simplerich » Customer Service

It’s not peaking if it’s a plateau.

Rich — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:00:00 +0000

“You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.”
~ Steve Prefontaine, runner.

Plateaus aren’t like mountains you climb. They’re like steps to somewhere else.
~ Rich Griffith

I’m running and my running training has stalled. I’m an area manager and my area management has stalled as well. I couldn’t get any traction. I kept thinking about how much better our customer service was now than just two years ago when our company’s direction and focus changed with the ownership changed. Seriously. If you came in our stores 3 years ago and came in today… you really wouldn’t recognize the place. And I was really happy with the progress. (hence the first quote.)

Then the store’s owner went on a store tour while I was in San Diego training a manager and supervisor out there for a couple weeks (I’m coming back to this part, it’s important) and his tour notes weren’t bad at all. They were pretty good. The facilities continued to show improvement, the stock and displays showed improvement… and when he was greeted by the employee sitting on a stool behind the counter instead of standing up I put my face in my hands and read the rest between my fingers. When the employee didn’t go to the sales floor to offer assistance but instead barked from the counter “AnythingIcanhelpyoufind?” I was thunder-struck. Obviously I was missing something. I’d gotten complacent. I’d gotten used to things being better and I’d stopped to take a breath. That breather had turned into a loss of forward momentum on the part of me and subsequently my managers and the crews. (More on THIS later too, an entire future blog post, with luck I’ll remember to come back and add a link here.)

While training the manager and supervisor out in San Diego I found myself doing a lot of talking obviously. It’s a lot of training when hiring someone off the street from outside the company to do management positions. It’s not something we typically do, and it was the first time I’d trained at this level someone who’d never worked for us at all. What I noticed was how much I was talking about customer service (I started training on Monday and the owner’s visit I was talking about happened on Wednesday so the customer service song was obviously ready on my lips.) a lot. I would talk about it while discussing all sorts of things. What I didn’t do was talk about any of the things I’ve talked about here or here in relation to any of the training material or handbooks we give new employees. Our training curricula has nothing in it about customer service other than we’re supposed to greet customers when they enter the building. Nothing about offering to help them, nothing about knowing anything about the product, nothing else about customers at all! How were we in retail and none of our material ever mentioned customers? They’re somewhat important to retail aren’t they?

In fact! Are you sitting down? Our store product training consisted of the trainer saying to the new trainee “While I do this (something managery, maybe payroll), you go on the sales floor and look around. If you have any questions just ask.” Yep. You read it right. Product and store familiarization was a way for the trainer to get some alone time. How could we POSSIBLY render good customer service when we never had any program explaining our products or how we expected our customers to be treated? We’d spent the last two years making managers perfect HR passable mechanical managers. They can all do perfect write-ups that will stand the scrutiny of any unemployment judge… but we’re not teaching them HOW to give good customer service. I’ve considered not confessing this horrible short-coming all day.

Personal aside: I really thought a long time about it. It was so normal it didn’t occur to me until I was training someone completely green that it was stupid. We’d always promoted from within so they always knew the stuff. The sales associates often had lots of time to familiarize themselves with it on their own time and I wouldn’t abandon them that way, but I’d seen others do it for years, YEARS, and never thought anything of it. Now I’m ashamed of it. Seriously. How did I not see how insane that was? It stopped this morning.

Me? I love customer service, and I do it really well. I would coach people to do it when I would see them doing things not great, but I typically work with managers and I wasn’t conveying, obviously, that I wanted THEM to do that with their employees. I was making my managers really good at customer service themselves, and really good at fixing problems to keep customers, but what I wasn’t doing was making sure my managers were spreading the love down the chain. They were working their collective butts off to make sure their employees didn’t do anything wrong so they wouldn’t lose their jobs or have to fire them. That was from on high and me because it was my boss’ priority. But there’s a huge chasm between being “not doing wrong” and doing right. We’d somehow wound up making sure our front liners weren’t doing wrong.

I know it sounds like I’m saying we were astonishingly mediocre (which I hear is a huge sin!) and I’m not. We really aren’t that bad, and we’re MUCH better than we were… but we can improve so much more now that I realize that we weren’t training for great. We were training for “not wrong.”

So, just like in training for a race (I am training for a race by the way) or dieting, or striving for greatness instead of good enough, the training needs to be shaken up a little bit. There need to be more intense days, and days where the focus changes entirely for a while. Runners don’t run hard every day. They take time to work on other things to let those muscles recover. We’re going to do things differently around my neck of the woods for a while. It’ll be intense for a bit, and it’ll mix up the focus for a bit. But one thing that’s going to be consistent. Every employee from janitor to manager to supervisor is going to be involved helping us develop a Customer Service training program that includes product knowledge, store set-up, store knowledge, and anything else that we decide is part of great customer service. I think they’ll be excited to be part of the program to watch themselves grow. It’ll mean a lot more to them if they help me than if I try and top down dump the new way of thinking on them.

Personal Aside 2: It took all I had to not talk about Ho`omau in this post. That’s the chapter I was re-reading a few nights ago when all of this gelled. Last night I was reading through it again as I’d bookmarked it on the kindle and wasn’t reading my marked up copy and I swear it was like reading that chapter again for the first time. If you haven’t read Managing with Aloha: Bringing Hawaii’s Universal Values to the Art of Business yet I recommend it. As your management challenges change over time and different things come into view and other things fade different parts of the book become more pertinent and they resonate differently. The reason I didn’t want to frame this post around Ho`omau honestly is because I’ve just read that chapter of the book twice and I was afraid I’d sound too much like I was quoting it or being too derivative. Suffice it to say that the value of Ho`omau, the spirit of perseverance, and sticking to it, and not giving up… those values are very much what I’m talking about in this post.

Retail: Points of contact

Rich — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:00:27 +0000

There are three points of contact that are super-important for the retail customer.

1) What does the approach to the store front look like? Awning, lighting, windows, doors, employees/customer hanging at the door smoking, ash trays, garbage on the sidewalk.

2) How does the store look, smell, sound, feel from 10 feet inside the door, the Launchpad? Radio too loud? Can customer get a feel for where they’re going from there? Can they identify an employee from there? Have they been greeted? Is there a stink from air fresheners, cleaning products, how well is the store lit?

3) At the cash-wrap. Is the cash wrap area cluttered? clean? professional looking? Is the employee’s lunch all over it? Is the employee’s receiving/shipment work all over the place? Are there customers lounging at the counter area hanging out with their friend? Will the customer feel OK about taking their wallet out there or not?

Store Front:
If the store front is shady looking a customer may never walk in the door. Got a lot of cans leaning up against the wall? Are there wrappers and cans on the sidewalk? Do you provide an ash tray? Where is it? Is it a smelly nose-sore? Maybe it’s easier to sweep up cigarette butts than walk past an ashtray that’s been rained on and is now giving off a cloud of wet ash smell to any who walk past. Do you have an awning? Do the birds know about it? Are they parking themselves on top of it covering the awning with their erm… leavings? Who wants to walk under that? If it’s lit are all the lights lit? If half the lights work that’s not half right. That’s all wrong. Are the glass windows and doors cleaned and finger-print free? If your store looks dirty from the outside there’s a good chance I won’t go there. Here in town there’s a tattoo shop that I’d like to visit. They have body jewelry and ear rings and I’d like to get some. Outside their door are three lawn chairs where they and their friends sit and smoke. I’m not walking past that. As a 40 year old man I’m probably not their target customer, but I’m A customer… or I would be if I didn’t have to walk past extras from West Side Story to get into the place.

The Launchpad:
It’s called the Launchpad because it’s from here that the customer launches into your store or scrubs the mission and leaves. This is the area where they assess how your store looks and feels to them. If the radio’s too loud people will leave.

That’s just sound. How does it smell? I didn’t shop at Bed Bath, & Beyond for YEARS because it was so overpoweringly smelly. Granted, that’s their thing… but I’m a guy (again, not their target audience). An air freshener over the front door may be a great idea two minutes after they walk out but it’s not cool to walk into the cloud of cherry or vanilla scented concentrate right after it’s shot out of the dispenser. Is the front area cluttered? Are there tall walls of grid wall or walls of displays blocking the view of the store? If so it makes it hard for the customer to see where they want to go. It also makes it less appealing because it’s not open. People don’t like to feel closed in or trapped in stores/shops. They like to know there’s room to move around and that they can be seen and see other people approaching. I’m not talking about merchandising or sales or end caps in any of this. I’m talking about the experience, the comfort level of the customers. Is there a visible employee that they can identify in case they need help or want help finding something? In some shops it can be off-putting to walk in and find you’re the only one in the store. I’ve let out a soft, polite, “Hello?” before wondering if I’d stumbled upon a murder scene and didn’t want to round a shelf of spices only to find between the cracked pepper and the vanilla beans the dead body of the Penzey’s employee. Florists are the worst for this in my experience. It seems I only enter a florist when they are in the cooler, probably hiding the body of the last customer.

Cash-Wrap:
Last chance time. By now the customer is ready to pay and leave. Is there room to put their purchases? Is the counter cluttered and buried in potential add on sales so that it’s a huge confusion of product and cruft? Is this the only work space the employee has? Some times it’s impossible to put your purchases on the counter because there’s a UPS box there where the employee is unpacking and receiving shipment. I get that work happens that isn’t customer related, but just like the view should be unobstructed for the customer, surely the employee can see the customer approach the counter and make room for the one who brings money into the store? A quick smile and apology is all it takes, making me wait as you finish receiving your box of Jelly Bellies and ignore me isn’t endearing me to you as a retailer, and I love my candies! Oh, and shift change? Not my problem. Don’t make it my problem by making me wait 5 minutes while you do it. I get that shift changes happen, but you know what else happens? Customers… we’re paying, don’t say “It’ll be a while. We’re at shift change.” Are there friends or family lounging at the counter hanging out at the counter chatting? If I’m making a purchase I won’t be if you’re visiting at the counter or worse if I have a question I don’t want to feel like I’m interrupting.

There’s a lot going on that doesn’t involve prices, competitors, competition, or how product is displayed. It’s the appeal of the store and the experience of the store itself. None of this is new. It’s old stuff that everybody knows and hopefully everybody does, but when you find a place that doesn’t you’ll notice right away… and you probably won’t shop there too many times.

“May I help you?” isn’t enough.

Rich — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:00:00 +0000

I shop a lot at amazon.com and I rent movies through netflix.com. Those two sites know me. They know what I look at, what I buy, and what I watch. Subsequently, when I go back they’re able to suggest other things I may like as well.

Once upon a time our town had a comic book store and the people who worked their knew their comics. They knew them to the point they could, if I bought MongoDROID Issue 17 they could suggest that I might also like Mongopolypse Issues 12-16: The Chubby Rain* mini-series. This sort of product knowledge that they had was what kept me coming back to their store.

When I used to go to GameStop here in town the staff there was able to help me pick Nintendo DS games based on what I’d bought in the past and subsequently returned. They knew what I’d bought and kept and were able to suggest games that I might not otherwise have considered (anything with an animal in it I would never choose to buy on my own). Their expertise in their area was what kept me coming back as a customer. It wasn’t great prices or anything like that. I wanted to talk to someone about something that interested me and get feedback and suggestions. (the staff now isn’t as good as what they had before so I don’t shop there. I went in yesterday while waiting for a hair appointment and they ignored me while I looked at a game system, not a game, the system… that’s a big sale they didn’t even try for. It’s why they get no more of my gaming dollars.)

I don’t make any purchase over a hundred dollars without first finding out if there are amazon reviews on the product. Seriously. I use the wisdom of the masses to help me buy things. I was looking at car stereos today at a local car stereo shop and got some part numbers. I’ll look them up for reviews before I buy. Not because I don’t trust the guy. He was pretty helpful and the information he had on my old stereo matched up with mine. But we don’t have a relationship yet. I don’t know if he’s motivated by commission or trying to sell out old product or trying to help me, so I’ll consult Amazon.comand Crutchfield for information first. That relationship is something that is important to consumers. Hank Hill references it when he talks about “his car guy” in an episode where it turns out that through his masterful negotiation skills he’s paid “Sticker price” for years. That’s a case where the salesman was a jerk. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the establishing trust, having a specialized knowledge and expertise, and having a desire to help the customer get what they want.

When you’re in retail, and I am… if you’re a smaller specialty shop this is what your employees have to do. They have to know the product in the store. They have to engage the customer and find out what they’re looking for, what they’ve tried, what they liked and didn’t like about previous purchases, and try to figure out what is in stock at that moment that will help the customer right then. If it’s not something that’s in stock at the time the sales person needs to be VERY good to have the customer come back to them. If I tell the customer, “Oh, you mean the widgetmaster 2000? That’s EXACTLY what you’re describing and sadly, we’re out of stock but should have some by next Thursday for the low low price of something reasonable,” the customer is now armed and able to go to Internet.storefront.not.me.com and order it there… and I lose out. It’s not their fault. It’s my fault as a retailer for being out of stock.

This is a clarion call for all those boutique type stores out there, those one-shot type stores that do one thing… if you’re not going to do it well, you’re not going to do it long. That comic book store I was talking about? I thought they did things REALLY well. Knowledgeable staff, big selection, no competition within 100 miles to speak of, and plenty of local events to keep people coming in. They went out of business anyway. So, if you’re NOT doing it not just good, but really good, you’re not going to be doing it for long. Sometimes, even if you are doing it really well the ball bounces the wrong way and places go out of business. There’s no reason to be in retail if you don’t like retail. Honestly. There are so many other jobs out there, why do one you don’t like?

*Two points if you know the reference and give it in the comments.

PS: What’s the picture of the bowl of Trix have to do with anything? Nothing, but isn’t it bright and colorful?

Wake up retailers!

Rich — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:54:54 +0000

I’m in retail. Not a big box type store, a specialty type store along the lines of a GameStop, Candle store, Cell phone store. People who come to my store are coming there for what I sell. People don’t just come into my stores to wander and kill time like at a Wal-Mart or Target.

Today I went looking for a blue tooth earpiece and I knew what I wanted. I’d done my research. I wanted a Plantronics Discovery 975 Bluetooth Headset now that link will take you to Amazon.com where I have free 2nd day delivery and a price that was lower than the store I found it in today. I’m a fan of shopping locally when I can and when they have what I want. There are times when I want something right away and if I do all my shopping online all the local stores will dry up. We can’t ignore our local stores for just the big box stores or the Internet options. This Christmas should have been a HUGE wake-up call to retailers. The Internet isn’t going away. At least half of all Christmas shopping this year was done online among my friends. That’s money leaving town and jobs following the money out of this town.

I went to two cell phone stores today and one was super busy and under-staffed so I couldn’t get help. They had the thing I wanted, but it was locked on a peg and I couldn’t get it off and there was nobody to ring it up for me if I could have. One employee. Yes. I’m sure that helps your labor stay down, but you lost a sale when you were too busy to take my money.

Three doors down at another local wireless store they had the item I wanted and two sales associates working, both sitting on stools talking to each other when I walked in. I shopped for a bit, looked at the phones, no new ones, and still loving my HTC DROID Eris Android Phone, then I wandered and looked at cases for the phone. Evidently the girl on the left was having an ugly breakup with her boyfriend… no, I’m not kidding. So, I stood in front of the accessories and waited, fiddling with them for a minute or so, listening to their story, and then I left. I waved at them as I left the store. They smiled back at me.

Retailers. Wake up. You aren’t necessary any more. I’m not kidding. Nobody NEEDS to shop with you now. EVERYBODY can get what they want from somewhere else. I don’t care how you think your nearest competition is a hundred miles away. You’re wrong. Your nearest competition is as far away as the public library or the nearest internet connection.

If you and your employees don’t want to be in retail keep doing what you’re doing and soon you won’t be in retail. The Internet isn’t going away. If you don’t want to go away you’d better step it up or I’ll wave good bye to you as I leave your store.

Microsoft loves me… they really do!

Rich — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:43:00 +0000

All I wanted to do was sync my blackberry calendar and contacts with my computer. The Mac did this automatically with built in programs for both contact management as well as an excellent Calendar program. How they did this without anti-trust problems like Microsoft has I don’t know… maybe anti-trust lawyers can’t afford Macs. I don’t know. But to have as good as I had with the Mac I had to buy Microsoft Outlook otherwise my Blackberry would sync with exactly nothing on my PC. Swell.

I toddled over to the Microsoft store where I could buy a digital download of Microsoft Outlook 2007 and if past history was any indication with every other digital download purchase I’d ever made I’d be downloading, installing, and clicking away in under an hour. That was the plan.

Twenty hours later I still hadn’t gotten an e-mail from Microsoft with download instructions… my card had been hit but no love in the download department so I complained about it on Twitter. Complaining on social media isn’t new. What is new, and impressed me was someone from Microsoft contacted me through twitter and then through e-mail and finally by phone, seriously… he called me! (Of course they know all my vitals, Microsoft downloads and scans the contents of your hard drive at night, you know this right? JOKE! I sent him my phone number!)

So, because I twittered in exasperation someone from Microsoft, MICROSOFT, got in touch with me and stayed in touch with me to fix the problem and fix it in a way that took me from frustrated to happy customer. They didn’t give me giant piles of free stuff, but they can if they like… they’ve got my contact info! (hint hint) But he fixed the issue, personally took care of the sale and made sure that I got everything I’d asked for and was a happy customer.

This is not a trivial thing that Trevin from the Microsoft Store (online version, not from a mall) did. I’m in retail. I know how hard it is to take an irritated customer referring to your business as pathetic and then be calm, rational, and helpful with the upset customer and turn their bad experience into a good one. Trevin did an outstanding job of it. And I officially apologize for saying his store was bad. I should have contacted them at least one more time before I was so insulting.

The lesson here isn’t that they messed up although I’m sure there are plenty who will say “See, Microsoft screwed up again!” They’re ignoring the important part. From a customer service point of view they didn’t just screw up. They recognized it and then they reached out to me, their customer, and fixed it in a way that was fair. It didn’t give away the store and it didn’t make me feel like they weren’t giving an inch after messing things up so badly.

I wasn’t after a free lunch. I just wanted to shop with them. Today at my work I had one of my employees tell me about an upset customer experience she’d had and how the customer was going to come back. Whenever I hear those I wince. I want them to come back to shop, not to complain. She’d really tried to make the customer happy and things had just conspired against her. I suspect this is one of those customers who won’t be happy until we fire him. (Yes, I’ve fired customers before and it’s not something that’s done lightly but they quit being customers when they quit paying… and he’s getting close to the part where he’s an expense in a bad way.)

So, we’ll try to do as good by the upset customer as Trevin did by me. I’d started the conversation on twitter, effectively yelling “Your company is pathetic!” and he responded with “How can I help fix it?” And then went on from there to fix things. He didn’t react to my emotion or my hostility. He reacted to my problem and worked to address it. In doing so he took me from hostile upset customer to happy customer who will shop there again. His parting words on the phone, were that if I ever had any problem again to get in touch with him. I don’t expect I’ll have troubles, and if I did I would probably do things more right with e-mail through the proper channels, but I feel, as a customer, like I have an “in.” That makes me more likely to shop there again, even if I never use the in… and even though he’ll never remember me and probably handles a dozen cases a week just like mine. (Not because they’re that bad but due to the sheer volume of what the biggest software company in the world must do… at least I think they are, maybe it’s Blizzard.)

So. This week the challenge is to be as good at customer service as Microsoft was to me… and this time when I say that, I mean that in the best possible way. Good job Trevin from Microsoft, and thank you.

Thanks, Mgmt… ARGH!!!

Rich — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:22:55 +0000

I see signs in stores and on buildings that end with “Thanks, Management” or even worse, and more impersonal, “Thanks, Mgmt” and I cringe. I am a manager and have been for a lot of years and I’ve never signed a sign with my title. Now that I have managers who work for me I discourage them from it as well. “Management” isn’t a person. It may be an all consuming time-sink at times but managers are people and people have names, and while the people reading the sign may not know who you are… they don’t know who Mgmt is either.

It’s been my belief for a long time that people will mess with unnamed entities. If they feel like they’re “Sticking it to the man!” it is easier for them to commit shenanigans if “the man” they’re sticking to hasn’t got any name but is just a faceless entity. If they might well be looking across the store at the person who wrote the sign it might, in some few cases make a difference. That’s one reason, but it’s not the primary reason I sign my name and not my title to things.

The primary reason I sign my name is I want the people reading the sign to know who I am. Obviously I’m someone. I just put a sign in a place of business and the employees seem OK with that. Heck, this especially applies to employees! They know who “management” is so for me to have to remind them on a sign is almost me undermining myself. If they don’t know that “Rich is the manager and it would be a good idea if I was aware of and listened to this sign” then I’ve got a huge problem as a manager. If I think signing “Manager” to something carries more weight with my employees than signing my name… ouch. That would mean I was pretty insecure about my relationship with my employees. I see “Thanks, Management” signs as a sign of a weak manager or a posturing manager when they’re aimed at the employees. But, I digress. I was talking about my signs being bridge and relationship builders with my customers.

When the sign carries my name, some times they will ask “Who is Rich?” and that’s an opportunity for me to introduce myself and for us to start building a relationship. It’s not that I would say “The manager… and the manager is me.” That’s crazy talk. They don’t care if I’m the manager yet. They care who “Rich” is and why he put up a sign. That’s the question and the hidden question. So, I answer both, and take it as a chance to make a conversation where, at the end of it, they fell like they’re on a first name basis with a local business manager. They’ve got an “in.” They’re now able to call up the store, ask for the manager by name, and see what I can do to help them with something.

If I sign my signs “Management” they won’t know who I am or feel like they know me, or feel that connection that is so important for a sales people to make with customers, especially in small town retail. (I say small town because the store I “grew up in” has a population of around 25,000. It’s not exactly a village, but it’s no city either, there’s a definite small town feel to it, and part of that feel is when customers know their store’s managers by name.

Thanks,
A blogger

*Photo by Mike Smail on Flickr.

Don’t ask me a question if you’re not listening to the answer…

Rich — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:06:07 +0000

I’m in a store and I’m shopping and an employee asks if I need help finding anything. This is normal at every store. It’s part of the training to tell employees to notice customers and greet them that way. Where it gets different is when the training actually has a Day 2 and the employee knows to try and help the customer.

I’m in retail. I’ve been in retail for years. I notice customer service as often as I notice if vents are clean or not. It’s a curse. Rosa over at Talking Story recently brought up a retail incident involving the check-out procedure at a grocery store. I encourage you to go give it a read. It brought up the questions sales associates ask that they don’t really need or want the answer to. Questions they’re trained to ask, but then the training stops… or the trainer assumes the employee will take it from there.

I recently shopped at a Hy-Vee and the employee asked if I wanted help finding something. When I said a papaya she offered to order me some and was more concerned about having them for me on time than about what she would do with the rest of the ones she’d have to order to meet her minimum order. Later, at the same store an employee offered to order me crab fingers and assured me that the rest of the minimum order would be sold to someone, and again was more concerned that I got them on time. Hy-Vee is an employee-owned grocery store in Iowa. As you can see from the customer service they provide it’s a popular one. I’ve never had a bad experience at my Hy-Vee. The employees there are trained not just to ask questions, but to listen to the answer and help the customer get what they want.

Another store that often, but not always does a good job at this is Home Depot where when I ask where something is, often the employee will take me to the item. There are those where you can tell the manager isn’t as customer focused as others because they’ll just point or say “Aisle 23 on the right.” The ones that take me to what I want… those are the ones I go back to.

When at the cash register how often have we been asked “Did you find everything all right today?” What are they going to do if we were to say “Nope. I couldn’t find the peanut butter and jelly flavored freeze-dried astronaut food ice cream packs.” My guess is they’re going to say “Awww. I’m sorry,” and BEEP BEEP BEEP their way through the rest of the stuff on the conveyor belt. They’ve just asked me a question they had no intention of listening to the answer to.

A more frequent example is when people say “How are you?” as part of a greeting but then they don’t stop for us to answer. If there’s no intent to listen to the answer, don’t ask the question. The part of the post where I come to a radical conclusion or offer an insight or training technique to help make the world a better place is going to be woefully missing here. The thing is, the answer is easy. I’ve said it a couple times in the post and title. Employees should be trained not to just offer help, but actually follow through on the help. When an employee asks a leading question but doesn’t follow up on the answer they’re failing the customer and the store.

Break the Rules — not guitars!

Rich — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:13:43 +0000

Seriously?

The Internet is a great source of information, whether it’s wikipedia (I’d hate to be trying to sell encyclopedias door-to-door these days!) or amazon.com product reviews. The wealth and democratization of information is a huge amazing part of why I love the Internet so much as a consumer of the web and of ‘stuff’ in general.

I can’t remember the last purchase I made that was over fifty dollars that I didn’t do web research first to help me decide. If I couldn’t find specific product information I would use brand information. Consumer Reports is a great source of information as well.

That being said, many reviews or reviewers fall into two categories, the five-star evangelists lobbying FOR a product, and the 1 star haters who got burned by either a bad product, bad company, or bad customer experience. Now, just a star rating isn’t all I go by. I once read a review of a refrigerator that down-graded the fridge, knocking it down 2 stars because the ice-maker didn’t have a light in it. It didn’t say it did. If I buy a car and then complain that it doesn’t have 4 wheel drive that’s my fault, not the car’s. So some reviews are done by people who don’t pay attention to what they’re buying and then get mad when they made assumptions before they made their purchase. Remember all that information out there on the Internet? Use it before you make the purchase, not after.

United really dropped the ball when they dropped this guy’s guitar and then didn’t try and fix it. When I first took over this job with the new area I was fielding at least two calls a month from angry customers upset about something we’d done to them or not done for them. I had a meeting with my managers and explained to them that they were to take as their first rule to make the customer happy. If they had to break a rule to do that then do it but I wanted those angry customer calls to come down. If it meant we had to exchange an item that our policy said we didn’t exchange? Fine, exchange it then throw away the old one. Our profit margin can take one lost product it can’t take all the lost customers we would have when they left angry and told anybody who would listen.

There are customers out there who will take advantage of that situation. I fire them. Yep. You heard it. If they are abusing my good nature I tell them myself that we’re just too bad at our job to help them any more and they deserve better than us and while I’d love to take their money it would keep me up nights to continue to give them the horrible service we’ve done and I’m terribly sorry and wish them the best of luck across the street at Billy-Joe-Bob’s Widget Emporium which according to them has better selection, value, and service and we’ll miss them dearly but please… never come here again, we don’t deserve their money.

Yep. That’s right. I fire the customer who abuses my liberal customer service policies. The thing is… when I break those rules and make the customer happy — THOSE customers come back. THOSE customers don’t try to go higher than me (there isn’t much higher than me so they used to just go to the main office operator and then she’d get me to get in touch with them. I’m pretty high in the food chain ’round these parts.). So, the odds of me getting in trouble for making the customer happy and getting them to come back are almost zero. The upshot is that while the economy and my 401k are not doing so splendidly these stores are continuing to see growth store to store over last year. I attribute it to better customer service than they were used to getting.

Any company that values their policies over their customers had better be able to pay their bills with those policies once the customers get tired of their abuse… unless they’re AT&T and the iphone users are too addicted to leave them. Monopolies don’t need good customer service so if you’re the only game in town… you can ignore this post. United isn’t though… they shouldn’t have told their customer to get over it.

United, as shown in this song… believed their rules were more important than their customer. They were wrong… to the tune of around 180 Million dollars lost to shareholders according to this article.

PS: When it comes to liberal exchange policies though… I think Scott Adams got the best one I’ve heard of in his e-mail box.

Bad Customers can challenge even great customer service

Rich — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:51:50 +0000

Here’s the scene. A lady bought a refrigerator and a stove for her new house. She called to say that she thought her thermostat wasn’t working on the oven and they tried trouble shooting the problem on the phone within the first six months. It’s a sixty dollar service call after all, even tho the work would be free – so she thought. The trouble shooting didn’t fix it. She called again a month later, got a different person who did the same things. Finally, in despair she quit trying to get the problem fixed. She never told them she’d tried this already and never told them it still wasn’t working. Fast Forward four and a half years. The oven is still not fixed. Every time she bakes and it’s not good she says “It’s that damned stove from Mongo’s!” Here’s the thing… they didn’t know they hadn’t fixed it the second time.

So, four and a half years later I walk onto the show room and explain what had happened to the owner of the local business. I explained she felt like she was bothering them and didn’t want to upset anybody, but she’d been using a counter top toaster oven for four years and complaining to everybody who would listen about how bad they were and I knew that wasn’t true and wanted to help. I too had a local business on the same street and we’d seen enough businesses on that street go out of business to big box stores. Couldn’t lose another one. An empty street hurts all of us. So, I bought a part, one of two things that could cause the problem. I asked him to lie if she called, say he’d just given it to her to make it better. He said, “But that makes us look like the good guy and we weren’t!”

I grinned and said “We both know that but she won’t and you need image repair in her eyes.” The thing is, THEY didn’t know they had a problem. She hadn’t made it clear to them in a way they understood that there was something wrong. She just ran around telling everybody how bad they were. I think she dropped the ball by not letting them know it was still broken. I thought they dropped the ball too, but not following up, but so did she… also by not following up. I wanted to fix it. I was tired of undercooked fish, and feared undercooked pork would kill me one day if she used the oven.

The part didn’t fix it so I went back. The next part was expensive. She said she’d buy another stove first, and not from them. I explained this to them. Asked what could we do to fix it because I really didn’t want them to lose a customer and every customer whose shopping she influenced because I KNEW they were better than this.

The owner’s wife was working the counter that day and got me free service calls. The part at cost, and an apology. This is four and a half years after the thing was bought, well outside of warranty. She wanted to make sure her customers were taken care of. The owner did as well, and both of those people were doing what they could to take care of the situation once they found out about it. The family and she were happy with the resolution. I hope the owners are happy with it. I’m glad they stepped up. They had a chance to lose a lot of face with a lot of people. There were lots of eyes on them for this thing.

If a customer doesn’t complain we, as customer service people, salesmen, never have a chance to make sure they’re happy. “Service after the sale” is more than a saying on a banner. I think Ted Porter gets it too. I heard him recently on The Story on NPR. He talks about how his Employee & Customer Service focus is what’s keeping him going strong through these troubled economic times (take a drink). Listen to his story on TheStory.org.

One of the things I like about Ted Porter’s story is when he talks about how important it is to him, how his job satisfaction is based on having happy customers. That sort of person WILL have happy customers. In my business we are pretty small, we don’t have everything our customers want, but I’ve trained my employees when possible to help the employee find who DOES have the thing they’re looking for. If the customer leaves us happy, but without what they want that’s better than them leaving us disappointed in us without what they want. If we don’t have it they’re going to leave empty handed. I’d rather they left happy than not. When I bought my car my salesman called two days later to ask how I was liking it and if there was anything he could do for me about the car, any concerns I had. He gets it. He knows it’s about the customer. Not just because it’s a feel good thing… but because happy customers come back.

A friend of mine has a survey about Customer Service and how it has or has not changed in recent months. If you have a minute or two, it really is short and quick, give it a look. I’ll let you know when the results are posted.