A great first impression made by a receptionist can send a meeting off on a positive direction, as I saw at the Motley Fool and Social Solutions.

Unfortunately, the inverse is true as well.

I spend a lot of time thinking about energy efficiency in my home. I even had an assessment done on my house (from personal blog) and have implemented many of the recommendations.

So, though I don’t listen to radio too often, I was intrigued when I heard an ad for 888-neverpaint and their energy efficient siding (not going to link, but it is at liquidsiding.com if you want to see it yourself).

I called.

I figured I’m a pretty good prospect for this type of purchase, plus as a blogger, I obviously like to talk about stuff! ;-)

When the receptionist answered, her tone made me feel like I was interrupting her, like I was doing her a disservice.

I said, “I heard your ad on the radio and it sounds intriguing.”

Her reaction was non-plussed. Non-chalant.

I did not get the warm fuzzies.

Based on those 10 seconds, I decided I wasn’t going to buy from this company. Just had a bad feeling.

She offered to send someone for an estimate, but the experience had changed from anticipation/excitement to time-suck.

“No worries, I’ll just look at your website. What’s the address?”
(The URL was not mentioned in the ad, just the toll-free number..which is ok-maybe…if your inbound sales person is any good)

And like that, the prospect (me) was out the window.

Lesson (again): EVERY single part of the customer experience, every touch point, every person matters. REALLY matters.

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