Sunday, March 1, 2015

Attentive Service Yields a "Customer for Life"

In a previous post, I mentioned my friend "Barb" and how she came to realize that service can be a two-way street. I talked with her a few days ago, and she related the following story about how she has become a "customer for life" for one company that provided terrific service to her this winter.

Unless you've been hibernating, you probably know that the northeast U.S. has been having a very rough winter. Barb lives on the coast of Maine, as do I. It has been intensely cold and very snowy. Some of the storms have included high winds, and that's where the story begins.

Barb has a Char-Broil grill out on her deck. She had a cover for it, until the cover blew off during a storm, and disappeared either into the distance or into the snow, so she checked out the company's website to see if she could get a replacement. After a minute or two, a box popped up asking if she wanted to engage in a live chat. She accepted the invitation and started chatting with an agent--let's call him Brian.

Brian asked the basic questions, such as what Barb was looking for. When he found out she wanted a new cover, he asked if she knew the model number of her grill, so she'd be sure to order the correct one. Unfortunately, Barb didn't know the number, and the grill was embedded in snow. He asked her some questions about the grill and said he thought it would take a 65-inch cover. She said OK, and they worked through the order.

Now that her curiosity was roused, she went dug out the grill enough to see the model number, and started having doubts about the size of the cover. She jumped back online, clicked on the Chat Now button, and asked if Brian was stiff available. The reply came that he was. (More about this later.)

Indeed, Barb had ordered the wrong cover, but it was easy enough to fix, said Brian. He asked if she had received a confirmation email. She had, and Brian confirmed the order number with her. He then said he could cancel that order and place a new order for the correct size. Barb agreed. She said there was no rush in shipping, and so the standard shipping method was specified--one that begins the shipment with UPS and completes it through the US Postal Service. Barb thought it was a regular UPS shipment and so no red flag was raised. (UPS and USPS need to find better abbreviations so that it's clearer who is delivering a package, by the way.)

A couple of weeks went by, and the cover did not come. Barb contacted Char-Broil, and they confirmed that it had shipped by the specified method. Since it should have arrived and hadn't, Char-Broil said they would send another, this one via FedEx. 

Barb asked, "What if the first one gets here?"
"Don't worry about it," said the rep. "Keep it with our compliments. You never know--another one might blow away."
And Barb decided, right then and there, that she would buy her next grill from Char-Broil. And the next. For the price of a grill cover ($40 retail) the company created a repeat buyer who already has her eyes on a $500 purchase. For the actual cost of a $40 product (probably half of that price) they had virtually eliminated the competition and created great customer loyalty.

By the way - the first cover did show up, about a week later. The USPS normally doesn't deliver to houses in Barb's area (everyone has P.O. Boxes), so the delivery was delayed.

Now, Char-Broil could have put a trace on the original shipment. They could have said, "We are not responsible." They didn't. They owned the interaction, took responsibility, and made the customer very happy. They probably also saved themselves money trying to track the errant cover, or restocking a return if they asked her to send one back. That's not only good service, it's smart business.

Now back to Brian still being online: Was he? Maybe. But with a good customer relationship management system and a good knowledge base, he didn't need to be. Any agent could answer the questions and take care of Barb.

Is your business being "penny wise and pound foolish"? 

Give it some thought.


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