A Play by Play of Customer Amazement

A couple months ago, we received a feedback survey from Alexander, a customer who was frustrated because his Phone service wasn’t working properly.  He said he was close to moving to another phone service that could better meet his needs.  My co-blogger Jenny and I tend to tag team respond to these surveys thanking customers for the positive ones and making right the negative ones.

With this particular survey, Jenny took it and said something to the effect of “I am going to own this customer and give him amazing customer service moving forward.”  We both knew going into it that Alexander had already spent several hours on the phone with customer service because he had a very specific and complicated phone set up.

Since that day, I have not interacted with Alexander at all but a couple weeks ago received the following email from him about his experience with Jenny.  To my delight, I learned how Jenny was able to amaze him is just a couple short months.  Take a moment to read this email I received about and then I want give you some play by play as to how Jenny amazed Alexander:

Dear Jeremy

My name is Alexander, customer of Phone.com service. I would like to admit that I had numerous difficulties with your phone system at the beginning, including a few issues with receiving and sending faxes through Phone.com. I have been frustrated, dissatisfied and disappointed with your phone systems, not so much with the service. I spent many hours over the phone with your customer support agents and many issues still hadn’t been taken care of, fixed or resolved. I was very close to changing my Phone.com service to another  company.

Then, Jenny contacted me over the phone and an email at the last moment of my decision. Over time she resolved ALL the issues and problems I had with Phone.com and continues to do so. If I have any concerns, questions, problems, or need to tweak my phone greeting voice system, she is always available with a little or no delays. It’s like having a personal assistant at Phone.com. She is a very professional, organized, knowledgeable and well informed. She even helped to set up my my new Polycom office IP phone. She is very friendly, welcoming and responsive.

I am very happy with her service and now have no plans to leave Phone.com. Thank you for having such caring and qualified people like Jenny at your service. Even if I did choose to leave and go to a different phone company, I don’t think I would find equal service as Jenny provides at Phone.com.

Alexander

Reading this email is inspiring to say the least.  I believe there are some key points from this case that we can learn from:

1. The Best Medicine for a Frequent Caller is Ownership- It was no secret that Alexander was spending a lot of time with our support team.  Brushing him aside and leaving him to “figure it out” on his own nearly pushed him away for good.  Once Jenny took ownership and got him set up, we found that he rarely needs to call.  Notice that ownership meant that Alexander had Jenny’s direct email address and phone number.

2. The Customer Appreciation Station Works- Remember our customer appreciation day where we sent notes to our favorite customers?  Jenny sent a handwritten note to Alexander and he really appreciated it.  Showing customers appreciation builds trust and appreciation for our company.

3. Consistently Amazing Service- You can see it throughout the email.  Not only did Jenny help Alexander out, she never kept him waiting when he needed help.  She was quick to respond to her emails and answer her phone.  This consistency communicates to the customer that they are important.

4. Take the Time to Understand- Jenny very easily could have said something like “Alexander, I am well aware of how much time you’ve spent with support.  We don’t have any more time for you.”  I think that’s the message Alexander was already receiving when he had one foot out the door.  Jenny however, gave him her undivided attention and listened with the intent on understanding the problem and then solving it.

5. It is Really Painful for a Customer to Leave- Yes Alexander had the right to leave Phone.com but he had already heavily invested time and energy into getting this right.  By responding quickly to his feedback survey, Jenny was able to save him as a customer and avoid throwing all of that valuable time and energy away.

If we have learned nothing else over the last few months we have learned that when we succeed it’s time to CELEBRATE.  To that I say great job Jenny!  Thanks for modeling exactly what you’re blogging about!