A couple of years ago I was driving and saw a sign on the back of the pickup truck ahead of me.  The truck was a pool service truck so they are in the business of cleaning swimming pools.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I read these words on the back of the truck, "We Show Up!".  I wondered is that their mission statement or is it just that customer service is so horrible that just showing up is good enough?  Tell me it isn't true; please tell me you won't hire my advertising agency just because I showed up and someone from some other agency you called didn't.  Please tell me that the TV commercials we made for other clients were great examples of our work and that impressed you so much that you decided to hire our company.  Or tell me that you like the fact that we created several websites for The Miami Herald but please don't tell me that you've come to expect so little that "showing up" was all i needed to do.

Think about customer service for a minute.  Maybe you've gotten so used to being treated so poorly that you've come to expect that.  When you call your bank do you get a phone maze of options only to have someone in India pick up the call?  I love Indian food and the people I know who are from India are great people.  However, when I call my bank is it too much to expect them to actually answer the phone?  OK I'll accept the fact that I've got to push a button to get to the right department but once I've done that can't someone at my local branch pick up the phone?  This is one of the things about banks I despise the most so I switched banks. So now when I call my bank someone I know answers the phone and they recognise my voice.  They even seem happy that I've called and they don't act like I've interrupted their work.

Think about the last time you stayed at a hotel.  When you are leaving someone might ask, "How was your stay?" and by asking this question they think they are making sure you have no complaints.  Shouldn't they expect more?  With that question your answer might be "OK" leaving them to think you love their great hotel.  On the other hand if they had asked, "Was everything perfect?" you might have an entirely different answer.  The statement "How was your stay" doesn't invite an answer any more than a friend saying, "Hey what's up?", it is just a greeting in which you give the standard "not much" answer.  You don't reply to "what's up" with much detail and "how was your stay" gets the standard "OK" response.  The question has to be worded differently to indicate that we actually expect an answer because we care.  So the question "Was everything perfect?" encourages the hotel guest to discuss the things that were not perfect.  It is only by discussing these things that we have a chance to offer something in exchange for the less than perfect treatment that the client is reporting.  It is also the only way that we will ever know about a problem so that it can be resolved to prevent the same issue from reoccurring with the next guest.

In most businesses it is worth doing just about anything to make sure that the customer is more than just satisfied but actually thrilled with the service.  Many businesses spend large amounts of money to in order to attract new customers.  It often takes more than a year of doing business with a customer just to break even with the cost of acquisition.  So it is generally far better to offer some concession when a customer reports a problem.

When someone is looking for a Fort Lauderdale website designer or a Miami website designer we want them to see our clients who are increasing their bottom line as a result of the work we have done for them and come to us.  These online testamonials can't be faked because anyone could contact any of our clients and ask how happy they are with our work.

Sadly the best form of advertising is the one that advertising agencies aren't able to sell, word of mouth advertising. This is the reason that customer service is so important. We have all heard that a happy customer will tell a few people about your business and an unhappy customer will tell a lot more people. We won't get any word of mouth advertising with people getting poor customer service. Even acceptable customer service won't get you any word of mouth advertising for your business. For example we have all been to restaurants where the food was OK and we might even go back to those restaurants. Now if your best friend comes to town and you want to take your friend to a restaurant I bet you won't go to the one that was OK, even if it is good enough that sometimes you'll eat there. You want to bring your friend to the restaurant where you had a great meal not an OK meal. When you bring your friend there or tell your friend about the great meal you had then that is word of mouth advertising. Your friend trusts your opinion and is much more likely to buy whatever you suggest then what a well made TV commercial suggests buying. We make some great TV commercials too and they bring traffic in the door but the traffic comes to your business at a price. You have to make the commercial and then buy the time on TV to have your commercial run. Remember the cost of word of mouth advertising is free and free is a very good price. So the job of the ad agency is to bring people into your business and your job as a business owner is to make them not only want to come back but to also tell their friends. This only happens with excellent customer service.

In most businesses we have a lot of competition. We try to price things right, we have convenient locations and we do all that we can to make people want to be our customers. The problem most of us have is that our competition is also pricing their products or services right and they have locations near our locations. The real problem is how to make your business stand out from your competition. There is only one solution and that is to have your entire company understanding the high cost of replacing upset customers with new ones. Every employee must understand that if you have to continue to advertise (this is great for my business) and spend your money there then you have less money available for pay raises and nice perks that employees like.

It would be very unfair to say that breaking my window while cleaning it is bad customer service. It only shows that we are human and that we make mistakes. How a vendor takes care of the broken window is where we get to see customer service in action. We never fully understand who we are dealing with until something goes wrong. When everything is fine and we don't see a problem then we say that the customer service from a vendor is acceptable. It is when something goes wrong that the vendor has a chance to impress us or disappoint us. In this case the vendor stated that they'd have the window replaced by a certain date. This made me very happy because this replacement date was to be one day before an office party and we didn't want our guests to see the broken window. The vendor didn't show up on the scheduled date to fix the window. Finally the window did get replaced and I expected that they'd come back in a day or two to do the window tinting. After a couple of weeks passed the vendor stated that he wanted to meet with me and the building maintenance staff. In the meeting the window cleaning company showed me bills he had paid to replace the window. He complained that due to some problem with our window frames it is easy to break these windows. He then stated that he had replaced the window as he was asked to do and it is not his job to have the window tinted to match the others. I don't think I need to explain how wrong this is but I'd start with the fact that they tested the windows before they started working here. They determined that the windows don't flex enough and that using suction cups on them might cause them to break. So what do you suppose they did? Of course they used suction cups and broke the window, then blamed us! Do you think they will get to clean windows at the other buildings run by the same management company?

After spending several hundered dollars replacing a window on the third floor the window cleaning company destroyed their reputation over the cost of a piece of window film.

The good news is that my window is fixed and last week it got tinted again.  The window cleaning company who broke the window finally agreed that replacing the window they broke is not enough and that tinting it just like all the other windows in the office was required in order to bring the replacement back to the condition of the other windows.  From the time they broke the window until it is back to its original condition took three months.

Is that great customer service?  I think it is not!