Customer Service - Part 1

In this first post, I want to talk about the idea of customer service and begin with asking this question..."why does it have to be so hard to get good service?". I mean, the people who are consumers are mostly human. The people doing the service are also, mostly human. In fact, the people doing the service will clock out and become consumers themselves, being served by other people who are also, mostly human.

So, with so much in common, why is it so hard to have good customer experiences? Why is it so rare to leave a store where everything went great that you even tell your friends about it? Why, more often then not, are you tempted to leave what you just spent a ton of time looking for and just walk out of the store (and you would, except you really need those diapers!).

I am going to share some experiences that illustrate what I have been thinking and experiencing. But let me share a story I heard recently from Guy. He and his family were up in Gatlinburg, Tn and wanted to order some pizza for delivery. The order was taken and delivery was promised. Over a period of time (much longer then promised), Guy calls to check on pizza status...more promises and waiting result. Finally, Guy offers to go and pick it up himself and is told "awesome, give us 15 minutes". Upon arriving, the pizza has yet to be made (seriously??) and the place is a madhouse. They then tell Guy that he can't cancel his order and proceed to charge his credit card (for no pizza and broken promises). If you know Guy at all...this means war! He spends extra time and effort, disputing the bill with his credit card and tracking down the store people to sign off on the dispute. He contacts the pizza place and discovers it has a new manager and receives somewhat of an apology for the problem/incident. The new manager says something to the effect "I hope we can get your business again in the future."

Now, would you go there again? Would you even give them another chance? I think I can find another pizza place pretty easily!

When I heard this story, I responded, "if that was me (meaning the new manager), I would have said...I hope we can get your business again. In fact, I am sending (or personally bringing) a free pizza to your place right now as a sign that we value you and are sorry for the experience you had."

Would this cost too much money? Wouldn't it be worth it to gain back a customer?

By the way, since you made it this far, want to remind you that today at McDonalds is free chicken biscuit in the morning and free chicken sandwich for lunch or dinner...just tell them you want the jeremyhigdon.com freebie...actually, I think you need to purchase a drink!