Comments on: The Most Important Customer Service Tip I Have To Give

By: Weekend Links Inspiration #1 | Tech Milieu

Weekend Links Inspiration #1 | Tech Milieu — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:45:13 +0000

[...] Most Important Customer Service Tip I Have To Give. [...]

By: Scott Clark

Scott Clark — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:09:29 +0000

Sadly, these situations are all too rare. I’ve been struck by the string of horrible service encounters I’ve had in the past year. People feel that they need to save money, forgetting how much harder it is to find new customers (presumably when the economy improves) than to maintain loyal ones – even when doing so requires extraordinary effort.

By: Persistence – Knocked Off His Stride, But Not Off His Feet

Persistence – Knocked Off His Stride, But Not Off His Feet — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:09:48 +0000

[...] Your Dreams by Jonathan MeadFavorites This Week:Make Yourself Presentable by Jason Santa MariaEmbrace Disaster In Customer Service over at My Wife Quit Her JobHow To Deal When Following Your Passion Leaves You Broke over at [...]

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:14:22 +0000

@Joe
Yep. It is definitely much easier said than done. It just takes practice and requires a mindset that looks beyond the short term money.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:12:36 +0000

@Xurxo
That is a great way of looking at things that I never even considered! For the amount of money that I lost on the transaction, it was definitely worth it in terms of advertising and damage control. Even though I meant everything I wrote about in the article, I’m not sure how I would have reacted had the sum of money involved been orders of magnitude greater. Let’s say I stood to lose 1000 dollars instead of a 100 dollars. Perhaps I may have had to use a different tactic. The advantage of our business though is that our products are relatively inexpensive.

By: Joe - Auto Insurance Missoula

Joe - Auto Insurance Missoula — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:21:22 +0000

“Embrace disaster” This is good advice and can be applied one’s personal life as well, but its much easier said than done especially if you’ve been training your mind incorrectly your whole life.

By: Xurxo Vidal

Xurxo Vidal — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:47:28 +0000

Steve,

This was a great followup to your post on learning how to say no.

You did a great job on the customer service and I think that the lost money on this one deal can be seen in a couple of other ways:

1. An advertising cost – now your customer is most likely rant and rave about your services and tell all their friends and others they come across.

2. Price of damage control – we all know that people are more motivated to spread the word about a bad experience which can wreak havoc on businesses’ reputations.

So once you see it this way, it doesn’t hurt as much to lose some money (within reason) on a deal when you have an opportunity to make a customer happy and have them say great things about you and your company.

Once again another great lesson to keep in mind for all us entrepreneurs – thanks for sharing!

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:35:31 +0000

@Kevin
Mainly out of laziness. Thanks for reminding me though. I’ve justed added my gravatar!

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:35:03 +0000

@Kevin
We have spoken to a rep and USPS is still by far the cheapest shipping solution. The main reason is because the majority of items we sell weigh 8oz or less. FedEx and UPS prices are competitive for packages 2lbs and greater. The other item you have to factor in is the cost of packaging which USPS provides for free when using priority shipping.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:32:03 +0000

As an aside…why do you have Gravatar enabled comments but no Gravatar for yourself?