Saturday, November 10, 2007

Exceptional Customer Service: Every Business Can Implement It.

One of the most indelible memories of US has been its customer service at department stores big and small alike, restaurants, coffeeshops and everywhere else. So naturally when I came back after a 4 year stint there I tried to imbibe this culture at our jewelry store.

I am fortunate to have a family which supported me all along when I wanted to implement ideas I learnt from the west to the jewelry store. But there were voices of dissent among relatives, customers who wished us good and friends who thought Indian customers are too untrustworthy to place the trust on.

The customer service I am talking about ranged from 30-Day Money BAck at Targets,Nordstorm etc, free dessert because we made you wait for it a little too long at Applebees in Salem, Oregon, or dont worry about the wallet you forgot you can pay us next time at Starbucks, Wilsonville, Oregon. I was bound to get infected and bound to give this a try in its own flavor back in India.

Besides Customer satisfaction, there is a business case for it:

Joel Spolsky puts that in words what we had all along known and I quote from his blog
The no-questions-asked 90-day money back guarantee was one of the best decisions we ever made at Fog Creek. Try this: use Fog Creek Copilot for a full 24 hours, call up three months later and say, “hey guys, I need $5 for a cup of coffee. Give me back my money from that Copilot day pass,” and we’ll give it back to you. Try calling on the 91st or 92nd or 203rd day. You’ll still get it back. We really don’t want your money if you’re not satisfied. I’m pretty sure we’re running the only job listing service around that will refund your money just because your ad didn’t work. This is unheard of, but it means we get a lot more ad listings, because there’s nothing to lose.

Over the last six years or so, letting people return software has cost us 2%.

2%.

Similarly, Over the last 11 months since we implemented a '30-Day 100% Money back' in our store we haven't had a single return. And I am not kidding.

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