‘Lake effect’ often means service takes a holiday

I have lived in the Inland Northwest for more than eight years, and still struggle with what I call the “August Lake Effect” that hits regional businesses like a hurricane. The “slowdown” actually begins in July and reaches category five by the end of August. You know what I mean: By mid-July, Friday is no longer a workday because everyone is off to, or out at, the lake.

If you are high up the food chain, you begin to stay at the lake even on Mondays. By early August, that four-day weekend at the lake begins to encompass Thursday as well. Then, just try to do business the final two weeks of August. Any project involving more than three people becomes nearly impossible.

Summer here is simply the best, and yet a hard place to do business! We are a laid-back bunch, but when you toss in the vacation mind-set the lake effect has, it can get very frustrating.

Better Business Bureau complaints take longer to get answered, complaints increase due to slow or no response to calls from customers and skeletal staffing makes it hard to get normal work done, let alone anything extra. I do not want to wish time away for there is less and less of it every day, but am I glad August is over!

In the complaint realm, the first thing that brings people to the BBB to complain is a breakdown in communication, and that happens in a couple of ways:

“ What was agreed on by both parties is open to interpretation and unclear, causing each side a degree of confusion and frustration.

“ Phone calls are not returned, and customers feel unimportant and ignored and begin to worry that you have their money and have left the country.

“ Slowness to respond when a problem comes up causes the customer to jump to the conclusion you do not care and have no plans to make them whole.

“ Front-line staff have little or no power to make things right, and so they increase your customers’ frustration when their hands are tied.

There are so many simple ways to make sure that clear communication channels will keep you and your client happy, but trying to do 40 hours of work in three days with 75 percent of our staff is challenging! To give clarity to your transaction activities, here are some suggestions:

“ Put things in writing, including all changes to the original agreement. Make sure your descriptions are clear and contain enough detail to conclude that everyone is on the same page.

“ Set timelines so expectations are black and white. While you may tell your client, “We will complete this project ‘shortly,’ ” just think of how many ways one can define “shortly.”

“ E-mails and phone calls bring with them an expectation of response, and in a timely manner! So, what does timely mean? For e-mail, standard is within the business day. With phone calls, expect a 24-hour turnaround. If you can’t manage that, let people know in your e-mail auto responder or outgoing voice mail message what can be expected.

Speaking of responding to phone calls and e-mails, recently I was doing some research for candidates to fill a high-level position here at the BBB. A name that was tossed around was tossed out in a rather unceremonious fashion because several people commented that this candidate had no clue how to return phone calls. This habit speaks negatively about a person’s integrity. A large portion of business people still do not bother to return calls. Simply amazing.

“ If something causes your client a problem, react immediately. If nothing else, a simple validation that you know something went wrong will be all it takes. But to react in an instant, your front-line staff needs the power to cure, the knowledge to correct, and the assurance you will stand behind their decisions.

Are you ready to do that?

With Labor Day now behind us, it is a good time to tune up your service, delivery, communication and problem-resolution protocol. We all know that those people who put everything off in August will now want action in September.

And if you are looking for me, well, I am on vacation on, you guessed it, a lake, completely disconnected. But rest assured that I will communicate that information in as clear a way as possible.