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nolaguy
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On Exceptional Customer Service


This is prompted by trenchmonkey’s thread on Think Tank’s exceptional satisfaction of his needs (thanks for sharing, Will).

The big Q:
Tell us your stories about both poor and extreme customer service. When have you failed? When have you succeeded …and what were the ramifications of both?


A few personal reflections on the concept:

For the life of me, I do not understand companies that don’t place their primary emphasis on product quality and customer service, or employees that don’t revel in problem solving for customers.

One night about 7PM when I was 17 or 18 I became aware a customer of our family business felt we’d done her a bad turn and I could not help but immediately call her at home to ask about and try to solve her discontent. Unbeknownst to me, my father was watching and upon hanging up the phone he asked me if I realized how impressive and rare that was. I totally didn’t get it. In my mind, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep that night until I was able to sort the problem out.

Funny as it was, the

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in Fast Times at Ridgemont High where Judge Reinhold gets flustered and refuses to easily reimburse a dissatisfied customer for a fast food meal had me squirming uncomfortably. Just give the man his money back – even if you wind up paying for it out of your own pocket.

At the same time, employee\'s shouldn\'t have to think that way. I love the Nordstrom\'s legendary Employee Handbook\'s one instruction: \"Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.\"


I think poor service is often a matter of businesses screwing themselves by setting performance standards for their customer service people that actually punish the employee for providing exceptional satisfaction (e.g. spending too much time solving one customer’s dilemma).

No doubt it’s also influenced by abusive customers – but such pitfalls of a customer-centric policy can include error-trapping mechanisms to identify and quarantine jerk customers easily enough.


What are your thoughts? What are your stories? How did they play out? Have you had clients/customers like Will who could not say enough good about how you went above and beyond?

Regards,

Chuck



Mar 08, 2014 at 06:08 PM





  Previous versions of nolaguy's message #12189238 « On Exceptional Customer Service »

 




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