customer service on black friday

Nov 29, 2013

I’m not a BLACK FRIDAY shopper. I don’t brave lines or fight traffic anymore (I did it ONE TIME — never again). But I do shop online. Today, I had two totally different customer experiences and didn’t even leave my house…

  1. I ordered a front door and side panels, as well as a skylight from a local company. The gentleman who helped me (by phone) was extremely kind and helpful. After conversing with my contractor, my order was placed. So at 8:30 AM EST (!!!) on the Friday after Thanksgiving (today), I get a call. They want my credit card number for payment. No problem (other than he woke me up), I already offered the card number to him about a week ago pre-order. I authorized the charge. At about 11:30 AM, he calls back and tells me: “I ran your card and the payment was denied. I ran it again for half the amount and that went through. Then I ran it for the other half and that was denied. So I ran it for 1/2 of the 1/2 and then 1/4 and then I called you.
     
    If you remember, I explained that I was a victim of the Adobe hack. When my card was replaced, it had the default daily limit — not enough to cover my purchase. A simple call to my bank and that was fixed. Dude ran the card again while I waited on the phone and all was just fine. But then, I started thinking about why he would frantically run a bajillion transactions instead of just calling me. It’s a LOCAL BUSINESS, you guys. Were they that afraid they weren’t going to get paid? Heck, they haven’t even delivered the items yet.
  2.  

  3. On Wednesday I made a Christmas purchase online. Today, I get a call from that company — Sweetwater. The gentleman said he was calling about the order I placed for a Christmas gift and just wanted to let me know my business was appreciated, and inform me that the item I purchased Wednesday went on sale today. He reduced my total purchase by almost $100. Sweet, Sweetwater!! And then, I get an email that said: “It was good talking to you today. I am looking forward to future business with you. If there is anything I can help you with, or if you have any questions, feel free to give me a call. I Graduated from Musicians Institute for recording and live sound, and have done much of both since graduating. I am also a guitarist in an active band where I do most of the writing and producing. If there is anything you need I am confident I can help.
     
    Personal. Engaging. Obviously, either the employee or the employer GETS IT (or maybe both!).

While I will absolutely do business again with Sweetwater, I’m not so sure about the local company in example 1. In the words of Scott McKain, “The purpose of any business is to profitably create experiences so compelling to your customers that loyalty becomes assured.

My contractor sent the following by text message — measuring for countertops today!! Yay!

get those countertops!