When was the last time your were absolutely blown away with a company's customer service? Especially when you were calling to lodge a complaint, or to report a problem with a product not living up to your expectations. Unfortunately, I bet the odds are 10-1 in favor of a disappointing outcome to your call.
Why is that? What is so doggone difficult about taking care of your customers? After all, the customer purchased your product in good faith, and in most cases just wants the darn thing to perform as advertised.
Some companies are pretty good at resolving issues, but rarely does the customer come away with the feeling that it was done without hesitation, or without demanding an ounce of flesh first. If you live long enough, however, and buy enough "stuff" you will have multiple opportunities to uncover a few companies that have outstanding customer service.
Last summer I purchased an inflatable pontoon boat from Cabela's. It arrived shortly before a planned float trip to Arkansas, but when I finished assembly, one of the pontoons wouldn't hold air. It was leaking around the valve stem, and I couldn't get it fixed......I was not happy.....I called Cabela's.
"Hello, how can I help you?"
A real live person answered, no automated answering service, no transfer to another department, and most of all, an attentive, friendly person listened patiently to my dilemma. That's a great start to getting in my good graces.
"We'll send you a new boat, and pay to ship that one back. Is that okay?"
Yes, that would be great, but I needed it for a float trip the next week, and besides, all I really needed was a new valve, not the whole boat. Still, I was impressed as the associate tried to help me get a boat on the river. She then volunteered to get the boat manufacturer on the line to see how quickly we could get a new valve delivered. Wow, I'm pretty pleased with the effort so far.
"Classic Accessories, this is Nicki, how may I help you?"
What were the chances of getting another real live person answering the phone? Again, no question that they were most interested in resolving my problem. "Will it work for you if we ship it to you overnight? And, I'm going to send you a new pontoon just in case it's not the valve that's the problem." At this point, I'm pretty well blown away with both Cabela's and Classic Accessories. Every company should put forth this type of effort to please its customers.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to contact Classic Accessories again. This time I sent an email to request information about buying a replacement oar. We had just returned from floating the river and I had damaged one of the oars. When the person found that it had been just a year ago that I had bought the boat, he volunteered to send a new oar under the one-year warranty. Once again, what a great company. Then, when the package arrived a few days later, I opened it to find not a single oar, but a set of two brand new oars. Wow!
I advise my clients that they should always strive to astonish the customer, not just satisfy their needs. Needless to say, Cabela's and Classic Accessories have set the bar pretty darn high in my book.
Someday I'll write about a quite different experience that my daughter-in-law had with Sears this week. I suspect she would say they failed to even step over the bar as it laid on the ground. You might say they have a lot of room for improvement , but once again, what do I know.
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