Are you creating barriers that make it difficult or keep customers from doing business with you?  It seems like I've been seeing more and more examples of this lately.

Charlie and I have recently been walking the Holland Waterfront Trail on our days together.  The trail ends, or begins I suppose, at Holland's famous Windmill Island.  The first time we came upon Windmill Island we were following our current path when I heard a woman's voice, "You'll need a ticket to walk down this path.  Tickets are $7.50."  Cities encourage us to use the park systems, yet they want to charge us for access?

How about the McDonald's restaurant owner in O'Hare Airport in Chicago who charges extra for packets of ketchup?  Are you kidding me?  Maybe he could train his employees to hand out only two packets to each customer instead of giving them a handful.     

Speaking of airports, many airlines are now charging for extra baggage and other amenities that were once free.  Good for Southwest Airlines who has not done this and who has actually used it as a way to position themselves against the other carriers.

Here's one last example--my wife took some baby clothes to a consignment store called Bumblebees.  When she called months later to see if any of the clothes had sold, she was told that she had to visit the store in person in order to get that information.  What?

So let me go back to my original question--are you creating barriers for your customers?  Are you making your customers jump through hoops like Bumblebees or nickle-and-diming them like the major airlines?

We need to make it easy for people to do business with us!  People are already too overwhelmed and busy with life; we don't need to make things more difficult for them.  Take a look at your business, or better yet, talk to your clients and ask them if they see any barriers in your business.

What are your thoughts?  Have you seen much of this same behavior in our industry? 

To Your Success,
Chris Heiler

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