A little while ago I wrote on this blog how impressed I was with the customer service we received last autumn when we bought new windows from Everest. The company has gone to great lengths to prove that their windows are in fact the best. Click here to read the original blog.

Sadly their after sales ?sales? leave a lot to be desired. It wasn?t long after our new windows had been fitted that I received a phone call one evening from Everest, asking if I was interested in buying a kitchen from them. Their reps would be in the area very soon and wondered if they could drop off a brochure. Since I?m very happy with my kitchen, I said no thank you.

A month later and I noticed a cold draft coming through the frame of one of our windows. I arranged for someone to come and look at it and two days before that visit, I received another call ? just as I was sitting down to eat my supper ? from the sales team. ?Are all your windows double glazed?? the young man asked, before stopping to ask if it was a convenient time to talk. ?You should know ? you installed them? I replied. He simply continued with ?Would you like new fascias?? At this point I managed to suppress the urge to be rude and politely told him that since I was waiting for an engineer to come and fix the problem window, his phoning to try to sell me something else was really not a good idea. I suggested that he either remove me from his sales ?hit? list, or run the risk of some very bad publicity. At that point he got the message and said goodbye.

I don?t really want to give Everest bad publicity (it will be interesting to see if anyone from Everest reads this and gets in touch!) but I do want you to learn from this tale. Don?t ruin a great customer services experience by then treating your customer like just another number. Don?t waste all the hard work it takes to win a new client by not telling your sales department or others in your business, about the work you?ve done for a customer. Don?t let them rush in and try to sell more, before the dust has settled. Instead, spend time really getting to know your customers and they will come to you and tell you when they?re ready to buy.