You would think procuring a service would be relatively easy.
As a customer, all you should need to do is identify the relevant company, have a chat about your needs/their capabilities and pay the bill when the work is done.
So far, so simple. But my faith in that age-old system has been dented and not for the first time.
Recently I sent out emails to six local contractors requesting quotes for some building work I am hoping to get done.
Within 24 hours I had a reply offering what I was looking for.
Around 48 hours later, a second email appeared from one of the six. It said the firm had recently ceased trading but it came with a nice note saying thanks for the inquiry. Fair enough.
And within a couple of days, a third came back as expected.
But two weeks later, three of those original inquiries remain unanswered.
Not even so much as an electronically generated courtesy note to say a follow-up call will be forthcoming.
In a world where customer is supposedly king, I find it bizarre that companies are thumbing their nose at potentially thousands of pound of work.
And, even more bizarrely, it is not the first time that I have encountered this problem.
In the run-up to my wedding last year there were bands, chairs, tablecloths etc to be procured.
While everything eventually came together, more than a year later we are still waiting on numerous suppliers replying to our request for quotes for various services.
I put that experience down to bad luck and moved on.
But my more recent interaction or lack thereof with the building trade has left me wondering whether there is a bigger problem out there.
Are companies really letting potential custom slide through their fingers through ignorance?
Or and I hope this is the case is the problem that small firms are spinning so many plates they are failing to focus on digital inquiries?
If you accept as I do that the future of commerce is online, then preparing and properly executing a digital strategy is a must for all companies.
It doesn’t matter whether you are Amazon or the local plumber, the principle is the same.
For companies who wish to be successful in the modern marketplace the digital customer must be treated with the same importance as one who walks over the threshold to make an inquiry in person.
Failure to meet that entry-level standard is simply not good enough and comes at your own peril.
Because customers who feel they have been treated with contempt won’t often give you a second chance to impress.