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September 21st, 2009 by Shane Kenny | Filed under Work.I have been doing quite a bit or reading and studying of companies that provide top-shelf customer service. This has led me to quickly see examples of good and bad customer service in every day life. (This includes my company where big changes are the works!!) I had a great customer service experience last night that I wanted to share:
The family and I decided to finally give the Paisano’s pizza place that recently opened near our home a try. We order some garlic bread and the Paisano’s Favorito pizza. When the pizza arrived the waiter said that the dough had not risen correctly and that he had reordered the pizza for us and it would be ready in a few minutes. The “bad” pizza was edible and we ate it while waiting for “good” pizza to arrive.
I was instantly struck with the fact that he had not waited for us to complain to order a better pizza. He not even pointed out the problem and waited to see if we would want another pizza. He just took it on himself to fix the problem even before we knew there was one. Great customer service!
I’ve have a lot of west coast customers - so I often find myself running a package out to the airport to make sure it gets out the same day when they call at night after the regular pickup.
A few months ago, I drove up to the Fedex driver who unloads her truck into a semi there and said, “Thanks so much, you’re a life saver!” She said quite enthusiastically, “No, thank YOU for keeping me in a job!” She has since transferred to another area and I never run into her anymore…but I sure wish I had the opportunity to tell her how what she said affected me. The customers, they are really the only thing that matters when you drill it down and peel back the layers of it all. If they aren’t happy, they don’t come back. If they don’t come back, I don’t have a job. It’s simple - but has been totally lost somewhere along the way. I’m always finding myself thanking people who should actually be thanking me as a customer. Restaurants, stores, etc - I will walk out and say “Thank You!” It baffles me that they automatically say “You’re welcome” instead of really giving it any thought.
At BCW, we’re finding it very easy to really make an impact with customers by providing old fashioned customer service. It shows in our customer retention numbers. I hope that no matter how large we get, we never lose sight of this.