The washing machine that leaked

A family in Fujairah buys a washing machine from a shop on the main road. On the third wash it leaks across the kitchen floor.

They phone the shop. Someone answers quickly, apologises before they have finished explaining, and a technician arrives the next morning with the part. By the weekend the story has been told to half the family, in the tone people keep for a pleasant surprise.

Their neighbour had the same problem with a machine from somewhere else. Her calls went to a recording. A promised call back came four days later, from someone who asked her to explain it all again.

Looking after people when something goes wrong is a decision every business makes, whether or not it admits to making it.

One honest version treats it as part of what is being sold. It costs money, and it also pays for itself, because a customer whose problem was handled well is about as loyal as a customer gets, and they talk.

Another honest version puts the money elsewhere, into making the thing so reliable and so simple that almost nobody needs to call. That works too, if the product truly delivers.

The version that fails is the one in the middle. A business that neither prevents the problem nor answers for it, and calls the silence saving money. Customers can tell the difference between a company that chose not to need a helpline and one that simply stopped caring.

None of this is only for large firms. Anyone who sells anything is a message away from their customers now, and the time it takes to reply is read as an answer in itself.

Being slow is a choice too. It is just the one nobody admits to making.