In order to stay competitive in today’s marketplace you truly have to go above and beyond the call of duty. From a customer service perspective, this means doing things to best serve the customer at all times.
When I hear examples of great customer service I like to share them. What follows are two examples that are truly inspiring.
Each year, for Christmas or her birthday, my 81-year old mother’s best friend Ms. Ruby, who is 92 years old by the way, always contacts me for gift ideas. Since Ms. Ruby is not accustomed to e-commerce and doesn’t drive, she still calls up area department stores directly to order whatever she wants to purchase. Typically the stores very graciously have the purchases mailed.
Just the other day Ms. Ruby ordered a gift from Nordstrom in Annapolis only to discover that the sales person lived near her. Much to Ms. Ruby’s delight, the sales person offered to drop the gift off on her way home from work. Yes, you heard that correctly, the Nordstrom sales associate personally delivered the gift herself — and within a 6 hour time-frame
Ms. Ruby has also had similar experiences with Trader Joe’s when ordering gift cards. Upon her first call to the nearest Trader Joe’s (some 45 minutes away) she learned that an employee also lived nearby. She too provided Ms. Ruby with door-to-door service by actually delivering the card to her home and has done so subsequent occasions.
Talk about going above and beyond…
As we have highlighted before, there are a number of organizations that truly ‘walk the walk’ when it comes to service. These stories are a shining light and reinforce that it is often the individual employee who goes above and beyond.
As a provider of custom web application solutions, we don’t have the luxury of being able to drop off a purchased good at a client’s office, though we do take a similar approach of going above and beyond – even if it means working through the night to ensure that the launch of a web application is successful – to make sure our customers are has happy as Ms. Ruby.
Do you have any inspiring customer service stories to share?
Posted by: Diann Turner, Director, Business Development, NetLink Resource Group