I’m a fan of good customer service.
I go out of my way to patronize places that understand this concept. I love working with business owners and their staff who understand that my business is their payday. I’ll pay more for something if it means dealing with knowledgeable and helpful people. In the service business, it’s the telephone customer service rep who will stay on the line with me until my problem is solved. In retail, it’s the store associate or store owner who works as hard as he/she can to sell me what I need, when I need it.
On the flip side of this coin, I go out of my way to avoid places where the hired help is hardly helpful. In some cases it’s the service industry, where your average telephone support person is trained to read off of a script and is usually incapable of going beyond the “I’m sorry for your inconvenience” to solve real problems creatively. In retail it’s the store clerk who seems generally inconvenienced by the presence of customers.
The latest adventure came this weekend. My wife Shirley was baking nearly 1,000 cookies for an upcoming holiday open house.
It’s a tradition we’ve been carrying on for over 20 years, and is one we inherited from her grandmother who baked the same recipes herself for nearly 50 years. Each year over 100 family and friends count on our hospitality (read Shirley’s homemade cookies).
In the heat of cooking this past Saturday, one of our freezers conked out. Given that it was the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend, panic set in, with fears of not being able to freeze not only the cookies made that day, but those to be made the rest of the weekend. With the holiday fast approaching, there would not be time to postpone the baking schedule.
We started checking the local appliance dealers. Usually, we like to help out the small business owners, since they generally tend to be the most informative about their products. Unfortunately, on the Saturday night of a 3-day weekend, the soonest we’d reach our regular retailers would be Tuesday. Our need was pressing. We had to find a store that had the particular style and size freezer (upright freezer at least 16 cubic feet) in stock so that we could pick it up on Sunday, if possible. Delivery would be preferred, but given the time constraint we figured that would be nigh impossible. We lined up a moving company we know who would make themselves available. We then phoned the closest appliance big boys: Sears and Home Depot.
The local Sears stores did not have the particular size upright freezer we needed in stock.
We then called the local Home Depot. The operator checked with the appliance department, and then assured me that they had two upright freezers of the size we needed on the showroom floor. Happy that we would have a freezer, we cleaned up to go out and make our purchase. When we got to the store, we gladly waited while the Home Depot appliance salesman was waiting on another customer. We walked around the appliance department and got concerned when we did not see anything on the floor that we needed. Finally the salesman was available, and I told him that we had called looking for an upright freezer at least 16 cu. ft. He checked his inventory list on his computer and told us he had nothing available. He did not remember any store operator calling him about this in the last few hours. Of course, we had no idea who it was that took our call, and even if we did, it would not change the fact that they did not have what we needed in stock.
As our panic grew, my wife called up the closest Lowe’s Home Improvement Store,
and was able to speak with the gentleman in appliances. They had several models that would meet our needs, so she gave him her name, and off we went to the Lowe’s. (Notice that I’ve hyperlinked Lowe’s, but not their competitors? Read on…)
Sounding like a real wild and exciting Saturday night, huh?
We arrived at the Lowe’s hoping that this was not just another wild goose chase. When we walked into the appliance department, the salesman was helping out another family, but looked at my wife and said, “Are you Shirley?” My wife got a big smile that someone actually remembered the call and said, “Yes.” He said, “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
We looked around and found the unit we needed, and when the salesman came to us, he was not only knowledgeable about the features of our unit, but he was happy to place the order. Most amazing and wonderful of all…. he said they would deliver it to us….FOR FREE…. on Monday. Labor Day Monday! As in less than 48 hours!
While the other stores had backed up delivery schedules or no delivery at all on Labor Day, Lowe’s rose above and beyond to ensure we had the product we needed, when we needed it.
So let me recap. Sears….no help. Home Depot….told me they had what we needed but couldn’t deliver, and when we got to the store they did not have what they said they had. Lowe’s, had what we needed and could provide delivery on a holiday. I think you’ll agree….Lowe’s did what they had to do to make for some satisfied customers.
Thank you Lowe’s. I think you can count on the fact that…..
bigbobsthoughts 