back?

Finally, I reached my last destination, a local sporting goods shop. I picked up my presents and was greeted warmly at the check out center. My payment method happened to be two gift cards, which I had been carrying around since my last poor experience at this particular location. I was unpleasantly surprised to find out that I was once again the victim of a “computer error” in their system, which was making it impossible to take my payment. After about 15 minutes, they decided to try and simply type in the gift card’s number instead of repeatedly scanning it, and it worked. What a novel idea!

Lesson: Make it as easy as possible for your customers to buy things from your store. As crazy as it sounds, the easier it is, the less sales you will lose because of your inability to process a sale.

Let my frustration be yet another reminder that marketing is more than television and radio ads. Marketing includes creating a positive experience to encourage customers to not only make a purchase, but to make a raving fan out of a anyone that walks in your store.