On the Simple Pleasures of Customer Service
Let's face it: having to call customer service in this day and age blows goats. I am particularly certain of this apparent truism by virtue of the fact that my job this summer involved calling customer service lines for insurance companies, which might just be the most eye-gouging-inspiring task known to man. (A brief aside: what might be the worst is thinking that the 55 minutes you spent on hold -- for one patient -- is bad, until the verifier across the office calmly replies that she holds the one-patient record at 87 minutes.)
As one who spent a little time in retail in my day (and hopes never to have to again, God willing and the creek don't rise), I never quite understood why good, honest, polite customer service ever went the way of the dodo. Trader Joe's, especially, was always big on making sure the customer was happy, but that was something that was just always ingrained in my head. So the execution they were looking for was never an issue for me, and was routinely the highest score I'd receive on my quarterly reviews.
There's so little of that nowadays that it saddens me to the core. But fortunately, in the deep wilds of central Pennsylvania, I have found a bastion for the kind of service one used to experience and, sadly, no longer expects as the standard. Granted, it came from a chain store, and one of the experiences came over the phone at a customer service call center, but you'll quickly see why I'm so psyched here.
See, as an English major and a bibliophile in general, I find myself purchasing a lot of books, so it made sense for Danielle to, at Christmas last year, indoctrinate me into the ranks of the few, the proud, the Barnes & Noble Membership card holders. For $20 a year it seemed like a no-brainer: 10% off everything I bought, so $200 in purchases over a year and it pays for itself. As any good English major knows, one can rock a $200+ purchase in just a few minutes, several times a semester, when one must acquire the necessary texts for upcoming classes.
This time around, even with a mere three seminars to buy for, I needed to purchase thirty-five required texts. And the campus bookstore had precisely one of them. Displeased with this, I did what any true bibliophile would do: sought out the nearest Barnes & Nobles -- a mere five miles from campus -- and decided to seek out the correct editions myself. A task that, one would correctly imagine, is rather daunting and not for the faint of heart.
After running once through the list to little avail, I found myself at the customer service desk, trying the seemingly endless patience of a young woman who had no qualms whatsoever about looking up about 20 books for me, just to see if they were in stock. She was polite, friendly, and never once complained -- which always seemed to be the right way to go about in my book, since I'd find it hard to complain about doing one's job when one is being compensated for said job-going, but I digress and take credit away from this poor girl. She cheerfully helped as much as she could and sent me off on my merry way with good wishes for my impending online searches.
The woman at the register was just as polite, and even more sociable than the first. We had a delightful (albeit brief) chat about the books I was purchasing, the life of the graduate student, and other topics both relevant and inane, which was quite the relief since little-old-jaded-me was about to write off my service desk compadre as a fluke. I was delighted to find that I was wrong, and was as cheerful as I'd been all week as I left the store and bounded into the sixth consecutive day of State College rain.
But alas, all would not be perfectly right in my bibliophilic world. For no sooner did I return to the apartment and successfully order my books -- well, about 36 hours later, but who's really counting? -- than did I receive a Member-related e-mail from my BN.com friends, informing me of a fantastic offer on a free messenger bag with the purchase of $100 in books.
My heart sank. Had I known about this just a couple of days ago, I would have been eligible! Cursed impatience! I even tried e-mailing the B&N online customer service folks, but by the time they got back to me, my books were already here -- a fact that, I believe, should not go without due lauding, since they arrived less than 72 hours after I placed the order: bravo, folks. And when they did finally return my e-mail, the somewhat curt response informed me that, alas, there was nothing they could do to add it to my order. (Like I wasn't aware of that by then, as I stared at the giant box of 15 books on my coffee table.)
I was about to mutter a "Thanks, dipshit," when I thought that perhaps a well-planned phone call might be able to convince them to send me the bag. I mean, it was only a day or so before the offer began, and I'd have edited the order if I could. And if someone had gotten back to me sooner...
Well, you see where I'm going. The way I figured, there was enough questionable leeway that maybe, just maybe, I could weasel my way into this one.
So, this morning, I called. And spoke to yet another delightful woman -- yes, on a Saturday, too -- to whom I related my sad and unfortunate plight. After hearing me out, she put me on a lengthy hold to speak to her supervisor, a move that I was sure spelled disaster for my scheme. As awful muzak fluttered violently in my ears, I began scheming to a stronger degree: You know, I could return this whole order and just reorder it again, and that just seems like a waste for both of us, so maybe you should just think about reconsidering and--
"Hi, David? Sorry to keep you waiting. I really didn't think my manager would approve this, but he said it's fine to send you the messenger bag! Would you like it sent to the billing address or the shipping address?"
Flabbergasted isn't the word. I definitely never thought that would work, but it did, and I really believe it's a testament to good customer service principles at work. Granted, not everyone will agree with my philosophy on customer-retailer relations, but I'm a firm believer in the Infallible Customer. Sure, the IC can be a card-carrying member of Douchebags Unanonymous, but the fact of the matter is there's no retailer that can ever make said douchebag spend his money any place. That's a trust and a privilege that the retailer must earn each time a transaction is made.
Barnes & Noble recognized, this morning, that this is the case. While I certainly wouldn't stop patronizing them entirely -- after all, I am a member -- the unnecessary inconvenience that not helping me would have caused could have seriously forced me to reconsider future memberships, or perhaps to make my purchases at another retailer whenever reasonably possible. Despite the logic of corporate America that dictates that each customer should be squeezed for as much profit as possible without the customer realizing the squeeze, my friendly representative's manager realized that, while maybe I didn't perfectly qualify for the offer, swallowing the cost of the messenger bag was worth it to keep my business.
And just for that, he did. And got himself a little praise and free advertising on a blog that no one reads -- which I'm sure has Barnes & Noble thrilled to pieces.
I guess the only thing that confuses me now is: why can't more businesses treat their customers like this? Why should good service be a rare and notable event? Why can't those simple pleasures be more like regular occurrences? Why must we feel so jaded that moments like these actually do feel special?
...what, you were expecting an answer?
Please hold.
As one who spent a little time in retail in my day (and hopes never to have to again, God willing and the creek don't rise), I never quite understood why good, honest, polite customer service ever went the way of the dodo. Trader Joe's, especially, was always big on making sure the customer was happy, but that was something that was just always ingrained in my head. So the execution they were looking for was never an issue for me, and was routinely the highest score I'd receive on my quarterly reviews.
There's so little of that nowadays that it saddens me to the core. But fortunately, in the deep wilds of central Pennsylvania, I have found a bastion for the kind of service one used to experience and, sadly, no longer expects as the standard. Granted, it came from a chain store, and one of the experiences came over the phone at a customer service call center, but you'll quickly see why I'm so psyched here.
See, as an English major and a bibliophile in general, I find myself purchasing a lot of books, so it made sense for Danielle to, at Christmas last year, indoctrinate me into the ranks of the few, the proud, the Barnes & Noble Membership card holders. For $20 a year it seemed like a no-brainer: 10% off everything I bought, so $200 in purchases over a year and it pays for itself. As any good English major knows, one can rock a $200+ purchase in just a few minutes, several times a semester, when one must acquire the necessary texts for upcoming classes.
This time around, even with a mere three seminars to buy for, I needed to purchase thirty-five required texts. And the campus bookstore had precisely one of them. Displeased with this, I did what any true bibliophile would do: sought out the nearest Barnes & Nobles -- a mere five miles from campus -- and decided to seek out the correct editions myself. A task that, one would correctly imagine, is rather daunting and not for the faint of heart.
After running once through the list to little avail, I found myself at the customer service desk, trying the seemingly endless patience of a young woman who had no qualms whatsoever about looking up about 20 books for me, just to see if they were in stock. She was polite, friendly, and never once complained -- which always seemed to be the right way to go about in my book, since I'd find it hard to complain about doing one's job when one is being compensated for said job-going, but I digress and take credit away from this poor girl. She cheerfully helped as much as she could and sent me off on my merry way with good wishes for my impending online searches.
The woman at the register was just as polite, and even more sociable than the first. We had a delightful (albeit brief) chat about the books I was purchasing, the life of the graduate student, and other topics both relevant and inane, which was quite the relief since little-old-jaded-me was about to write off my service desk compadre as a fluke. I was delighted to find that I was wrong, and was as cheerful as I'd been all week as I left the store and bounded into the sixth consecutive day of State College rain.
But alas, all would not be perfectly right in my bibliophilic world. For no sooner did I return to the apartment and successfully order my books -- well, about 36 hours later, but who's really counting? -- than did I receive a Member-related e-mail from my BN.com friends, informing me of a fantastic offer on a free messenger bag with the purchase of $100 in books.
My heart sank. Had I known about this just a couple of days ago, I would have been eligible! Cursed impatience! I even tried e-mailing the B&N online customer service folks, but by the time they got back to me, my books were already here -- a fact that, I believe, should not go without due lauding, since they arrived less than 72 hours after I placed the order: bravo, folks. And when they did finally return my e-mail, the somewhat curt response informed me that, alas, there was nothing they could do to add it to my order. (Like I wasn't aware of that by then, as I stared at the giant box of 15 books on my coffee table.)
I was about to mutter a "Thanks, dipshit," when I thought that perhaps a well-planned phone call might be able to convince them to send me the bag. I mean, it was only a day or so before the offer began, and I'd have edited the order if I could. And if someone had gotten back to me sooner...
Well, you see where I'm going. The way I figured, there was enough questionable leeway that maybe, just maybe, I could weasel my way into this one.
So, this morning, I called. And spoke to yet another delightful woman -- yes, on a Saturday, too -- to whom I related my sad and unfortunate plight. After hearing me out, she put me on a lengthy hold to speak to her supervisor, a move that I was sure spelled disaster for my scheme. As awful muzak fluttered violently in my ears, I began scheming to a stronger degree: You know, I could return this whole order and just reorder it again, and that just seems like a waste for both of us, so maybe you should just think about reconsidering and--
"Hi, David? Sorry to keep you waiting. I really didn't think my manager would approve this, but he said it's fine to send you the messenger bag! Would you like it sent to the billing address or the shipping address?"
Flabbergasted isn't the word. I definitely never thought that would work, but it did, and I really believe it's a testament to good customer service principles at work. Granted, not everyone will agree with my philosophy on customer-retailer relations, but I'm a firm believer in the Infallible Customer. Sure, the IC can be a card-carrying member of Douchebags Unanonymous, but the fact of the matter is there's no retailer that can ever make said douchebag spend his money any place. That's a trust and a privilege that the retailer must earn each time a transaction is made.
Barnes & Noble recognized, this morning, that this is the case. While I certainly wouldn't stop patronizing them entirely -- after all, I am a member -- the unnecessary inconvenience that not helping me would have caused could have seriously forced me to reconsider future memberships, or perhaps to make my purchases at another retailer whenever reasonably possible. Despite the logic of corporate America that dictates that each customer should be squeezed for as much profit as possible without the customer realizing the squeeze, my friendly representative's manager realized that, while maybe I didn't perfectly qualify for the offer, swallowing the cost of the messenger bag was worth it to keep my business.
And just for that, he did. And got himself a little praise and free advertising on a blog that no one reads -- which I'm sure has Barnes & Noble thrilled to pieces.
I guess the only thing that confuses me now is: why can't more businesses treat their customers like this? Why should good service be a rare and notable event? Why can't those simple pleasures be more like regular occurrences? Why must we feel so jaded that moments like these actually do feel special?
...what, you were expecting an answer?
Please hold.
posted by Dave at 8/25/2007 11:37:00 AM
1 Comments:
I've been reading Consumerist lately... they chronicle the good, the bad, and the ugly of customer service. I like to think it's a failure of bureaucracy myself... upper management often claims to hold customer service as a principle, but the lowest tier of retail employees has a long list of rules to which they must adhere that don't give them any leeway to provide what might seem obvious responses to customer problems.
That, and marketing has gotten more complex... the larger the company, the greater the losses can be from poorly thought-out promotions and adjustments. Where one individual might see the obvious benefit in sending you your messenger bag (seeing as you could have returned and reordered all your books just to play by the "rules"), the corporate marketing people are up there with their calculators concluding that if the sale were extended by just two days, the marketing campaign would be over budget by X dollars due to greater-than-anticipated customer participation. Smaller businesses don't have to worry about things like that.
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