The Customer Rules OK

A while ago, I wrote a post about how to keep your copywriting clients happy. As we all know, if you want to set yourself apart from the rest of the crowd, excelling in customer service is the way to go.

Usually, the press is full of bad news stories. If someone has received truly awful service they spend hours telling everyone about it. But what about the occasions where good service is received?

Surely, there must be some companies out there who are getting it right?

Well, I’m about to redress the balance with a couple of examples I recently experienced.

Printers, printers everywhere, but which one do I choose?

Just before Christmas, my printer decided to fall out with my computer and refuse to print anything. After much searching through troubleshooting guides and help forums, I decided the only thing to do was to ditch it for a newer model.

But which one to choose? If you’ve shopped for printers recently you’ll know how many are out there. After asking round colleagues for advice, I decided a trip to my local Staples was on order to see what I could find.

First, I was greeted by a member of staff asking whether I needed any help.

I explained what I was looking for and he immediately asked loads of questions about how I would be using the printer, whether I wanted a multifunction model etc.

Once I gave him all the information he needed, he instantly whittled it down to 3 models. Then we chatted about ink and paper costs, so he even worked out which one would be the cheapest to run.

I bought the printer I needed and left a very happy shopper.

Beeeeeeeeep

Don’t you just hate it when, after you’ve gone through a seemingly endless automated phone system and finally get to speak to a real person, you get cut off.

Well that happened to me the other day. I phoned Santander to find out some details about international payments. Before I got cut off, the guy I was speaking with was very helpful. At this point I would like to stress that the phone went dead due to the adverse weather conditions and the fact that I was phoning on my VoIP line – so when the wind blew out my broadband, my phone also died.

To my amazement, after about 15 minutes, my phone rang (by this time my broadband was once again functioning) and it was the guy I’d been speaking with.

He was most apologetic that he hadn’t phoned back sooner but got caught on another call.

Amazing – such a simple thing to do and yet so few companies do it.

Neither of these examples are exactly ground breaking stuff, but it just goes to show that simply by treating your customers as real people and having a desire to make sure they receive the product or advice they need, you’ll provide them with a positive experience.

Would I use either company again?

Absolutely.

Over to you

Have you received a particularly good service recently?

Perhaps you’ve received terrible service?

Whatever the case, leave a comment below and share them with us.

Sally Ormond, Copywriter