Who Cares About Customer Service?
To me there’s more to it than just showing your customers that you care. It’s actually caring! When we put ourselves in our clients shoes and feel the way they would feel, all of the small little things that we can do to make their experience more enjoyable will be felt even more.
For example, I ordered some beautiful prints from illustrator, Kevin Cornell. When they arrived the post man went “postal” on them. Even though they were packaged correctly and labeled, “do not bend” all over, they were smashed badly. Kevin kindly offered to send more prints free of charge and seemed eager to do so. When I received the prints he also included a check for the amount I had paid for shipping to return the prints to him along with this simple note. This was unexpected and not really needed. But I could tell he really cared about me as a client and treated me as he would have wanted to be treated. He could have easily blamed this on the postman. He could have easily acted frustrated at the stupid postman but he just kindly replaced them with a great attitude. As designers it’s so important to not only pay attention to the details of design but also the experience others have in dealing with us. THANKS KEVIN for the example!
From Good Experience we get the 2007 Copernican Award finalists for best exemplifying the idea that a business “revolves around the customer, not the other way around.” My personal favorites on this list: The Motley Fool (whose radio show I started listening to years ago in Seattle), and Shutterfly (whose photo products arrive semi-regularly in my mailbox, compliments of my memories-minded mother-in-law).
“Companies that excel at customer service are the ones that empower their employees to make it happen.”Dustin, the gentleman I share my cube with
Tadd mentioned customer service a few posts ago. I’ll follow up with one of my favorite anecdotes about great customer service.