Customer Service, a philosophy
by Dave on Sep.02, 2009, under Uncategorized
This might be the easiest, and at the same time most difficult topic for a company. How to do everything possible to please every customer and make them feel like part of the family. Everyone knows the old addage about pleasing all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time but never all of the people all of the time. I honestly thought that was wrong (I could please everyone all of the time) until this week.
We have always tried to go overboard, if we miss a shipment date/promise, we would do free shipping, throw in an extra remote, or offer some other high value apology. When we do in-home installs for people, we always try to help with any other A/V issues they have, go very conservative on charging, and go overboard on getting things perfect. Essentially we try to treat every home like it was our own.
The problem is that sometimes customers ask for things that, at least, seem unreasonable. So let me pose this to the community, a hypothetical:
Assume: Corporate policy of 30 days no questions asked return policy and then a 1 year parts and labor warranty against defects. Also assume that for a standard $99 home install, we spend 4 hours in the home, added another $180 worth of accessories to get it all to work right, and made two other in home visits to get it all tweaked perfectly – all at no extra cost to the customer. (Rare, but every once and a while you run into a home that takes extra time due to wiring, the kinds of TVs with cable cards installed etc.)
Then, 5 months later the customer says they want a refund because they decide they don’t need it. If we offer to make another visit and tune anything they like but cannot offer a full refund on equipment and installation – is that reasonable?
I know it may seem like I’m exposing a soft underbelly of self inspection here, but definitely want to know if the community is responsive to setting a line “somewhere” and asking to stay on this side of it.
Essentially, I’m trying to set the philosophy as something like: Make the customer feel as if they are wrapped in a warm blanket, but don’t expect any funny-business thereunder.
Who is a customer service expert who can lend advice?
2 Comments for this entry
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September 17th, 2009 on 12:31 pm
There is a cost for doing business and sometimes we take losses. I might be willing to refund equipment charges that could be used in another installation but not labor charges. On the other hand if someone has you come out and setup a system and once the Super Bowl was over they called and said they didn’t need it any longer can I get a refund well that’s up to you. I would never refund labor charges that we’ve agreed upon. I have to feed and protect my family.
September 18th, 2009 on 3:44 pm
I think this is perfectly reasonable. Not only have you put a lot of time into an installation but it is four months after the refund period. 45 days after purchase I would think a refund would be in order but not 120 days.