Have you ever left a business with a smile on your face solely because of the customer service experience? As a business owner I often subconsciously evaluate customer service in the hopes of learning a thing or two about how to better serve my customers. I also learn valuable lessons from bad experiences on how not to treat my customers!
I recently had a great experience that you may want to know about. Reading is one of my favorite hobbies. I often spend the hours I’m working on the computer or driving listening to audio books on my iPod.
Last year I subscribed to an online service that charges you monthly in exchange for a set quantity of available downloads per month. Through the busy fall season I fell behind on listening to the books I had already downloaded so I decided that I would suspend my membership for a few months to save the expense until I was caught up. In November I logged into the site and it appeared that my account had already been closed. I thought to myself “you really are losing it, you’ve already closed the account!”
A few weeks later I saw a new charge for the service on my monthly statement. I was puzzled since the account was closed, but forgot to call and find out why I was still being billed for the service. The following month I again noticed the charge and was reminded to call them to figure out the problem.
I called their toll-free number and was almost immediately greeted by a friendly representative who I could sense was smiling on the other end of the phone. I politely explained my predicament. Before he even knew the details of the problem (and whose fault it was), he had apologized to me for the inconvenience!
We quickly figured out that the error was my fault (I had logged in with the wrong e-mail address and the associated closed account was from years ago). He never acted frustrated with me or made me feel anything less than pleased that I had called them to work out the situation.
He helped me remedy the situation and told me twice how much they appreciated my business. My intention was to log on and download books for each credit I had already paid for and then close the account. I probably have more books than I can listen to in three months! Because he was so polite, sympathetic to my situation and truly made me feel like a valued customer I have decided to keep the account open. A company like that is one I want to do business with.
That’s the power of good customer service! That deserves to be recognized. So if you enjoy listening to books on your iPod please consider www.audible.com. They get Faith’s Seal of Approval!
They also have an entire site called AudibleKids.com full of educational and fun books for kids. You only need one account to access both sites.
Where have you experienced good customer service? What made it stand out to you? Do you go out of your way to patronize businesses where you’ve received good service in the past?