I just got back from a very inspiring ecommerce conference put on by a client. There were lots of stories of heroic customer service. My favorite was how Title 9 made some mistakes in sponsoring a women’s running event and decided to refund everybody’s entry fee. This was so overdoing it (and quite expensive) that it created a bunch of new customers.
Which made me wonder about companies who are NOT so ready to embrace today’s super proactive customer service models… how can they still compete? By good fortune or not, I had a couple of examples right here in my family’s daily life.
I missed the kids’ school picture day with LifeTouch. My bad, but at least there’s a number to call with customer service problems. And when I call that number I get a long message, in English and Spanish, instructing me to leave a voicemail and what I should put in the message… then after all that the voice mailbox turns out to be full. After 3 tries I DID leave a message, asking when the makeup photo day is. They promise a call back in 24 to 48 hours. Think I got that callback?
I ordered a video game from FamilyVideo. I could have bought the same game at Amazon with 2 day guaranteed shipping, but FamilyVideo had a discount offer for new customers (hmm, is the idea of that to incent them to order again?) and I decided to save $10 and wait 10 days for my item. After 10 days it’s still not here so now I go and check order status.. it’s still “in fulfillment”. So I sent them an email asking for an update. Their website promises a prompt reply. Guess what?
Yup, I’m still waiting in both cases and predict I will continue to do so until hell freezes over or I take further action on my my side, whichever happens first. Once upon a time, this kind of abysmal service was not that unusual. But the good guys are raising the bar. And here’s a worrisome theory: companies like this KNOW how non-competitive their service is, and have no plans to correct it, so rather than giving it their best shot they’ve simply thrown up their hands?