Make it hard to do business with you. Your competitors will love you!

Recently I had an interaction with a company I do business with. I like them. I recommend them because overall they have a good product and staff that understands all aspects of the industry. The interaction was fine, but it was not great. And that is "The rest of the story."

Some departments at this company insist on making it difficult to do business with them. How they make it difficult does not matter. Difficult is relative, but you'll know it when you see it. My guess is that the CEO and the department leader have no idea this is happening.

Are you making it easy or hard to do business with your company?

You might be able to separate yourself well enough to answer this objectively. If you can, great. Do it.

If you can't, ask some staff members that have the ability to reflect and analyze things like this. Or, ask a few good customers.

Start with a question like:

What really bugs you about doing business with us?

or

What one or two things would you ask me to fix if you took over our business tomorrow?

All this assumes you are willing to change or at least adjust the problem area. If you're not, you might want to wait until you are ready.