While we don’t always get good customer service, I hope that we (you and I) always do our best to provide it. This blog post is a follow-up to my previous post on Gas Pains. When I wrote that blog entry, I had received less-than-wonderful customer service from #Napoleon Fireplaces and blogged about my experiences attempting to get a new plastic knob to control the gas valve on a Napoleon gas log insert. You can still see much of the discussion on Facebook, although at this point you’ll need to search for it.
To summarize, the original gas knob, which may have been defective to begin with, crumbled, probably from exposure to the heat of the stove over about five Michigan winters. Napoleon Fireplaces, and its local dealership, #Hannapel Hearth and Home in Portage, Michigan, refused to sell me a new $2 knob. They wanted to sell me a new valve assembly for about $250 and have me pull the knob off the new assembly and put it the installed valve. That didn’t make much sense to me, so after my original postings on Facebook, I shopped around. I had a lot of online help. One of my online friends from Australia, business consultant #Lindy Asimus found an online source for me, but the place selling them would sell them only in lots of five or more and tacked a significant fee for postage.
I hoped to find a knob locally, and a friend recommended #Sackett’s Fireplace in Portage, Michigan. Although Sackett’s does not carry Napoleon fireplaces, John Sackett offered to help me find a knob. Over about two weeks’ time, I provided the model number for the fireplace, took photos of the valve assembly showing specifically which knob was missing; and after a couple more weeks, I received a message from John saying that he had found a knob for me. When I went to Sackett’s to pick the knob up, the individual working in the store at the time simply gave it to me. No charge. The knob came off an old gas fireplace, and it isn’t quite the same knob as the original that crumbled, but it slipped right on, and it works. You can see more about Sackett’s Fireplace on Facebook and “Like” the organization to support their effort to provide good customer service.
Am I grateful? You bet. Where do you think I might go shopping the next time I need a gas log fireplace insert? Where do you think I’m going to send my friends who want to purchase one or have a gas log insert that needs service? My sense about the exemplary customer service provided is that the motivation was primarily the desire to be helpful. Rather than being prompted by the knowledge that good customer service leads to increased revenue, the motivation came from a genuine desire to be helpful. Think about the Boy Scouts and their proverbial helping old women (I don’t know why it’s always old women and never old men) cross the street. Does it make a difference if the Scout genuinely wants to be helpful or whether he is “just” helping to earn a merit badge? I think so. The motivation behind the act is communicated along with the action. We have all had service of that variety—servers in restaurants who work hard at providing good service but do so mechanically rather than with a sense of connection with those they are serving.
My sense is that kind of “good” customer service—all “head” and no “heart”—is better than bad customer service, as I would rather be treated well by someone who doesn’t enjoy what he or she is doing than treated badly. That is, however, less satisfying than being treated well by someone who truly enjoys being helpful. There’s a difference between “making customers” and “making friends.” While you may not want your “business friends” to attend your next dinner party, it is (at least in my opinion) better to do business with people you genuinely like than to do business with those you find vaguely irritating. This assumes, of course, that those being helpful can actually do the job and do it well and, when they can’t, they help you find someone who can.
Customer service has, of course, always been an issue. Companies, both large and small, and individual “service providers” have long recognized that “word-of-mouth” advertising has a significant impact on future business. The reach of word-of-mouth changed significantly starting in about 1990 with #Michael Moore’s release of Roger and Me. Michael Moore was successful in showing that General Motors was less than concerned about customer satisfaction. The increasing public awareness of that led to a decline in sales for GM vehicles and a corresponding increase in the sales of Japanese and other “foreign-made” autos. It is hard to say the degree to which the negative publicity generated by “Roger and Me” led to the shifting landscape of automobile manufacturing and sales in the U.S., but it certainly made a contribution. Automobile manufacturing and sales are now much more international in scope, and the industry as a whole is paying closer attention to what’s being said on social media websites.
I am by no means an expert in social media (for that, see more from #Lindy Asimus), but my experience with my original blog on this subject suggests that a major shift has taken place. The “old” rule was that an individual would tell 10 others about a negative experience with a company, but the new rule is that a single complaint may reach thousands—perhaps even millions—of others. The same is true, of course, about good experiences. Corporations know that, and corporations have been known to hire people to assume online identities and praise their products and services and complain about the products and services of their competitors.
In some ways, the “Likes” and “Dislikes” constitute an information “arms race.” The good news is that, just as was the case with “Roger and Me” and General Motors, the truth tends to filter to the top eventually, and organizations—and individuals—are foolish to deny that truth. It is much easier and more effective to start with a foundation focused on providing the highest quality products and offering the best service. The same seems to apply in all our interactions with others, doesn’t it….
