I recently had some work done at my home. The tradesmen did a good job on the maintenance except . . . they left without cleaning up. I was stuck picking up the leftover material and garbage. In other words, THEY DIDN’T FINISH THE JOB!
We run into this a lot in business services as well. The front end is great . . . eager people answer the phones and take the orders, services are provided reasonably well, but then there is a huge quality fall off, whether it is trying to straighten out an invoice later or perhaps requesting additional service to complete the work.
The problem is that customers always remember how they were treated most recently . . . and that means at the back end of the sales/service cycle. One way to look at it: Your last bit of service is actually your first step of the next sale. It should be a top priority!
