Last updated on January 15th, 2016 at 11:21 am

Earlier this week I came across an example of the importance of listening to what your customers are saying and not assuming that what you think you are hearing is what is actually being said.

There is no mains gas at home so the hot water is powered by an oil-fired Rayburn in the kitchen.  This obviously means that every so often I have to ring the heating oil supplier and ask then to deliver some fuel.

The week before last I realised that we would be getting low on oil so rang Wirral Fuels, the local oil supplier that I’ve used for the past 5 years.  “Can you deliver 500 litres of oil” I asked before mentioning that the tank could probably take more than that but I wasn’t sure how much more as there is no gauge on the tank.  Normally you have to order a fixed amount with 500 litres being the minimum you can get and what you order is what the drive delivers.  The sales person told me that they would be able to deliver in a few days and, if I wanted, if the tank took a little more then they could put that in the tank as well.  I agreed that if that was the case I’d be happy to have a little more than the 500 litres delivered.

Imagine my surprise when I got home on the following Monday evening to find a delivery slip through the door saying that the driver had actually got 1,299 litres into the tank – that’s over 2 and a half times what I had ordered.  I was on the phone to Wirral Fuels the following morning asking what had happened (how could they possibly justify an extra 800 litres as a little more than 500) and to see if I could pay for this unexpected bill over a couple of months (or at least delay half the bill until after payday in a couple of weeks time).  The answer came back “you asked for 500 litres or to fill the tank and we took full payment yesterday”!

Now then, I am getting married in a couple of months time and the extra money (i’d budgeted for about £250  and instead had had £630 taken from my bank account) that had been taken out of my bank account had been earmarked for a suit and towards other wedding costs.  This has clearly left me very upset as it’s meant that I have to now make other plans.  I, of course, have told family and friends in the area about this (several of whom also use Wirral Fuels) and will not be using Wirral Fuels again in the future.

This story illustrates why it’s important to listen to what your customers are saying to you – if you don’t there is every chance that you will lose at least one customer, and possibly more than one.

So the question is, do you listen to what your customers are saying to you?