Customer Service Hits and Misses

In today’s business world, if you don’t provide excellent customer service, one of your competitors will, and you’ll find  your company’s products and services in ‘commodity hell’, which is aptly named. Recently, we’ve encountered a couple of customer service hits and misses:

1. A Hit: Toscano, who makes and distributes all sorts of decorations for your home, recently shipped the wrong item to us. My wife called them to authorize the return (even though they thoughtfully provided a prepaid return label), and they authorized the return over the phone (no taking it to the manager), but then called back in about 10 minutes to say that they were going to cover shipping for the new part, and we could keep the one they shipped in error. We’re sure they looked at the costs of hassle and back and forth shipping and prior purchase record, and said, ‘let’s do the right thing’. Kudos to them.

2. A Miss: Recently, when we changed our home security service from ADT to a local company, ADT informed us that if we wanted to stay with them, they’d reduce our service $11 per month, about 25%. Or if we were a new customer, we’d get the lower rate. We also paid a $50 setup fee. Why they didn’t say, as their replacement did, that there was no setup fee and it was the lower rate. Now ADT’s got to cope with a former customer (who, via this blog) tells a lot more than nine suspects.

So, the question is: Is your company more like Toscano, or ADT? Think about it. Comments invited from annoyed customer service reps who work for the ADTs of the world.

This entry was posted in customer service, Entrepreneurship, guerilla marketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing. Bookmark the permalink.

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