Does that makes sense?
I love Apple products, even if the shopping experience was terrible, I’d probably still purchase them for their quality and content.
When I read a story like the one below, I realize that it isn’t just the products themselves, it’s the experience and people that make me want to come back.
10-year-old girl has memorable experience at Apple Store
What can you do to make every customer’s shopping trip a wonderful experience?
You make lemonade, right? Getting plenty tired of lemonade.
Each year I try to buy myself an end of year present. Most of them have been successful, some, not so much. Last year it was a pair of boots I never wore – silly given that I live in Southern California. I managed to repeat the bad choice this year with a guitar. I haven’t played since I was a teenager.
I opened it up, started to tune it and the last string wouldn’t hold the note. Close inspection revealed that the tuning key was cracked. A quick phone call to customer service and they told me they were out of the guitar, couldn’t offer any parts, couldn’t tell me where to get it repaired. My only option, return it. Granted, I should be happy with getting my money back, but I’m bummed. No guitar and a perfectly good (unusable) iPhone app that I’ve been working on to tune it with.
If you sell guitars, shouldn’t you also sell parts for guitars?
I’ve been dealing with a program that I downloaded as a demo and decided to purchase. I purchased the license two weeks ago and up until today have not been able to use it since the demo expired. The support staff has been quite helpful suggesting various fixes – that up until now have not worked. Today they sent me a fix that entails turning off a feaure on my operating system.
In other words, they’ve asked me, the customer, to alter my behavior to fit theirs. I’m the customer. I’m always supposed to be right, right? But we both know in the real world that isn’t true.
Most companies ask us to alter our processes to fit into their processes. What they should be doing is providing processes that are flexible enough to adapt to individual customer needs. But that’s a huge task isn’t it. Make a process that bends and flexes? As a programmer, I know that software doesn’t always bend and flex very well.
People don’t either. How many times has someone in your company said to you – But we’ve always done it this way.
So what’s the key to establishing a way of dealing with customers without making them responsible for the bending? Creating a standards based and event driven customer service process. Your process should deal with customers according to a set plan, but allow for flexible responses.
Example: Now that the software company has determined my issue is solved – they should put the setting that was the culprit into their documentation and establish a check for it when the product starts. I should have been notified when I started the product that I need to turn off the setting. Or better yet, notify me and ask me if it was okay to turn it off. A flexible response to the customer problem. I shouldn’t have spent the last two weeks without a working program.
Stopped at the store this grocery store this morning. The deli section and the bakery are right next to each other. A marvelous apple cinnamon smell is wafting from the back area behind the deli and bakery. I approach the bakery department, no one is there. Approach the deli section, two ladies talking. I ask about the apple smell, what is it I want to know that smells so good.
Her response? I don’t know. Must be coming from the bakery, she says and returns to her conversation with her partner.
Walked away without anything from the deli, nothing from the bakery. Now, I know darn well that if they had bothered to ask the person in the bakery department what he/she was cooking, I would have bought whatever it was. If it wasn’t ready, I would have waited or come back. It would have only taken her a couple of minutes to wander into the back and ask.
Moral. If you have a business and your employees are sectioned off – make sure you have a team, not a bunch of departments. You should have a customer communication rule – every employee should be able to communicate
with anyone within the company. It should be a requirement if the customer is the one asking the questions.
But I probably hit the deli counter when she was deeply involved in a serious issue with her partner behind the counter. I’m sure its very important that her teeth are at their whitest and she uses the best toothpaste for that effect.
I’ve switched hosting providers in my quest for the perfect host. In doing so, I had to modify my named server information in my GoDaddy account so that the internet world would find my domain. On the GoDaddy website, it states clearly, that I should allow up to 48 hours before the change takes affect. I made the change at 10pm last night. Its 6:45am and its effective. That’s what customer service is all about. Setup my expectations to the widest parameter, deliver under the mark. I just wish all my internet service providers served me a s well.
