Topic: Marketing
Customer service is becoming a lot like the weather – everyone talks about it, but nobody ever seems to do much about it.
The Globe and Mail’s Peter Cheney had a major take on the decline of customer service this week, but you know, in the end it read like one long mid-summer thumb-sucker. Yeah, service sucks all over, and people aren’t gonna take it anymore – although, really, most people are taking it, and those that do complain doesn’t seem to make much difference- and oh yeah, here’s some really egregious service horror stories. I almost felt sorry for poor old Air Canada, which -natch- was the subject of Cheney’s opening anecdote about the guy who was stranded in Turks and Caicos without his luggage for 12 days last month and got no help from anyone at the airline until he got an e-mail through to president and CEO Monte Brewer. It’s getting to the point that picking on Air Canada on service is like shooting fish in a barrel.
All that said, it is true that good customer service breeds hugely valuable positive word of mouth. And it is the small stuff that people notice. This may be because it often doesn’t take a lot to impress us anymore, but it also has a lot to do with the easily grasped symbolism of the small gesture.
So in the spirit of encouraging better customer service by praising the good stuff when I see it, here’s my small story from this week.
We (okay, I) broke the glass turntable thingy in our microwave. It’s a Sanyo and an old model –actually a hand me down- dating from 1990, but still works just fine. I didn’t want to throw it out, but figured it would be a trial to find the right part for such ancient a model. My cursory glance at the Sanyo Canada Website on the long weekend only added my fears. No obvious link to order replacement parts on the top couple of pages, and the link to service sent me to two out-sourced suppliers, one in California and one in Maryland.
Not promising. So I put it off doing anything.
I remembered a day or two later, and figured I’d just call the Canadian company and gird for voice-mail and hold hell. Yes, I was greeted by an automated voice mail on the mail number posted on the Sony Canada Web site (which I was encouraged and frankly surprised to find so easily- many companies don’t post a phone number, implicitly telling you they don't want to hear from you). But when I opted for an operator I got a live person on the first ring.
I told her my problem, expecting to be greeted with consternation and confusion. She quickly put we right through to the parts department. They picked up on the first ring. Bill told me sure; they have parts and can ship them out no problem. I, of course, didn’t have my model number, so I took his number.
I called back direct the next day with the model number. Again the phone was picked up on the first ring. It was a different guy; I think his name was Matt. His comment “Oh, that’s a really old model” when I gave him the model number had me worried again. He put me on hold. Less than 10 seconds later he was back. Yep, they had it. For $11.90 and a $9 shipment charge, they would send it out right away.
Less than 5 minutes on the phone, and my problem was solved.
I've gone on way too long for what this is worth. But the encounter was, is… so unexpected.
Maybe I’m a pessimist. In this day and age, I just expect mundane little tasks like sourcing a broken microwave part for an 18-year-old model long discontinued to be a marathon of problematic hurdles, bureaucracy and dead ends.
Small, simple things that work just make me happy.
I’m going to find out what else Sanyo makes and buy it.
Posted by sutter or mckenzie
at 6:44 PM EDT
Updated: Thursday, 7 August 2008 6:51 PM EDT
