Something happened to me this weekend that got me really thinking about how the smallest things can impact your customer experience. A few weeks ago, my wife cracked the screen on her iPad so we brought it to the mall to one of those stores that can repair the glass on phones and tablets. We left it at the store and the manager told us that it would be done in a week. So you can imagine our surprise and frustration when, after three weeks, my wife was still without her iPad.
I called the guy up to figure out what was going on and he had a whole litany of excuses. It was his staff’s fault and it was the factory’s fault and there was an issue with delivery and on and on. While some of those might have been valid excuses, the bottom line was that we were promised it would be done within the week and we were going into our fourth week with no end in sight. As the customer, I wasn’t interested in his excuses, I just wanted my wife’s iPad back.
One rule of thumb that we follow here at UNEX is that “you say what you’re going to do and do what you’re going to say.” Sometimes, as sales people, it’s natural to promise the customer the moon to secure an order. But if you can’t deliver on your promises, you won’t ever get that second order. That’s something our salespeople are trained to do. We under-promise, over-deliver, and we know that that next order isn’t a given. We have to earn your order every single time.
It’s always amazing to me when a store or a company has bad customer service because it should be the easiest thing in the world to do well. Be honest, helpful and polite- things that really should come naturally anyway. Yet everyone has those nightmare customer service experiences that they can recall instantly. They tell their friends and family about them and before you know it, your store has a reputation.
However, it can cut the other way as well. I have a Nike Fuel Band and have had to call Nike customer service a few times when things have gone wrong with it. It seems that every time I’ve called them, I’ve walked away from the call smiling and thinking “that might be the nicest person I’ve ever spoken to.” They connect with me on a personal level by saying things like, “You use the Fuel Band, what kind of sports do you play?” They give me a list of things to try and walk me through each step to see if those things solve my issue. If they were unable to help, they quickly send a replacement band to my house. By the end of the call, you forget that you had called because you had a problem.
Both of those experiences will stick with me for a long time and shape my opinion of those companies. It’s the little things that make the biggest difference, and at UNEX, we strive to be like the Nike Customer Service every day. Call us at 1-800-334-UNEX (8639) and see if we pass your customer service litmus test.