Category: Business

Many years ago, I took a college course about entrepreneurialism. We studied several companies such as LL Bean, Harley Davidson, Nike and examined what made them successful. One aspect that resonated with me was good customer service. If you keep your customers happy, chances are you’ll have that customer for a long time.

Eighteen years later, here I am, president of my own company. That fact alone still kind of blows me away, but I’ll save that self-examination for another time. I personally deal with customer service on a daily basis. Our office manager Lisa handles most of the calls that come in, but I handle the emails. “Why?” you might ask, “doesn’t the president have more important things to do?” Absolutely not. Sure I’ve got to pay bills and generate sales and create new products, and all those things are very important. But how will I know how people feel about my brand if I don’t talk to them? How will I know what they like and don’t like if I don’t listen to what they have to say? Is it fun to handle customer service? Um, no, not always. And sometimes it’s awesome.

Case in point: Last week, an apparently older gentleman emailed me about some lipstick his wife had purchased from our web site. She had ordered samples, chosen three shades she liked, and then ordered the full sized tubes. But she claimed that the full sized product did not match the samples she had gotten earlier that month. Referring to the three tubes of lipstick, he wrote: “My wife received all 3 and they were not anywhere close to the shades she picked out. The colors were much lighter and are unusable as far as my wife is concerned. She is accustomed to paying far less than the $ 45.00 it cost for your 3 shades of lipsticks but my daughter assured her it would be worth it. My wife is 84 and she takes pride in making herself looking as good as she can. Is there anything you can do to correct this as we live on a fixed income and this is a major purchase as far as we are concerned. Thank you for considering this…” After cracking up at the phrase “she takes pride in making herself look as good as she can”, I proceeded to explain to the gentleman that the shades had to be identical. We use the actual lipstick tubes from the same batch, and cut them into ¼” slices to use as samples. I thought maybe his wife had just looked at the samples and not actually tried them on. Well, my response set him off. He responded, “Of course she tried them that’s why she ordered them but the product although you say it is the same it is not. I can see you have no intention of helping us with this, We will write an appropriate response to others so they wont make the same mistake of ordering from a company that is only interested in selling their products and not satisfying their customers…”

This is where I get frustrated. I want to say there is no way possible the two can be different because they are coming from the SAME place. But I just say that in my head. Maybe other companies walk away at this point. Maybe they don’t want to deal with someone who seems unreasonable. It’s just one customer, right? Wrong. How they feel about my company is a reflection on ME. I wouldn’t want someone feeling negative about me (unless it was warranted). So I patiently wrote back, “I am not writing you off. I am merely trying to understand the scope of the problem. I thought perhaps your wife was going by sight only and not actually trying the product. I am really trying to understand how they could be so different when both products are coming from the same batch. Tell me what kind of color your wife is looking for. Pink? Mauve? You’re saying all the shades you purchased were too light. So she is looking for something with more color?” I really wanted to help this man. I wanted his wife to be happy with the purchase. In the end, they chose another color. AND he apologized to me, “Please accept my apology for overreacting to the way you handled the solution to our problem with the order we made with your company. I do appreciate your patience and generosity in handling this matter. I will recommend your company for it’s fairness and cooperative spirit you have shown. I am sending a copy to my daughter also, who recommended your company and has always been happy with your service.” That made my day.

Are we programed to overreact or strong arm just to get what we want? “I’m going to threaten to leave AT&T if they don’t lower my rate.” “If I threaten to cancel this credit card, I’ll bet they will give me a better interest rate.” Sadly, it seems like this may be our new reality. It shouldn’t be like that! Why can’t we treat each other respectfully and both work together to solve any issues that come up? Why don’t customers approach a problem in a calm manner before freaking out? Why don’t more companies treat their customers like they matter? Maybe that’s why LL Bean has been around for over 100 years. Because you know if the jeans you bought don’t fit, you can return them for another size without incident. Do some people take advantage of ‘nice’ companies? Sadly, they do. But maybe if more companies and customers started treating each other the way they would treat a good friend, more companies would survive, more customers would be happy and the world would be a little bit more pleasant.