What Happened to Customer Service?

Power outages due to thunderstorms and tornados in the U.S. and Canada for the past few days included phone service, so I tried calling my girl, catherine, at her sister’s Tim Horton’s store, figuring she’d probably be there helping out. I was right.

“May I speak to catherine, please,” I asked. “I’m sorry,” answered the voice at the other end of the line: “catherine has just gone on her break.”

Now, seems to me that the start of a break would be the perfect time to take a personal phone call. However, that’s not the world of employees today. Why would you waste your break on personal issues, instead of waiting until you were back on the clock?

I’m reminded of a few years ago when I stopped at an Ames department store just as it was opening to pick up a few quick items on my way to work. Seems a few people had called in sick. Consequently, for fifteen minutes, before any cashier waited on any customer, the staff hashed out what would be the adjusted break schedule for the day. First things first.

Customer service is so poor today that it doesn't seem unusual when cashiers don't even speak to the customers, talking to other employees instead. People accept ungainly rules and procedures customers must fulfill before the business takes money. Long lines are a given.

Better service is often the personality of an individual employee, rather than a company trait. If every employee promptly provided goods and efficiently processed payment, that still wouldn't constitute good service; that's just what the customer is paying for!

One common business response is "We're just doing what everyone else does." Frame that service policy in Lucite and hang it in the lobby: "In our business, we're just doing what everyone else does." Inspiring.

Unless your business has 100% market share, at least some customers prefer the competition's product. What would make them prefer your product? Lower price is one way, but it doesn't build customer loyalty. If the competition can beat your price, your customers will be gone. Quality service, however, does build customer loyalty, and many customers will stay even when the competition beats your price.

Any business with economic profits will attract competition. Without significant barriers to entry, your product can readily be copied or even improved. But if a business is ahead of the competition in service, that's difficult to imitate quickly.

Yet even businesses with very happy customers sometimes ruin this with careless policies. For example, when I bought my new Toyota, I was thrilled with the dealership. I was there because my old Toyota threw a rod that morning at 199,974 miles, so I needed a new car quickly. They pulled it off, all in the same day! I test drove cars, they shuffled cars around with other dealers, they got all the paperwork completed with motor vehicles, and I was ready to go to financing—not a problem at all, since my credit rating is about as high as it’s possible to get.

Except for one thing. They insisted on selling me Scotch Guarding for the seat fabric and undercoating for the chassis, adding it to the monthly payment. I declined. Mr. Nice Finance Guy turned Gestapo. “Well can I ask why not?” he demanded in a rather nasty tone. “Well first, that’s one hell of a price for Scotch Guarding. Why wouldn’t I just buy a can and spray it on? Anyway, I have an active dog who rides in the car everyday on the way to our run. A little spilled coffee is the least of my troubles.”

“Well aren’t you worried about the car rusting through?” Clearly these guys are trained in high powered sales pressure. “It’s not necessary with today’s cars,” I responded. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

“Look,” I said, tired of this game. “I just drove a car 199,974 in New York State weather. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on the situation.” He finally dropped it.

I was only as calm as I was because I’ve seen it before. This is my third Toyota, and while the first purchase was fine, at the second purchase the finance guy was so persistent and so nasty that I was walking out the door. By chance, I ran into the body shop manager, a great guy I knew from previous interactions at the shop, who immediately stopped, saying, “You don’t look happy” and resolved the situation.

I shared this latest incident with the sales rep. “I was a happy customer up until this point,” I noted. “Why would they want to ruin that?” She could only nod. “I know,” she said. “We’ve had people walk from financing before.” Can those few extra bucks possibly be worth losing all those customers? I shared the experience with the Sales Manager. "Well, by law, if we offer a service to one customer, we have to offer it to all." Talk about missing the point.

A local consultant tells the story of a gentleman who had recently purchased a lusury car from a local dealership, and when a windshield wiper insert wore out after very little use, went back to nicely ask that it be replaced. “He was told in no uncertain terms that wiper inserts were not covered under his warranty and sent away,” explains the consultant. “Where do you think he’s going to buy his next car? Not there! Not only would I have given him the part for the few measly bucks it would cost—I’d have installed it for him and apologized!”

I buy Toyotas for the mileage, the reliability, and the fact that the service department is near my home (I live out in the country). I can tell you, though, that if another company up and coming moved nearby—Hyundai, for example—I’d certainly give them a serious look.

Apple takes this to extremes. They make and sell excellent computers. After that, unless you want to PURCHASE the right to service (at rather high costs), you’re just on your own. They don’t even pretend. They don’t do service. PC vendors aren’t much better. If I were to start a computer business, that’s where I’d start.

Excellent service is a rarity. Any business that delivers it will stand above the competition where it counts--with the customer.

Writer

Fifteen Tons (and a garden rake)

Each day, as I look through my windshield up the 150+ feet to the road, I feel a sense of pride. The driveway itself might not appear so inspirational, as it’s only a smooth layer of crushed stone. It IS, however, a smooth layer of crushed stone—15 tons worth, all raked out by yours truly with a garden rake.

A contractor constructed the original driveway (and the utility pole, the septic tank, and such), laying crushed limestone by driving slowly while gradually dumping the cargo, but in a few years, the stone sank into the clay soil, particularly when heavy fuel trucks hazarded the drive. So, years later, a new neighbor, also a contractor, offered to drive his small dump truck to the quarry for a load of crusher—and the problem was solved with a new layer of stone.

Sort of. Over the years, erosion chipped away until the ruts were so bad that negotiating the drive required noting high ground for the tires. My neighbor had moved, so I turned to the phone book late one afternoon.

I explained my problem, and started asking questions. “Hang on,” interrupted the woman on the other end of the phone. “I’ll get the guy you need to talk to.” OK.

When “the guy” (who turned out to be the owner of the business) came to the phone, I started again. After asking me questions about area and depth, he gave me a very reasonable price on five tons of crusher—but wasn’t sure if he could do it that day. “That’s fine,” I explained, understanding this was late in the day, and the job certainly wasn’t urgent. “No, no—I just need to find if we have a free truck” (they were out at construction sites). “Let me call you back in five minutes.” Gotta love a guy who gets business—here’s a customer, checkbook in hand, ready to deal. Get the man some stone.

He didn’t call back—he showed up 20 minutes later (impressive, since his business is 15 minutes away). We talked, I explained where I wanted the stone, he said he’d try, did an awesome spread—and noted that he’d given me a few extra tons. I could see that. Roughly, he grabbed a truck with two tons of crusher, added the five tons, and dumped what he had. From our chat, he was clearly building a new business, and I was certainly a satisfied customer.

I spent a few weeks raking out the stone with a rake—not an easy task, working on it a few hours a day (and nursing my sore muscles). But, as the sea of stone gradually settled, I realized I would need another load to finish the job.

I called the same business. This time, I got a very pleasant, witty young woman who, in the course of our conversation, revealed that she had recently been hired—the business was growing. I placed my request for another five tons of crusher, and by chance, it was again late in the afternoon. As before, my point that I didn’t need delivery that day was rebuffed, they’d find someone, and 20 minutes later, a very large dump truck arrived, driven by a polite but clearly not happy man. He surveyed the job. “I don’t like to spread uphill,” he noted, and given the size of his truck, I could see his point—we’d definitely be testing that thing’s center of gravity. “That’s fine,” I explained. “Just spread downhill and back up over it.” He agreed.

When he had done this, a significant load of crusher still lay in the dump truck’s bed. “Just leave the rest up here in a pile,” I asked, gesturing toward a depression near the road. “I expect to rake it out anyway.” He hesitated, then got into his truck, gingerly backed to the indicated spot (carefully avoiding the mailbox) and dumped the entire contents—clearly far more than the five tons I’d ordered (I estimate at least eight tons). “I gave you a little extra,” he said. “Thanks,” I answered, paid the man, and let him get home.

I’m reminded of graduate school in Cambridge. My housemates and I were struggling with difficult studies and difficult finances in an expensive corner of the world. We split up duties as best we could for mutual benefit, mine including visiting Boston’s Quincy Market at Faneuil Hall one a week for produce and seafood. This was a two day affair, Friday and Saturday, but I always went on Saturdays, around four o’clock, an hour before the end of the market. I’d walk around, buying nothing, just seeing what was available. Before long, though, merchants would realize they had unsold fish and fruit that wasn’t going to keep another week, and suddenly bananas were $1 a bunch, fresh seafood ridiculously inexpensive. Nor did I need to push my way through to the bargain table, since other merchants immediately took up the tune. I returned each week with two grocery bags full of food, $10 worth, all I could carry back home via the subway.

“Tons of work” certainly took on new meaning. Even wearing heavy work gloves, I had blisters all over both hands. I tried to use a shovel and wheelbarrow to move some of that stone pile, but I found that so unproductive that I settled for just gradually raking it down the drive. I’d work for a while and check the time—oh, just five minutes. Sigh. I hurt in places I didn’t know I had places. But every day a little more, and then every day a little adjustment, and eventually—done.

Now it’s a work of art. And now, as usual, I have a ton of work to do, and I can’t imagine how I’ll accomplish it. But I have a rake.

Writer