Archive for the ‘Customer Service’ Category

Apr

8

2009

Being a linker offline is as important as online

Author: Robin Browne

So, I’m trying to get a DVD of one of my kid’s hockey games from a recent tournament. It’s a game where he played amazingly so it means a lot to me. I know there was a company there selling DVDs at the tournament but I don’t know their name. However, I do know the name of the photography company that was at the next table selling pics so I emailed them to ask if they knew the name of the video company. This is the response I got:

We only do the photography.

Thank you.

I think you all get emotionally what’s wrong with this but let’s be explicit.

They missed three huge things:

1) No, “Hi Robin, thanks for your inquiry.”

2) No. “We don’t do video but if you’re ever looking for pictures, give us a call”.

3) And, most importantly, no, “We didn’t do the video but here’s the name of the company that did.”

They missed the opportunity to link me to what I want. They could have provided me great value with something other than their product. If they had, next time I’m looking for their product, I might think of buying from them. Now, all I will think of is how they let me down.

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Sep

25

2008

Canadian Tire finds small way to empower customers

Author: Robin Browne

I just had a neat experience at Canadian Tire while getting a fishing license…

There was nobody at the sports desk that handles the licenses so I did what I had always done in the past: I asked the nearest employee if anyone was working the desk. The employee then asked me if I had pushed the button for service. He walked me to the desk and showed me a pretty big sign that said, “Push here for service”. I pushed it and, to my pleasant surprise, the storewide loudspeaker sprang to life announcing, “Customer Service agent required at sports desk.” Two second later someone was there and I had my license shortly thereafter.

This little experience made me feel a couple of things I want to highlight:

1) the feeling of power at being able to activate the storewide loudspeaker with one button

2) the feeling of being cared about and trusted by Canadian Tire demonstrated by them making this button available and trusting that it wouldn’t be abused.

Now, the fact that I got an immediate response is also crucial. If I had pushed the button and then been left waiting all that warm, fuzzy powerful feeling would have gone up in irate customer smoke. But Canadian Tire followed through and made me happy enough to blog about it.

Good work.

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