If you haven’t met me before, you know I believe companies live or die by their customer service.
I attended the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco earlier this month, and it was great. I’ll write more about that soon, but what I wanted to focus on here was how surprised I was by my hotel accommodations. I was also surprised that I was surprised.
Let me start at the beginning: As I was getting ready to go to the conference, I realized a lot of the hotels were already booked. Since I wasn’t sure where to stay, a friend suggested I call the Pickwick Hotel.
[More after the jump...]
The hotel had a room for the one night I wanted. Whew! Holding my breath, I asked the price. It was only $108. I asked if the price included a bed. The agent on the phone laughed.
Then I looked at the conference schedule again. I saw that Forrester Senior Analyst Jeremiah Owyang was speaking on Wednesday morning. Wanting to support my colleague, I thought I’d check to see if the Pickwick had a room for Tuesday and Wednesday night as well. Thursday was Clara Shih‘s book-signing party. [Editors' Note: An excerpt of Shih's book, The Facebook Era, will appear in CRM magazine's June 2009 special issue on social media.] Friday I was scheduled to meet with Lithium Technologies and Jive Software. There was more to do than the time allotted.
Yes, the Pickwick told me: There was a room for me. Wow! And — drum roll… the price was now $84 a night. Every night I added, the price went down.
I asked about wireless internet. Yes, I was told — the hotel had it and it was free.
Every time I asked a question, I was surprised by the answer. The agent was fun, nice, and I got everything I needed. The hotel was cozy and I slept well.
But, as I said before, I was surprised that I was surprised.
Wouldn’t it be an interesting world if we weren’t surprised when we encountered high-quality customer service?
So my questions for you are….
- When was the last time you interacted with a company and were surprised by great service?
- What happened?
- What was surprising?
- Did you call the company back to share how happy it had made you?
Please comment on this post to share your stories about good (or bad) customer service experiences. Don’t spare any details. Your examples just may end up in my research.
Dr. Natalie Petouhoff is a senior analyst at Forrester Research, covering customer service and social media. She is often asked to share her opinions on TV and radio and in print in BusinessWeek, The New York Times, and many other major publications. She regularly blogs at The Forrester Blog for Business Process & Applications Professionals, where this blogpost originally appeared. She can be found on Twitter at @DrNatalie.
Tags: customer experience, customer service, customer service representative, customer service representatives, Facebook, forrester, Forrester Research, guest post, innovation, jeremiah owyang, jive, jive software, lithium, lithium technologies, owyang, petouhoff, San Francisco, social, Social media, The facebook era, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 Expo
6 Comments »
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I have been outfitting my new baby’s nursery over the last few weeks and ordered some bedding from babysupermall.com.
When we unpacked the bedding, we noticed two of the pieces were damaged. I assumed I’d have to ship the entire bundle (ten items) back to them, at my own expense, and possibly wait to get the new items in three to four weeks.
Not only did babysupermall.com respond to my web inquiry in less than twenty minutes, they agreed to ship replacements for the two damaged items immediately and without question.
Without a doubt, I will be using them again soon.
Comment by Ryan — — April 30, 2009 @ 2:28 pm |
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Great piece, Natalie –
We had a session here in London, looking at the wider world of “connectedness” and what it means to customer service. In particular,
I believe layering in CRM systems (to share data) and principles (e.g. how to perform “soft handovers” ) really make the difference in a customer’s experience.
It empowers people to work together – collaborating internally – despite different departments goals, data sets and KPIs. And say yes more often.
-= David
Comment by David Beard — — April 30, 2009 @ 2:51 pm |
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Fun post Natalie! My customer service story – a Stones show at Cardinals Stadium (ok, “University of Phoenix Stadium”) in Glendale, AZ a few years back. My wife and I arrived to find our expensive-enough floor seats were non-existent. The mixing board had been placed there. A sign was posted for ticket holders to see an attendant. We were shown to dismal “alternative” seats, and expressed our frustration. The attendant called a colleague who led us up front within the first several rows (seats valued much higher than we had paid) and we were shocked as she toured us through several pairs of seats to choose from. We made our selection, warmed up with Alice Cooper, and then jammed with the mighty Stones. Mick may have made a few bucks less that night because of us, but – being so close – we were able to chip in and help out he and Keef with the harmonies on “Honky Tonk Women.” (I haven’t previously expressed my gratitude to the stadium and Ticketmaster folks!)
Comment by Ryan Zuk — — April 30, 2009 @ 3:03 pm |
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Hey! Ryan, David and Ryan! Thanks for posting your stories… and YES… there’s lots that technology can and could do for customer experience… Love the stories when you see companies do the right thing.
The old paradigm of doing what is ONLY right by the company – forget the customer- is gotta go! Doing the right thing by the customer pays in cazillion fold to the company.
I was flying to SFO and guess who was sitting next to me? Richard Branson! I got to thank him for reinventing the airlines- with great service and planes! It’s happening! The world IS changing.
Comment by DrNatalie — — May 1, 2009 @ 11:44 am |
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Natalie, funny you should Tweet this today. I actually had a positive customer service experience with ATT Wireless, who in the past had done nothing but disappouint. But I have to give credit where its due so here goes – briefly. I notice that my last bill was double the amount of any prior month over the last year. Not recalling that I had spent that much time on my cell phone I called and asked for an audit. I got to a billing specialist who walked me through my usage and uncovered I had in fact used up all my rollover minutes – yikes. But, understanding I am a long time customer, they wrote down half the overage charges without my asking, converted me to a better plan and back dated it so I dont get hit again this month. We need more customer service reps like this.
Comment by Bill Odell — — May 1, 2009 @ 12:13 pm |
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Hi Bill, thanks for the post. That is a great story. It’s easy to go over in minutes. I’ve done it and had a few $500 cell phone bills in my life. not fun! but great to hear that AT&T Wireless was willing to work with you. My guess is that the agent was empowered to make that “call”. (no pun intended.)
When I teach leadership at Pepperdine in the MBA program, I always say, “The fish stinks most at the head.” — meaning that a company’s culture – their orientation and what they are organized around comes from the top. Sounds like the “top” or leadership at AT&T is making the right call by the customer and the customer’s experience in dealing with a common issue! love it!
Comment by DrNatalie — — May 2, 2009 @ 5:11 pm |
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