Customer Service Stories | Dave Stelzl's Blog

Archive for the 'Customer Service Stories' Category

Apr

Customer Service Lessons From United Airlines – Partners

Categories: Customer Service Stories
Tags: baggage claim, Customer Service, lost luggage, united airlines, wheresmysuitecase

Most of the products we sell today are commodities…but your service level can make or break your customer relationships, and especially services rendered by partners on your behalf.

For the past 4 days I have been going back and forth between representatives at United to locate my suitcase. What a disaster this has been. Every time I speak with a new person to get an update, they think my bag is in a different city. Finally I get a call from the people who deliver United bags – http://www.wheresmysuitcase.com – they have my bag and will call in one hour to arrange delivery.

Well, an hour later, no word. Later that evening I called them, but they did not know where my bag was. The next morning I contacted United and they didn’t know either. I asked the representative at United to check on this with the bag delivery company, but the bag delivery company claimed that they had no record of me. “How can that be?” I asked. The United person was not able to get an answer to this question, so I contacted the bag delivery people personally. I spoke with Chris on the phone who had no idea – in fact, he sort of insisted that they did not call me. But their number was on my caller ID, so they must have. After some back and forth on this, trying to get Chris to look further into this or at least agree that they must have called me – he hung up on me. At that point I called Chris back to get his name, which amazingly he did give me. He then said, “If I do see your bag I am not going to deliver it to you!” This is amazing to me – if you ever have a partner tell one of your customers something like this – make sure they terminate that employee immediately.

Finally, later that morning I did get a call from someone at United who took ownership of the problem, went out and found my bag, and is holding it for me. At this point I would rather take the three hour trip than risk them putting my bag in the hands of http://www.wheresmysuitcase.com. In the end, the United rep understood, agreed to hold my bag there, and offered me a free flight voucher – she did the right thing. Know who your customers are interfacing with and who represents your brand on your behalf. Make sure they uphold the brand you’ve established and understand how difficult it is for you to win over a new client. You can’t afford to lose clients that actually spend money with you. Note: I’ve flown nearly around the world twice this month on United…I’m definitely a paying customer.

Mar

Bangalore India, Day Four; Whitefield Marriott, a Lesson in Customer Service

By Dave Stelzl's Blog 1 Comment

Categories: Customer Service Stories
Tags: customer focused, Customer Service, India, marriott hotel, review, whitefield marriott

My time in India is just about over, but not without some special memories, great experiences, and new friends. Saturday was an exceptional day – starting off with an excellent breakfast buffet, followed by a day of reading, writing, and planning.

Breakfast

The service at the Whitefield Marriott has been excellent. Three individuals stand out as having made my stay exceptionally great -

Mousumi who runs the Whitefield bakery went out of her way to make sure I had everything I needed to enjoy lighter affair dinners after work and a place to work in the evening hours.

And Chefs Vikram and Vivek. On Saturday morning Vivek was talking with me about my travels and discovered I really like Chinese food. So he graciously offered to make me a special Chinese meal that evening. Both chefs worked on it – so I don’t really know who did what, but it was some of the best Chinese food I have ever tasted.

Dinner began with a starter of stir fried prawns in a spicy sauce, followed by a new variation (new to me) of chicken with broccoli on rice. Vivek recommended a small dish of homemade cinnamon ice cream to finish off this spicy meal which was an excellent choice. Here’s a picture:

Chef Vivek

Overall an exceptional value. Every morning I found the staff cheerful, they learned my name, greeted me, and constantly made sure I had everything I needed. The rooms were spacious, well kept, modern, and the hotel is completely wired with high speed internet – including the hotel vehicles and elevator. I didn’t use the pool, but it looks beautiful. I should also mention my driver Moses, who faithfully showed up each morning, right on time, to take me to work, and was ready for me right at 5 to take me back. As an American it seems impossible to get around Bangalore without a driver – Moses did an outstanding job.

Marriott Pool

Heading back to the states – if you thought your flight was early, mine leaves at 3:45 am…so I have to leave here at midnight to catch it! You know that’s going to be exciting.

Feb

Become a Customer Company

By Dave Stelzl's Blog 1 Comment

Categories: Customer Service Stories and Video
Tags: become a customer company, customer experience, Customer Service, improving, marc benioff, salesforce.com

Are you watching Salesforce.com? Marc Benioff’s “Become a Customer Company” videos on YouTube are impressive…of course, being a SFDC user, I feel somewhat loyal to what he’s promoting, but it’s bigger than that. Whenever I fly, shop, eat out, or contact a customer service rep, I am thinking about customer experience. I get tons of feedback requests, but so often, no matter what I write, good or bad, there’s no response. It’s like, no one is actually reading my input. Watch this video and look at what SF (and other customer focused companies) is thinking about…it’s not about your product anymore. Maybe it never was….

Jan

Don’t Look to Your Doctor For Business Advice!

By Dave Stelzl's Blog Leave a Comment

Categories: Customer Service Stories
Tags: clients, customer care, customer satisfaction, doctors office

I just returned from a doctors appointment – as usual I brought one of my kids with me. It’s always an educational experience. Sometimes there’s a biology lesson, other times we get some health insight. Today was more of a business lesson. Several things we can learn not to do in our business…

1. Don’t make your clients wait on you with absolutely no explanation other than, we’re backed up…and no apology.

2. Don’t make a diagnosis and charge your client a fortune, only to have them discover you were wrong, and then charge them again, to try something new. Again – without any real explanation or apology.

3. Don’t let grumpy people handle the front desk – making your clients sign in without any real acknowledgment or expression of gratefulness that they’ve chosen to do business with you.

4. Don’t speak to your clients in some foreign jargon, assuming they don’t really need to know anything other than, what to take – doctor’s orders.5. Don’t assume your clients have unlimited money or that they don’t care what the cost is – even if some other funding such as insurance is covering the bill. (Note: We all pay for insurance in some way or another – it’s not free money).I could go on…but today’s lesson at the Doctors office will likely make my son a better business man in the future. Hopefully his clients won’t have to deal with this kind of aggravation.© 2013, David Stelzl

Oct

The Importance of Customer Service and Online Ratings

By Dave Stelzl's Blog 2 Comments

Categories: Customer Service Stories
Tags: Customer Service, goflex, seagate, technical support, the importance of ratings

Wow, I just got off the phone with Seagate technical support…customer service and ratings can make or break your business. Have you noticed this? Two very clear examples:

First, My New Smoker

If you haven’t heard, my wife and I took up crossbow hunting this year…pretty romantic huh? There’s nothing like sitting out in the quiet wilderness with your spouse in the early morning hours, watching birds, squirrels, and the occasional whitetail deer. Some good friends of ours recently got us excited about smoking our meet, and so as an early Christmas present, my mother-in-law bought us a smoker – but we had the option of choosing which one to get. So off to Google we went.

I felt a little like the IT guy, comparing firewalls, software products, and customer support ratings. This is where social media and sites like Amazon really shine. We must have read hundreds of reviews – some of the products were great, but offered very poor customer service ratings. Some products just didn’t hold up like they should, others seemed to last forever. In some cases there where dozens of five star ratings and one or two disgruntled customers. The point is, we didn’t talk to sales people or look at the manufacture’s website until we had done our homework.

By the time we visited the store, we knew more than our sales person did about smokers. We knew about the defective products that had been shipped, had memorized various customer experiences, understood the various warranties, and even knew what accessories were most likely to be needed. We knew this smoker runs hot, and that one leaks too much smoke. This one over here should have had a larger chip tray, and that one has a vent on the back rather than the preferable chimney.

Our sales person finally admitted that we knew far more than he did, and that he really couldn’t help us other than to say, “You can return it within 30 days if you don’t like it”….But the major lesson to me came with the ratings. The sales person didn’t really have a chance to sell us anything, because past buyers had already done it for him. They had either blacklisted the product for me, or convinced me, “This is the one!” I knew what I wanted long before I arrived at the store. In fact, I only visited one store – I knew what I was going to buy before I went shopping. What are people saying about your services? Are they turning people toward your company, and driving them away?

My Seagate GoFlex Drive

I bought my Seagate NAS drive in a similar fashion, (although price came into play here.) The GoFlex NAS ratings were mixed, and being an Apple user, very mixed. In fact, I almost didn’t buy. The final decision did come down to price. I just couldn’t pass up the price on this one. My old drive, a fairly expensive Buffalo drive crashed last year, and the recovery process was very painful. If you have clients with poor back up solutions, you may want to let them know, it took me several months to restore my data – I procrastinated on getting a second drive to back up the first and…well, what a mistake that was.

So this time I bought two GoFlex drives, with four times the Buffalo capacity, for half the price. Well, here is the rest of the story…

My GoFlex is suddenly not working – the good news is, I have my data backed up this time! My first call with GoFlex happened last year when I encountered some issues connecting with Mac. No problem. The technician did a great job, walked me through the undocumented process, and had me up and running in no time. This time it was not so easy. The first technician did some trouble shooting, but ran out of time – or actually, I ran out of time. That was Basil. He didn’t seem to really have a plan, but was willing to try. The next day I worked with Daniel for about 30 minutes. He was also somewhat clueless about what to do, but gave me some things to try and asked that I call back if they didn’t work. None of these included reformatting my drive – which I really did not want to hear. Then today, I was pleasantly surprised when Brian said, “I think you have a bad drive. We’ll send you a new one!” Wow, no reformatting, or sending me off to do some complex laborious task – a simple transfer to customer service, and Debbie has a new drive in the mail to me. All I have to do is ship mine back within 25 days!

Am I likely to recommend Seagate to a friend? Of course. This replacement probably costs the company a few dollars, but nothing compared to a flaming review on social media. How do you respond when someone needs support. It’s almost always cheaper to respond quickly with a replacement or fix, than it is to tie up hours of consulting time, and risking flaming online reviews. This sort of response makes my day and leaves me with great feelings toward the companies I’ve bought from. Try it!

Jun

Todd From Tampa

By Dave Stelzl's Blog Leave a Comment

Categories: Customer Service Stories and Leadership
Tags: customer experience, Customer Service, great customer service

Do you want to make an impact wherever you go? If you’re in sales you do – impacting business is at the heart of every great sale, and every trusted adviser. So how do you do it? How do you create impact?

There’s been a lot written on this topic – sales leadership and success. But sometimes it takes the unexpected to really bring it home. My family enjoys heading out to dinner on the weekend. Sometimes it’s my wife and I, and other times we have some or all of the kids. When we take the entire family of 9 to dinner it’s a big deal; it’s not an easy task for any server. I mean, we are a big family, with lots of children, lots of special orders, some food allergies, people sharing meals with younger ones, and almost always, we require them to assemble some tables to fit our family – at times we need to put on our life vest if there’s a spill. We try to make it enjoyable for the server, but not every server is up for the big family experience. That’s where Todd from Tampa comes in.

I’ll never forget the day we met Todd. He showed up to our table one evening, big smile, and ready to take our order. Often, when this happens we just order water for everyone. It happens so quickly that I don’t even know who my server is. If I need something later, I’m looking around trying to figure out who to track down. But that day, Todd wanted us to know him. When he introduced himself, there was a tremendous sense of enthusiasm in this young man. He was there to serve. He took our water request and returned promptly with drinks, ready to take the food order. This is when it gets tricky with our family. “I’m having this, but sharing with him who is having that…oh, can you leave off the onions, add extra tomatoes, and substitute cheddar for blue cheese….”. No matter what we threw at this guy, he took it with a smile – almost as if he would have asked for that too. He wanted this meal to be perfect. He talked with the kids, made them feel welcome, got to know us, and made sure, before leaving, that we knew who he was. “Todd” he said. Just remember, “Todd from Tampa, you can remember that, can’t you?”, he said with a smile

Our dining experience was so great, we started asking for him every time we visited the Longhorn in Pineville, NC. Recently my wife’s fish was underdone. When Todd came by to check on us, my wife mentioned this to him, while peeling up a corner of her salmon. He looked at it and quickly said, “Yeah, I would want that cooked just a little more.” And off he went to get it taken care of. On another night we had a similar issue with a steak. As he was off getting this taken care of my wife and I recalled so many servers who somehow thought we should just take it as it comes. In fact we have had people try to make us feel guilty (or it seems that way) just for asking them to redo something. Not Todd – he works to make this experience just right. Both times he made sure the item not prepared correctly was removed from the bill!

At one point my wife and I went on a special diet. We had to order our meats with nothing but salt and a little oil, no marinade. We had restrictions on how the side were prepared and on what side we were allowed to have. After just one visit, Todd had the whole thing memorized. On our next visit, Todd new what we needed before we even asked! He had listened and learned the requirements and was there to help us get it right the first time. Always with a smile, and always trying to make sure everything was just right. Todd treated us like we had one night to eat out that week, and it had to be perfect. I know Todd will serve many tables in one night – in fact, any server that does well will see more tables than they can count. Most will treat the customer like they are one of the 100 tables. But not Todd, he knows this is our special night, and he is there to do everything he can to make it memorable. Make your customer contact memorable, fun, enthusiastic, and special – like they have saved up to buy this one thing, and have chosen you to bring it to them.

May

The Roof Top Experience

By Dave Stelzl's Blog Leave a Comment

Categories: Customer Service Stories
Tags: customer satisfaction, Customer Service, paragon construction, sales process

When I have a great sales experience I take note! How often does a sales person do a great job calling on you? We’re all selling, learning how to sell better, etc. But sometimes its fun to be sold to, just to see how others are doing as they do what we do…today was one of those days.

This morning, a rep from Paragon Construction came by to look at my roof…I have several companies coming by to review the project and deliver a quote, but he’s the first one in the process. It was a great experience – a few points on my experience are worth noting:

1. It turns out that Chris Nguyen is not only selling, but he is one of the owners. The thing that impressed me here was his passion for the business. He didn’t show up with his “President” title – in fact, he doesn’t have a title on his card. Only after he demonstrated a high level of expertise and customer care did I care who he was.

2. He took at call from his wife while here – this may seem unrelated, but his attitude towards his family was exceptional. That tells me he isn’t just putting on a show to make a good impression – there’s some character in there.

3. His approach was completely educational. No pressure to “act now” and no marketing manipulation tactics. He spent his time collecting relevant data, educating me on what matters most, and giving me some recommendations on what to do about it.

4. By the time he was done, we had become friends. My wife will tell you – I have a high degree of sales resistance. I don’t cozy up to the sales person who pushes a friendship to get the business.

5. At some point his passion for his business was evident. This wasn’t a sales gimmick, but rather a chance to share his vision with a potential customer. In this end, people buy into your passion and excitement long before they buy into your product. In a commodity business, which he is in, there are few points of differentiation. In my opinion, Chris provided them.

Feb

Customer Experience – the New United Airlines

By Dave Stelzl's Blog 4 Comments

Categories: Customer Service Stories
Tags: airline, Customer Service, flights, travel, united, usairways

Coming from Charlotte, it’s rare that I fly anything other than USAirways (the only airline based here), but this week I had a chance to experience the new Continental/United airlines. Several things impressed me….and one disappointment.

First, the disappointment. Any airline that flies commuter jets on a three hour leg, really should consider changing the seats. Something about these older commuter airlines – I’m not sure who designs these seats, but there ought to be a requirement that the airline try them before buying them.

Now for the upside…United Airlines

They actually served a complementary hot meal!
More leg room, even in the cheap seats.
Having the Gold Star/Elite line (nothing new here) is better than the the USAirways line where everyone crowds into the same line regardless of their zone.
Flight attendants were helpful and friendly.
In flight entertainment – USAirways ripped all of their stuff out! (There is a charge for this, but at least it’s there)
A promise from their CEO to upgrade the seats.

I think companies under estimate the customer experience, especially those companies in the transportation business. When was the last time a train attendant made you feel welcome or treated you like they were honored to have your business. Buses, airlines, etc. This is simply a culture these companies have built – they have allowed the people working these customer facing jobs to see this as, just a job, and not an event. When you pay several hundred dollars for something that lasts a couple of hours, it should be a great experience! I should want the trip to last longer, and look forward to the next one. Why not?

Jan

Compressor Aftermath

By Dave Stelzl's Blog Leave a Comment

Categories: Customer Service Stories
Tags: adviser, call center, compressor repair, sears customer service, won't start

Two posts ago I was writing about some customer service issues I had with Sears. This topic deserves one more post to bring to it to closure! While out on my planning trip this past week, my son brought this compressor to a friend’s house. It turns out that a capacitor used to start the motor had a cracked housing. My friend was able to repair the housing without purchasing any additional parts, and I am back in business for 0$. That’s right, my 230 something dollar quote from sears was fixed by a friend without replacing to motor, and without replacing the capacitor (if you read the post, you recall that Sears simply left me a message saying “My motor had to be replaced for $235).

The problem here is simple; the technician is programmed to replace parts regardless of whether they actually need replacing, and when a part is no longer made with their brand on it, they are not programmed to advise…We are all in business to make money, but when a fix can be made with a $2 part from Radio Shak (or simply repaired with glue, etc.) the value the consultant brings is in their advice not to spend more money. Customer loyalty depends on the customer feeling like they can really trust the person advising, and when the advice is easily challenged and the fee reduced by orders of magnitude, somehow the customer is left feeling less than confident in the service they are receiving.

Whatever position you are in, study and equip yourself to give the best answers, even if it reduces the size of your initial sale. In the long run, it will pay off. What are the chances of me recommending you head to the Sears Services Center (as the customer sat. form reads 0 – 10…hmmm).

Jan

How Not to Handle Customer Service

By Dave Stelzl's Blog 1 Comment

Categories: Customer Service Stories
Tags: customer relationship management, Customer Service, quality, Sears

For some reason these customer service stories keep coming up, and while I am looking forward to writing about other things, this just stands out as important. I don’t think I am much different than your clients when it comes to customer service. I want to get a great deal, be treated well, and know the company I am working with is responsive to my needs. I’ve been waiting to write about this; just waiting for the final outcome.

I started over a month ago, in mid-November, working on getting my Craftsman compressor repaired. It would seem like a simple thing – a big tank full of air, with an electric motor. I sent it over the Sears repair center, with a $35 diagnostic fee that would be applied to the repair, which was pre-authorized for about $100. A week later I received a call with a $250 quote to replace the motor. Now, I had done some homework on this. I had actually taken this thing apart with my father, and tested the motor, and sure enough, it ran! After questioning the technician, he explained that it was actually related to a capacitor, a part that starts the motor, but is not longer in production. So, the fix is to swap out the entire motor with one that is available.

Not wanting to pay the $250, I picked up my compressor. Once home, a man in my church agreed to take a look at it and fix it, however we both felt it would be helpful to know what part was actually not working. I called Sears Repair center, hoping to get a five minute explanation. Three weeks later, I am still calling, talking to enthusiastic call center people, who are leaving messages for the technician; however, no return call. Christmas comes and goes, and finally I decided, this is great blog material. So the next step was to take this up the ladder. After several attempts, I was able to get the call center person to directly connect me to the manager – what a disappointment. After explaining my situation, he actually told me that “they are not obligated to answer my questions since I have already picked up my compressor!” Wow. Mind you, I have paid the non-refundable diagnostic fee, and if I can’t figure out how to repair it, at some point I would be coming back to Sears. You would think they would value my business.

After I hung up, I decided to go another route. Sears has a department at headquarters called the Blue Ribbon Team. Supposedly this executive office team is dedicated to getting satisfaction. After speaking with David, an official member of the Blue Ribbon Team, he assured me he would figure this out and get back to me by Friday. Friday came and went, so the following week I was forced to make a second call to the infamous Blue Ribbon Team. This time I was connected to Picole, who sits right down the line from David. David wasn’t in, but after hearing my story, Picole assured me he would track down David and call me back with an update by the close of business that day. Well, as expected, five o’clock came and went.

This morning I had it on my list to call Sears, something that has become part of my daily routine, but before I could get to it, the technician actually called me. I sensed that he did not really want to talk to me, as he repeatedly reminded me that he had already spoken to me, but he did give me the details I needed.

The lesson here – The technician did end up having to call me, but look at how much time he wasted. He wasted weeks of my time, while also adding to my stress, and defaming his own brand. He also spent time avoiding my messages. You know it takes some time and mental capacity to get a daily message from someone, and not call them back. And, it greatly eroded my confidence in Sears to provide customer service! For most of my life I have thought of Craftsman as the right brand to buy when talking about automotive tools, mostly because of their reputation for life-time warranty. While electric power tools and compressors don’t carry that same warranty, I expected quality treatment. Don’t let this happen with your customer issues!