It's Thursday today. Just a normal day, an ordinary day.
One more opportunity to get rich, and one more example of
being slammed around by people who never seem to have heard
of the concept of 'customer service'.
It seemed like a simple problem, at first. The post-person
arrived this morning, but they were only holding letters,
no parcels. We had been expecting a parcel for weeks. My
partner is taking part in a sale this coming weekend, and
had ordered some paperback books that she wanted to take
along and re-sell as part of a health package. The books
were ordered two weeks ago, with a promise that delivery
would take place in '3-5 days', but when no books arrived,
we had to email. We were told that the supplier didn't have
them and had had to outsource the order. Still, they said,
delivery wouldn't have been delayed. The books should have
arrived, they said. They would look into it. Next day an
email arrived from the outsourcer. It said that 'an account
had to be confirmed'. My partner tried logging on to their
website and was refused. She had to phone them.
So far, so bad. Still, don't forget we've only lost a week
at this point, and it doesn't seem fatal: we've got another
week to go, and as we know, the books could arrive in '3-5
days'. So that's all right, then. It was a nuisance that
the newly found supplier was telling us to register and
then had established a website which didn't allow a
non-customer to establish an account, but we thought we had
cleared that up on the phone. All was going ahead ' or so
we thought. No books arrived.
It's Thursday. We tried emailing, but got no reply. We
tried phoning the real supplier, the new one, but they said
their lines were busy. We went back to the original
supplier ' pre outsource ' and tried them. We couldn't find
a phone number, anywhere. It took half an hour, but there
it was at last ' no, not on the 'Contact Us' page. That
would be too easy. Okay, so we phoned and the man checked
his computer. He said no order existed. We asked him to
check again. He said the records showed that our order had
been cancelled the previous week. Right, so the outsourcer
had wanted confirmation of the account and, in the
meantime, cancelled the order. When he confirmed the
account ' with us, on the phone ' he forgot to re-instate
the order. He had an account but no order. He didn't query
or question that. He went on with his life, we went on with
ours. The difference is that we were expecting books to
arrive. They didn't. If we hadn't chased it up, we would
never have found out why, either.
The man on the phone was pleasant enough. He asked us if we
wanted to make the order again. We asked him when the books
would arrive. When he said, '4-5 days, after the weekend',
we declined his offer. The books were needed this weekend
coming. Not after. Definitely not after. What could he have
done? He apologised, which was nice, considering he would
probably be thinking that it probably wasn't his fault. Of
course, in reality, it was. He had set up a system that
placed orders to outside bodies and his company had no
quality control. They didn't cancel the order, so they
probably thought it wasn't their fault. Why not? Why were
they working with a sub-contractor who was so slapdash and
careless? Would they follow it up, complain, seek
recompense on our behalf? Not a bit of it. It's life. These
things happen. Life goes on. In our case, without the books
we wanted.
Well, we didn't place a second order and we won't be doing
it, not within the foreseeable future. If we can avoid it,
we will always avoid that firm in future. A very wise man
once said, 'If you make a client, you should keep them for
life and they will keep you'. The alternative to that is,
'If you lost a client, you never get them back'. That's
certainly true for us. Why? Because there are plenty of
other suppliers and, being human, we don't just want books,
we want service. Superlative service. Because, in answer to
the question, there isn't any alternative to good service.
I know what you're thinking. Look, you say, the guy isn't
going to apologise, rush down to the warehouse, pick out
your books and stick them in an envelope, posting them off
that very afternoon. Why not? Doesn't anybody do that?
Because I tell you what. The company that does that is the
one who gets our business, now and in the future. Everyone
else gets a surly customer, chasing an order they think
they placed and not understanding the lack of
communication. There's no profit in that. Or, just to make
it something you should think about for your customers,
doesn't anyone ' any trading company, anyone out there '
wonder why people keep phoning them up and complaining?
Could it be because you are doing something wrong?
----------------------------------------------------
Mike Scantlebury is an Internet Author, happy to be of
service. He writes novels, stories and self-help advice,
which he sends out to his many websites from his base in
Manchester, England, home of good football and interesting
music. Find out more at http://www.mikescantlebury.com
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