Perception Is Reality

Here are some customer service stories for you:

A customer took a lawn mower somewhere to have it repaired. They gave her a repair ticket and said to call them in a week. Five weeks later, the woman had been unable to reach anyone by telephone, and hadn't heard back from anyone at this store. Finally her husband decided to drive to the store to see what was going on. He walked into the store and there was only one customer there, and one person at the counter. He asked about his lawn mower, and the person looked through some papers and said the lawn mower was repaired and was ready to be picked up. The man told the person at the counter that his wife had been calling for weeks, not getting through to anyone and not even reaching an answering machine. The person at the desk, who turned out to be a co-owner of the store, stated they were usually too busy to answer the phone, but maybe adding an answering machine would help some.

A consumer was out of town and decided to sample a different brand of grape soda. As he drank, he thought this was the best tasting soda he'd ever had, and wanted to find out if it was sold in his own area. He took the address of the company off the bottle, and when he got back home he wrote this company a letter to ask them this very thing. Less than a week later he comes home, and sitting at his door is a full case of bottles of this very soda, with a letter thanking him for writing them and a list of stores in the area that carried their product.

Another consumer wrote a letter to a fast food company complaining that a long time standard product they served had suddenly changed for some reason, and he wasn't happy about it. Four weeks later he receives a response to his letter, thanking him for writing them, and enclosing free coupons for that very same product he had complained about.

A couple needed some work done on their roof, so they called four roofing companies and asked them to come to the house, do an assessment on their roof, and give an estimate as to the cost of repairs. The first company comes out, spends 3 minutes up on the roof, says they'll send an estimate and is never heard from again. The second comes out, doesn't go up on the roof at all, says how much it will cost to repair the roof and writes the price on a piece of paper, then leaves. The third comes out, spends time up on the roof, comes down with this scary prospect of extensive roof work but doesn't take any real time explaining it, then sends an estimate two weeks later for an astronomical price with no explanation of the services on the invoice. The fourth company comes out, spends 25 minutes up on the roof, measuring and estimating; this person has come with another person, to help things to along better. This person says they're going to go back to figure everything out, but will be in touch before the end of the week. Two days later this person calls to ask if they can come over to discuss the findings, and when they show up they spend 30 minutes talking to the possible customers about the roof, what was found, and five different repair options this couple can decide upon, based on their need and ability to pay. He also leaves all five options, which he had printed out for them, numbered, so they could take their time to review and talk about it later.

Someone received a bill from the local hospital that they were sure had been paid. They called the phone number on the bill and mention that they had paid the claim. The person at the hospital shows that the claim was indeed paid, but says they can't do anything about this person receiving bills because all billing is handled from another entity and it takes a couple of weeks for information to be transmitted to this particular company. The customer asks if they will receive any more bills and is told that they'll have to call the company long distance, without an 800 number, and talk to them directly.

A small companies president tries calling his own company while out of town on business. He's dismayed because he can't get through to a person because of his own company's telephone system. When he gets back into town, he has the answering system removed and hires a receptionist to answer the phones so his customers will receive a personal touch. Within two weeks he's receiving letters and phone calls from his customers, complimenting him on changing to that format.

A couple goes into a restaurant, one where they were only once before, three weeks earlier. The waitress comes over, and she's brought the exact same drinks they had the first time they were there. During the evening it seems as though she's always there just when they're needed, and not once did they have to even wait to have a drink filled or more bread brought to the table.

A person goes into a large department store and decides to look at some shoes. After selecting a pair to be looked at, he looks around and wonders where the sales person is. As he looks around he notices people near the area, but no one has come to assist him. Finally he goes to someone he knows works at the store and asks for some assistance. The person tells him they don't work in that department, so they can't help them out. Finally, disgusted, the customer leaves.

Every day that we leave the house we have the opportunity to examine the customer service principles of those we do business with. Every day we're at work and we either have to answer the phone or address a customer in person, we have the opportunity to learn more about our own customer service principles. Out of the examples above, which ones do you think will encourage customers to come back and partake of their services? Which examples give you the impression that your money isn't good enough, for whatever reason?

Every scenario above is accurate; every scenario above is something that happened to me personally. There's a statistic out there that says "for each positive thing that happens to you, you may tell one or two people about it, but for every bad thing that happens you'll tell 10 to 20 people". Customers tend to remember more strongly those events that upset them the most, and it doesn't matter if the story changes later on, because with embellishment the story doesn't get better, but gets worse.

There are some entities who feel they don't have to worry as much about customer service because they're the only company that provides a specific type of service. In today's internet market, it's fairly easy to find someone elsewhere who may be able to provide the products and services required, at possibly a less expensive price. These days, what companies and customers can provide that the internet can't provide is hands on care for their customer's needs and wishes. If you don't want business, if you don't want to succeed, then don't provide good customer service. Don't ever respond to a phone call; don't even respond to email. You get what you give in life; are you and your employees giving enough of yourselves to your customers? This isn't something saying the customer is always right; just that the customer is, still, always the customer.