Customer (Un)Service

“One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.”

Jim Rohn

I’ve written an earlier Blog about the “line of sight” between bad customer services by employees directly related to working for competent jerk bosses.

In our company we believe that customers are our “bosses” and we adhere to a few key principles that we work hard at:

• Be honest (we goof up some times and then fess up when we do)
• Be responsive (try to get back to customers and resolve issues as fast as possible)
• Go the extra mile (try to deliver service delight whenever we can)
• Be an “insightful advisor” (challenge customers in a positive way to address business issues they don’t see)

Recently, I’ve had several memorable customer service experiences and I thought I’d share them with you.

THE HOME DEPOT

I was in The Home Deport a few weeks ago picking up some replacement parts for our outdoor sprinkler system.  You can’t miss the help as they wear a bright apron and seem to be plentiful on most of the isles. I went down one isle that had outdoor bricks and stones and saw a man loading one of the large carts with new red bricks.  The cart was almost filled and it looked as if he had a big job ahead!

I noticed one of the employees walk up to the man and, without greeting him, said “don’t take all the good ones.”  I didn’t interpret the comment as an attempt at humor or sarcasm and slowed down to hear what the customer might say or how he would react to the comment.

He looked up at the employee and replied, “I’m paying for them and want the best bricks I can find.”  The employee replied, “I just want to make sure we have some good bricks left for other customers.”

The customer looked taken back and went back to loading his cart.

U.S. POSTAL SERVICE

We live very close to the beach in Santa Monica so not exactly a rural town.  Our home mail delivery service is almost always very late in the afternoon, typically 5pm or later.  We have had pretty much the same postal carrier for many years and have a mail slot at our front door—mail is thrown through the slot (much to the delight of our guide dog puppies who have been helpful in getting the daily mail). Outgoing mail I leave in the slot for the carrier to take away with them to begin its journey.

The other day I left two bills and a copy of our new book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It in an envelope at our door in a mailing envelope with the proper postage. At about 5:45pm I noticed the carrier come to our door and slide our mail through and head back to our next door neighbor’s house.  I also noticed that the two bills I left outside to take were put back into the mail slot.

I picked up the mail left for me and grabbed the two bills and my book left behind and walked down the street to catch up with the carrier.

She saw me approach and before I could say anything she said, “I saw the mail you left for me to pick up.”  Since I raise Guide dog puppies for the blind I immediately knew that sight impairment wasn’t the issue.

I said to her, “Oh, can I give you my two envelopes and this package.”  And, she replied, “No, I’m not allowed to pick up mail from customers after 5:30pm. Just leave it and I will pick it up tomorrow.” I couldn’t help but ask, “What if you come later than 5:30pm again?”  She told me that I might be better off taking it to the post office myself or finding a box in our neighborhood and drop it in there.

The customer looked taken back and walked back to his house with his bills and package in hand.

CITIBANK

My wife and I thought we’d go to our local branch together on a Friday morning to speak with one of the employees there about refinancing our home loan.  He was helpful and told us that he would forward all of our information to one of their loan specialists and that they would call us the following week. The following week came and nearly ended when I contacted the branch employee and told him that we never got a call from the loan specialist.  He replied, “Well, I thought you were going to call me to see if you wanted to move ahead.”

I told him we did and he mentioned that someone would contact us immediately.  It’s possible he misunderstood our interest to move ahead required our initiative to call us but that isn’t really the poor service. I received a message from the loan specialist and called back and was told “It’s a really busy day so can we schedule a meeting to discuss your situation.”  We agreed she would call me the following day in the morning.  I blocked some time and waited but she never called.  A day later I left a message to call me.

She did the day after my call and didn’t apologize for missing the original call but mentioned again how busy she was. I asked if she had been given our refinancing information from the bank officer and she said she couldn’t find it.  So, I went over all the information with her that she needed and told her I wanted to move ahead as soon as we can.  She said she could get a lot of the information she needed from our original loan documents but would need to email me a request for some specific information.  I gave her my email address and thanked her for helping us.

After two days of checking my spam folder and email I realized that I didn’t receive anything from her so left her another message with my email address and phone number and asking her to at least acknowledge my call and request to resend the email to me.  It’s been two more days and no email from Citibank or phone message letting me know that they are working on the home loan refinancing.

The customer feels taken back at the lack of responsiveness and overall customer experience.

Well, I have several emails and calls to customers to make right now to let them know we value their business, we might have goofed up something, or try to solve a problem for them…..Be well…..

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)