Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Customer Service

Emergence Marketing has posted a tale about dealing with poor customer service with an airline.

Unfortunately, that's shooting fish in a barrel. We all can come up with stories of terrible customer service. [I'm 6'2" and will not take airline customer service seriously until they provide more legroom in coach.]

What is interesting, however, is when an outfit gets it right; not just somewhat right, but so memorably right so you want to run out and tell your friends to use that company's services or products.

What do I recall lately?

  • A Bookman's Bookstore clerk who acknowledged a relatively minor inconvenience and immediately handed me a ten dollar credit. I'll go back to them.
  • A Marriott hotel audio visual specialist who worked out the kinks in a PowerPoint projector and then checked back periodically to ensure that all continued to go well. [I've trained around the country and have always been pleased with Marriott. service.]
  • An airport van driver in Seattle who took a detour to avoid rush hour traffic, explained the route, gave some tips on the traffic system, and kept his sense of humor.

Do you have any other examples of extraordinary customer service?






2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Michael - thanks for linking to my post.

You are right that it is so easy to come up with bad customer service stories. The point I was trying to make is that the bar to delight customers is so low that even when someone treats you as a human being with a brain you will find it a memorable experience...and that is sad :)

Michael Wade said...

Francois,

You are correct to make that point. I greatly enjoyed your account of the airline story and fear you are right that the bar has been considerably lowered. (I notice that almost every time I go to the airport.) Thanks for your comment and for your post.