Touch Points

How Far Will You Go to Wow a Customer?

This article by Mary Sandro outlines the need for bosses to empower their staff to make the customer decisions that create the WOW response:

A large part of customer service success is creating a seamless experience. Customer needs are anticipated; systems are in place; employees are trained. The company runs like a well-oiled machine. But what happens when the unexpected happens? Customers have an “unusual” request or they simply don’t know the rules of the system? The unexpected, I suggest, provides the opportunity to stretch the system, improve the system, or even forget the system and Wow a customer.

I arrived late at a hotel in Cambridge, MA the night before an 8 am training, dressed for the cold weather in brown boots and heavy trousers. When I got to my room I unpacked my lovely, gray suit only to discover that I had left my black heels at home....

Common sense is critical element of customer service

Here's an article from customer service guru John Tschol of the Service Quality Institute:

Customer service has been a buzz phrase for several years now and, although many companies claim to excel at it, few actually do. Some companies, on the other hand, take customer service to the extreme, a situation that can easily backfire.

Let me give share with you an incident that makes my point. Barb, a colleague, was standing in line at a retailer’s customer service desk, waiting to return an item. The woman in front of her was returning several items, taking each one out of a bag, placing it on the counter, then slowly looking through a large envelope filled with receipts, as she searched for the appropriate one.

Customer experience quote

Recently, I spent a day with a client in Colorado Springs and he had this interesting observation:

“Thoughts are things. When we are thinking bad thoughts about our customers, they somehow
know it.”

Paul Dekker
Advanced Hearing Centers

Buying (or not buying) a new Honda

How difficult should buying a new car be when you have done all the research, you know exactly
what you want, know exactly what options you’ll need and all you want to do is test drive the
car? It should be pretty easy, right? Think again. This case actually happened just last Saturday at
an auto dealer in Austin, Texas.

Here’s the story....

In 1988, Sara purchased a brand new Honda from a dealership in Austin.

Romancing Your Customer

Thanks for this submission from Randy Allsbury - Wizard of Ads Partner

"Romance should begin with science
and end with a settlement."

- Oscar Wilde

How good are you at romancing your customers?

If you suspect you might not be good enough, you're
in luck.

Because this week we have a snappy little piece from
writer Michael Hepworth that shows us how to do
that.

No need for a big warmup.

I'll let Michael take over from here.

Michael... it's all yours:

Stickin' it to 'em

In the land of ice and snow where ice hockey rules supreme, one of the consumable products people buy is hockey sticks. A hockey stick can cost anywhere from fifteen to two hundred dollars. One of the big hockey stick manufacturers in Canada is Sherwood. I’m not sure of their market share, but it has to be pretty substantial. Hockey sticks break after some use and this story relates to this phenomenon.
One of my staff, Patty purchased a new Sherwood stick for her husband from a large Canadian retailer. It wasn’t a particularly expensive stick, about 20 dollars. But when it was used on a backyard rink for the very first time, the stick split lengthwise down the shaft. It was obviously a defect in the wood because most sticks break by snapping in half.
This is the first touch point in the customer service chain for the retailer....

Welcome to you!

Welcome to the blog called Touch Points. We all have good and bad Customer service stories that have happened to us when we have shopped or dealt with companies around the world. This blog is for you and me to learn what it might take to improve customer service. You are invited to submit stories that will hopefully lead us on a journey together. The destination is known but the map hasn’t been drawn to get us there yet. We are the explorers who will chart this course that will help us and others improve the touch points in their businesses. So put on your loosest, most comfortable travelling clothes, because here we go. Enjoy the trip! Steve

Clear through the Fog

It was a beautiful sunny morning in Myrtle Beach. Time to head home after a great week of
golfing. But as we pulled up to the curb at the Myrtle Beach Airport to disgorge our luggage,
clubs and ourselves from the rental car, a sense of unease pervaded the air.
“They’ve cancelled the flight this morning to Charlotte because of fog,” said the porter on the
sidewalk.
“The one to Charlotte, because of fog?” we asked incredulously.
“Yup.”