The Stuff Of Valuable Customer Service

Losing Stuff

I hate losing stuff.  Hate it!

A friend of mine recently lent us the original Star Wars trilogy.  It was magnificent!  The other night I returned the DVDs to him and thanked him.  Later that evening he texted me and asked where The Empire Strikes Back was. [insert sinking feeling]  In a house with five people, it could have walked (or crawled) anywhere, and after 48 hours, it’s still missing.

Borrowing Stuff

Growing up, we often borrowed things from friends when it came time for vacation– whether it was an RV or a cabin in the mountains.  I can remember a couple times where my parents spent money tuning up the RV before we used it.  At the end of a stay in a friend’s cabin, we would spend several hours cleaning and improving the place.

Returning and Replacing Stuff

There’s a very simple lesson here that my parents instilled in me and I’m doing the same for my kids.  That lesson is this:

When someone entrusts you with something of theirs, return it to them in as good or better condition than when they lent it to you.

This lesson was taught to me repeatedly as a child until I got it.  When another person entrusts you with something, they are trusting you to take care of it.  I guess that’s why the follow up from mom was always “You break it, you buy it.”  When it comes to The Empire Strikes Back, that may very well be the next step.

Customer Service Stuff

As a business, customers are regularly entrusting us with their time and their money–two essential resources.  When they give us their time, they trust that we won’t waste it, we’ll never use more than we need, and we’ll get the most out of each moment.  I guess that goes for their money as well.

One of the key service standards at Phone.com in achieving AWESOME customer service is value.  Our aim is to help our customers gain the most value possible from the service they pay us for and from every interaction with customer service.

Are you providing a service to your customers that is truly valuable?  When a customer entrusts you with their time and money, do you continuously earn that trust or do you waste it?  The trust of your customers is built over time but can be lost as quickly as you can say “The Empire Strikes Back.”

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