Twenty-first Century Customer Service

Off level: View from the Peak to Peak Gondola - Whistler, B.C.

I've been getting a lot of chirpy, personal, pseudo-analytical articles from LinkedIn these days and am inspired to share the following.

Not long ago a friend of mine ordered some shirts on line from a US company. The shirts came in good time and were very nice, but my friend was surprised by the hefty customs fee.

My friend wrote to the company, saying they should prepare their customers for these nasty shocks by mentioning on their website that customs fees apply for shipments outside the US.

To my friend's surprise, he promptly received a reply from the president of the company apologizing for his bad experience and offering a complete refund.

For my friend, this set a new benchmark in customer service.

Shortly after this, my friend ran into some rough customer weather when he was being measured and selecting fabric for some bespoke suits. The service was not up to his expectations, so he wrote to the company and complained.

The responses were not quite as accommodating as had been the shirt company's. After a long correspondence my friend conceded that he was not going to receive any kind of refund for the poor service and had to settle for the suits, paying full price.

It's ridiculous to make generalizations from just two examples, so I'll add one of my own.

I'm still processing what my life is going to be like now that I have osteoarthritis in my right hip and no other options at the moment besides sucking it up and gobbling pain killers.

One of the recommendations I got from the Holland Centre was to go to a physiotherapist (by the way, if you are under 70 and are not completely crippled by arthritis pain, there is no reason for you to go to the Holland Centre).

The box tickers at the Holland did not explain why they recommended that I should go to a physiotherapist, but I found a clinic that was on my way to work and had good on line testimonials, so I called and made an appointment.

At my first appointment, I met my therapist, a young man (I'm guessing maybe twelve, thirteen years old) who seemed nice. He did an assessment and said I should do three different exercises in sets of two three times a day.

I thought "how the hell am I going to do that?"

As much as I could on my stupid public servant schedule, which includes ten hour days and lots of travel, I did the prescribed exercises. For the first little while they made me feel better. Then they began to make me feel worse.

Over the next two appointments - at 75 bucks a pop - the young therapist took stabs at finding a mix of exercises for me that I still did not have enough time in the day to do. I felt I was paying a lot of money to help him up his learning curve.

I'd made up my mind that I was done with the physiotherapist when a "how are we doing?" e-mail from the clinic popped into my mailbox.

Given this opportunity to share, I wrote to say that I was not satisfied with the treatment I received and that I assumed my next appointment would be my last.

To my surprise, in short order came a reply from the director of the clinic, who, after the exchange of one more e-mail, offered to work with me personally until we'd found a way to keep me reasonably fit and out of pain.

For free.

Now do you see a pattern?

In the good old days of the last century, dissatisfied customers had the options of

• lumping it
• complaining to their friends
• writing to the company and receiving a form letter in reply enclosed with coupons for their next purchase of the product they were complaining about

People received full refunds without also having to return the product as frequently as pigs flew. Almost no one got products for free (as did my friend) or pro bono services for a potentially unlimited time (that would be me).

Something's going on here. 

Is it the fear of the global shaming power the Internet grants anyone with a wifi device and an axe to grind? 

Or is it something else? 

The Director of the clinic explained that he made his unbelievably kind offer to me because the care he gives his clients is "his thing." Nothing matters more to him. 

So is it the "be passionate about what you do" ethos that has grabbed the business world that makes company presidents and clinic directors more concerned about reputation and service than making a buck?

Whatever the cause, the one generalization that applies - as my friend learned - is don't expect this from everybody. Not yet, anyway.

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Another Experiment in Behavioural Science - Part III

So far my research into behavioural science has shown that people like to be considered sweet-smelling. There were 'way more responses to Question 2 than Question 1. 

The other trend emerging is that practically all respondents take less than one minute to answer the single question the weekly survey poses. Most do it in less than thirty seconds. A speedy significant minority do it in less than twenty seconds.

So be fast. Be measured. Smell your best and respond to today's survey question. You can find it here.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen