Tweet

Doing The Right Thing

Written by: Philip A. Foster

Article Overview: An article with examples of Customer Service and meeting the needs of our customers.

Doing The Right Thing

It's happened to you I know! Like many people you have experienced horrible customer service. It appears that long gone are the days of believing the customer is always right. Here we are in the early 21st century in the year 2010 and in the midst of what is now being coined as the "Great Recession". Businesses can no longer take their customers for granted or even take Advantage of their customers. There is an excellent book out Called "Raving Fan" and I think this book illustrates well the art of creating a Raving Fan. But this is my blog and not the authors of that great book, so allow me to offer a few examples from my life of Customer Service nightmares. I had hired a well respected and well known sign company in my state to create a lobby sign for the company I worked for. The sign company advertises on certain aspects of customer service and quality which were appealing to my search for a company - that and they were the ONLY company willing to take on a custom lobby sign project. It took the company nearly 2 months to finally come out and measure the area for the sign and then it took another 3 months for them to build a small custom sign. The sales manager kept giving excuse after excuse and we could never get a clear story out of him. FINALLY, they delivered the sign -- it was not what we had asked for and was over the amount we agreed to pay. Needless to say, I wrote a rather terse letter to the owner of the sign company with the details of what had happened and included a copy of the book Raving Fan. Less than a week later I received a personal phone call from the Owner of this rather prestigious sign company. He personally thanked me for my honesty and the book. He told me what he was going to do to correct the experience I had with him, including revisions to the bill and even told me that he was going to buy a case of the books Raving Fan and make ALL of his managers read it both current and future. You see, this guy understood the value of doing the right thing and certainly the value of a happy customer.

Now for a not-so-happy ending... I had been with a certain phone company from about 1990 through about 2007. So, at least 17 years I had some kind of service with this company. I was very happy, for the most part, with the service I had been receiving and had no desire to leave them. In 2007 I had accumulated 2 cell phones from this company and only needed one. Remember, I had been with them 17 years. When I called the company.. their party line was that I would be charged $175 to shut off the second phone because it was still under contract. Never mind that I had been with them almost 20 years and I was willing to sign up for another 2 years of service with the phone I was going to keep on. You see, it was more important for this company to collect $175 than to keep me for another 20 years! Something is wrong with this picture. So, they lost me as a customer for life and every chance I get I tell my friends how horrible this company is and that they are better off going with the competitor.

You see - it is about doing the right thing. Companies cannot hide behind the statement of "its not our policy" or "I can't help you at all." If you're a business owner at any level - please hear me. A healthy company has Happy Customers. Now I realize you can't give the house away. But my experience is this... the examples I've given ended up costing the company more if nothing was done. If you're going to have a customer service department - those individuals who answer the phones should be trained and given authority to REALLY help a customer. Again, the world of business has changed forever because of the Recession we are in. We can never do business the same way again. People are more careful with the money they spend - they expect a bang for their buck and if your company wont give it to them, they will find someone who will meet their needs.

Many people say without product there are no customers. I say, if there are no happy customers, there is no need for a product or service. It's time we change how we look at our customers. We can no longer afford to assume that anyone HAS to do business with us. We need to move from being the companies of "NO" and "CAN'T", to a business oh "How can we serve you?" We must learn to DO THE RIGHT things when it comes to our customers or we too will be in the unemployment lines.

Related Articles
  Do Just One Thing Better Than Anyone
  Did you start today with the M-I-T?
  Communication
  The Difference Between Winning the Deal & Losing the Deal
  Top Ten Reasons to Write Down Your Life Vision Today

Article Tags: Business, Clients, Customer Service



Related Forum Posts
Books that should be written - [quote:1m0dcpd7]"The Idiots Guide To Sticking With One Thing At A Time and Not Doing Something New All The Time" [/quote:1m0dcpd7] I myself am a 'constructive' procrastinator... I don't know if I'm alone in this. I have about six or seven projects I'm working on at any given time. I get one project almost done... then my interest is piqued by another project and I work on that... I get burnt out and move to another...I know I do this so I have it arranged such that once I get bored or burnt out with one project, I can step right back into project 1 - or 2 or 3, and get that a little bit more done before moving on to something else. As long as you're organized and know where all your reference material/idea sheets are when you're ready to get back to work on each project, it should be fine. I also find that by stepping away from a project - I still work on it in the recesses of my mind so that when I go back to it - it's with some good ideas that I wouldn't have had if I'd continued on with it originally. Maybe I should write a book on how to Procrastinate Constructively... I've actually thought about doing that...because most people procrastinate, don't they...and very few are ever able to stop.
Re: Who hates cold calling? - Have to say, cold calling is about 40% of my daily job. So calling up prospects these days is a walk in the park. However, it took me a long time before I was half decent at it. These days I'm quite effective. I tend to stick to the same guidelines. In a way, these guidelines have helped my career in a way. Firstly, I wouldn't dream of picking up the phone unless I knew my product. I'd hate to get caught out on a simple objections. Secondly, when I call up I ask for the decision maker. If they're not available, (in a meeting, out of the office) I will never pitch the person who takes my call. Normally its the secretary. I'll just say 'no problem, when would you recommend be the best time to catch him?' Thirdly, listen - listen- and listen. In the early days I used to talk over the prospect, and end up wondering why they often said no. Anyway, hope it helps. It's a bit of a knack but anyone can get it. There's a newsletter I've belonged to for a long while and they send you all types of stuff on cold calling. Thing is I've forgotten what its called. I'll have to check my emails and let you know.
My reading log - Hi OmnivoreInk, Before starting my business, I read the following books as research: -"The Art of the Start" by Guy Kawasaki -"The AdSense Code" by Joel Comm -"Don't Think Pink" and "Mind Your X's and Y's" by Lisa Johnson And since then I've continued my "research" by reading (in this order): -"Technical Tennis" by Rod Cross -"For One More Day" by Mitch Albom -"The Twits" by Roald Dahl -"Little Black Book of Connections" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne -"The Profitable Retailer" by Doug Fleener -"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell -"Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" by C.S. Lewis -"Little Green Book of Getting Your Way" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling And I'm currently reading and am in the process of finishing the following: -"There's No Such Thing as Public Speaking" by Jeanette and Roy Henderson -"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell -"The Book of Tells" by Peter Collett -"Little Red Book of Sales Answers" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience" by Jonathan M. Tisch -"The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" by Julia Cameron -"The Inner Game of Tennis" by Timothy Gallwey
The Way We Were - You have to be middle aged or older to get this but I thought I would share it with you and it's all about [color=#008000:22uc7wu6]THE GREEN THING[/color:22uc7wu6] The Green Thing In the line at the supermarket, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day." The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment." He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the shop or off licence. They sent them back to the plant to be washed, sterilized and refilled and re-used. So it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day. We walked up stairs, because we didn't have lifts and escalators in every shop and office building. We walked to the local shops and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go to a supermarket. We bought fruit and veg loose - and washed them at home. We didn't have to throw away bins full of plastic, foam and paper packaging that need huge recycling plants fed by monster trucks all day, everyday. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day. Back then, we washed the baby's nappies (diapers) because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down (mostly hand made or hand knitted) clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing shipped from the other side of the planet. But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day. Back then shops repaired things with funny things called spare parts - we didn't need to throw whole items away because a small part failed. Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of Wales. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power and hand clippers for the hedges. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a brightly lit, air conditioned health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity and then drink millions of bottles of that special water from those plastic bottles. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a plastic cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new plastic pen, and we replaced blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole plastic razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then. Back then, people took the bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their parents into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest Macdonalds. But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then? ------------------------------------------------------------ regards, Mal.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How to Write Your Articles for Better SEO

Using Social Media Marketing

Remind Me...

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.