1 tip to make your customers love you
1 May 2008I used to love the company Overnight Prints. They offer a great product at reasonable prices and with reasonable service. Until this week, I had no reservation about referring them to anyone who needed some printing done, and I saw no need to even shop around for any printing job I needed. But that changed this week, and for only one reason: they didn’t do what was best for me, their customer.
Here’s the story. On Sunday I learned of an event happening on Friday where I could promote Catch the Best to a group of people who would be interested in the service, and so I thought of getting a batch of business cards custom-made to hand out at this event. I checked their FAQ to find the turnaround times, and saw that if I had my order in by Monday, I could get 2nd day air shipping to have the cards in-hand by Thursday. So, I whipped up a design on Monday morning, got the order in well before the cutoff time, and looked forward to the event.
On Tuesday morning I got one of Overnight Print’s periodic special offer emails. One of the offers in the email was for a free set of business cards—just the thing I had ordered the day before. I emailed customer service to see if I could get that offer, seeing as how I had placed that order under 24 hours before they sent out that offer. I got no response.
On Wednesday I checked the order status to find that the processing had been delayed, preventing the order from getting to the shipper until Wednesday, rather than Tuesday, making the estimated shipping arrival day Friday. So, the cards would arrive too late for the event, squandering the promotional opportunity.
On Thursday I contacted Overnight Prints to see what they could do regarding a refund, since their processing delay made my order a waste. They offered a 10% discount on a future order. What?! I may never order from them again because of this, and they want to give me a discount on a future order? After a bit of venting on my part, I got the original order cost (but not the shipping cost) refunded, and a discount on a future order. Great, but I still won’t have those cards for that event, will I?
So, what’s the 1 tip to make your customers love you? Do what’s best for them! If they would have simply noticed the delay in processing, upgraded my shipping to next day air for free to make sure I got my cards when I expected to get them, and sent me an email telling me that, I’d love them right now. I’d be blogging about how great they are, and raving about them to anyone who needed printing. Instead, I’m blogging about how I’m still not satisfied with the outcome I got, and how I’ll shop around the next time I need printing, and how if I recommend them to anyone again, I’ll be sure to include the caveat about not trusting them to deliver when they say they will deliver.
Why are so many businesses convinced that they can make amends by offering more of their poor service/product? I perceive that as arrogance.
I recall one Easter, we had booked a table at this new (very fancy) restaurant for the BIG FAMILY MEAL. I had my wife, two young children, Mother-in-Law and Mother. The service was terrible, most of the food was cold when it came to the table (late). I spoke directly to the manager, explaining this was my first time and they blew their chance to make me a faithful customer.
He offered free deserts for everyone as recompense. I was flabbergasted and said, out loud, “You can’t compensate for poor service by offering me more of the same!!” I did not come there to get something-for-nothing. I had a certain expectation and they fell short of it.
Great Post, Ben. You just made me a ‘faithful customer’ of your blog.
Companies do this because it’s the easier solution, as well it’s the least costly solution. Few companies really appreciate the power of word of mouth marketing.
The good news is that it’s that much more powerful for those companies that do right by their customers!
Was your original request to get their special promotion pricing the cause for the delay? I suppose it is a moot point, but you mentioned it in your post, so I’m a bit confused what role it played in your dissatisfaction. Agreed though that had they made it right for you, you’d likely be a repeat customer that referred business to them. Unfortunately I see this sort of thing most of the time, and rarely see businesses do the right thing.
Granted, customer service should have responded with an email, but from the sound of your blog post, you expected Customer Service to either anticipate your needs (which you did not make clear), or to, at their cost, upgrade your shipping for a product you were going to get for free? They can’t read your mind.
I would expect this attitude from a standard consumer, but as you are a business owner I’m disappointed. You can’t read the minds of your clients, and I hope you certainly know better than to make decisions for them based on what you think is best for them.
@Ryan, the only point to that part of the post was to vent about a lack of response to that request. I didn’t get the promotional pricing, and, in fact, I still haven’t gotten a response to that email, even to say “no, sorry, we don’t do that sort of thing.” As far as I can tell, it had no impact on the order getting processed in a timely fashion. I didn’t get an explanation of the cause of the delay when I contacted customer service. Rather, the response was “well, delays happen”.
@IL, a response I would have been happy with would have been a thought process like this from Overnight Prints: “Oops, there’s a delay in this order. Oh, and it has 2nd-day air delivery, not ground. Maybe he has a deadline? Let’s contact him to see if a delay will cause problems on his end.” The name of the company is Overnight Prints, after all.
A response I would have raved about would have been something like this, after contacting me: “Oh, I see you really need it Thursday, but with our delay it won’t make it there with 2nd day air. Would you like to upgrade the shipping?” That would have been much better than what did happen—my finding out it won’t be there on time, when I had a hard deadline, and with absolutely no word from them. I did not get the product for free, and would have been willing to pay more shipping fees to ensure it got there on time.
Surely I can’t read my customers minds any more than the next guy. But if I had a chart on my site that said, effectively “order by Monday and choose 2nd day air and you get it Thursday” and then a problem on my end kept me from living up to that promise, I sure would try to do something about it, rather than ignoring the issue. In fact, I think it makes sense to have more sensitivity to this as a business owner rather than just a standard consumer, as I try to do everything I can to make my customers happy, so seeing an example of the opposite is even more striking.
I had a very similar problem with Overnight Prints in the past. Since then, I can’t, in good conscience, use them. At least you got a response from them. If I recall, I never heard back from them regarding a decent-sized batch of business cards that were poorly printed.
I frequently see an ad for match.com that states: “If you don’t find someone special during your initial 6-month subscription, we will give you an additional 6 months at no additional cost to you to continue your search.”
It’s not just a response to bad service. It’s what they advertise as a benefit of their service. (re-phrased): “If you don’t get what you pay for in 6 months, we’ll give you 6 more months of the same!”
Since when was this kind of thing OK?