I believe we all would agree that a company should always provide good customer service. I recently had the chance to be the recipient of both over-the-top excellent customer service, and under-the-carpet terrible customer service.
Because I always like to finish on a happy note, I'll show you the bad example first.
In my new business, I will be importing handcrafts from Mexico to the USA. While exploring ways of getting the items here and clearing them through customs, someone suggested I call DHL. They are an international shipping company, so that made sense to me.
I shouldn't have assumed anything. (wink, James) Nobody at the toll-free phone number knew what I should do or what department I should call. After more phone calls than I care to count, someone finally said I should open an Import Express account, and they would have a salesperson call me. One did call, but was never available when I returned her calls, and then for some reason a different salesperson contacted me. For the sake of kindness, I'll call him Mr. B.
He told me that yes, DHL could do everything; packing, shipping, customs clearance, the whole shebang; and he opened an account for me. Then, I never heard from him again.
After many calls, I finally reached him and it appears he had my e-mail address wrong. I gave him the correct one. I still never heard from him. I emailed and called him to ask if I was supposed to receive an account number. "Yes", he said, "here it is". Several more days pass, and I call to ask if I shouldn't have received some type of instructions, and a price list for shipping. "Oh, yeah, I'll send it".
When I finally received the Import Express information, guess what I found out while reading it? (It's a very good thing that I voraciously read everything!) There is a 'low-usage' fee of $75 per month if your shipping charges do not exceed $2500! Now, Mr. B had asked me about my business and the volume of shipping I expected to do. Clearly, he knew that it would be years before I ever reached that level of volume. Why didn't he tell me that the Import Express account was meant for larger businesses, and suggest another way that I could use DHL? Of course I cancelled the account (which took another week), but what a waste of everyone's time and resources. I would consider this terrible customer service. Mr. B was thinking about his own self, and his commission, instead of about what was best for the customer.
On the other hand, here is an employee who thought about his customer first.
I wanted to hire someone to make a logo for my company. After perusing all the options, I decided on a company called Elance. Within 24 hours of contacting them, I was assigned a designer, Steve, who deserves many kudos for his patience in putting up with all my idiosyncrasies, but I digress.
Steve asked me a lot of questions about what types of logos I had thought about, what popular logos I liked and disliked, etc. In short time, he provided me with three concept ideas. After hearing my feedback on those, he sent me three more to critique.
So far, that is what a design company should do. I had bought a package that includes six concepts, and I had already been provided six. But, after I had sent Steve 50 thousand revisions of the design I had settled for, he wrote me a short e-mail that forever endeared him and his company in my mind. Steve wrote:
Cat, it doesn't seem like you are really happy with these. I am OK with designing some more concepts for you. I want you to love your logo.
Those words made me feel so good, I almost could have cried. I want to love it too. And I would have been very unhappy if I ended up accepting a design that was less than perfect because I didn't want to hurt the designer's feelings, or ask for more than I was entitled to. Steve made it clear that I was entitled to continue asking him for ideas until I was satisfied. No, more than satisfied, in love with my logo.
What a difference! Which company would you continue to do business with, and which would you recommend to your friends?
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