Last week, I featured a guest post of How to Lose a Loyal Customer in Three Easy Calls. This week, I’d like to post one quick way to lose a customer in a single e-mail.

Over the last month, my wife and I have been looking for places to rent on Craigslist (which lead me to this brilliant Craig’s List scam). Even looking online, it’s fairly time-consuming. The amount of properties available seems to be enormous. The economy is not only making it buyers’ market, but it seems a renting one as well.

So I went through and checked of quite a few places that I liked. I e-mailed a few of them and they responded back by telling me to call a number and talking to a person. That’s the part that just strikes me as odd. I’m living in Silicon Valley. You are advertising your product on the Internet. Why can’t a time to see the place be set up on the Internet?

I’ll admit that part of this is me being Lazy. Shooting an e-mail is quick and easy (I’m already on the Internet most of the time) – trying to sync up with someone on the phone is more difficult. I don’t do much business on the phone because I finish the conversation and there’s no record of it. Still, if you know your customer is on the Internet and using a tool that facilitates Internet communication, why risk losing the person? If you are trying to make a sale, take the path of least resistance. It’s not rocket science.