Back in Business!
February 28, 2007
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Announcements, Technical, Work Functions : Trackback,
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Back in business, folks! The replacement hardware showed up about an hour ago, and I’m once again writing from the comfort of my own office rather than fighting a bunch of teenagers posting to MySpace at the library.
You know, as a businessman myself, I’ve longed lived by the truth of “Underpromise & Overdeliver.” I’ll give my satellite Internet service provider kudos in handling this far more professionally than the last time I had this exact problem. Lightyears difference! So, good for them! But still, if you say, “We’re sending this express shipping, so it should be there no later than Monday,” don’t have it show up on Wednesday. Say that it will get there Wednesday and have it show up Monday. (Amazon does just that. I’ve never had an Amazon order ever show up late. It’s always two or three days before they claimed it would get there. Always a happy surprise.)
What is it with American business that they can’t seem to get the “Underpromise & Overdeliver” thing right? About the only company I do business with that gets this is L.L. Bean. It’s interesting to note that L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer ran very similar companies with similar customer service and warranties. However, now that Eddie Bauer’s ruined their customer service and trashed their warranties, their business has gone down the commode. In fact, they could be out of business soon because they overpromised and underdelivered.
For all this talk of customer service, few companies seem to get it. Dell wrecked their company in part because they sent all their support calls to India and business users didn’t want to talk to someone reading answers onscreen that didn’t fit their problem. (Especially when that support has an accent as thick as chutney yet goes by the name of Skip.) Business professionals wanted real tech support from people who knew something about computers. Same with cars. I’ll take Billy Joe Jim Bob who dreams about engines at night and has hands perpetually stained the color of used engine oil than TJ Slick who spent one year going through the Mister Goodwrench program. I could send Billy Joe Jim Bob a five-second MP3 of the sound of my problem and he’d know exactly what to fix. TJ Slick on the other hand, hitches up the computer diagnostics and still can’t figure it out. Yet companies are rushing over themselves to ditch the higher-paid Billy Joe Jim Bobs of the world with the wet-behind-the-ears Tom Slicks, and we’re all suffering for it.
Anyway…
Should have a new post up tonight at midnight.
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I resent this post.
Welcome back, though!
Okay, Tom, I changed it for you. Now tell me your middle name is James…
I sense some frustration on your part…
As soon as we are willing to pay more for the better service, then we’ll get it. Unfortunately, the concept of “lower prices, better value” has brain-washed us. We want more for less, and what we get is less for less. Sure, prices have dropped, but so has the quality and value of what we get. I used to work for a company that provided technical support to BellSouth DSL customers. The company moved the call centers to the Phillipines because BellSouth was not willing to pay for the cost of the service from American shores. They told us to our face: “You’re the best in the business, but we can’t afford you.” And then laid us all off.
On a balance sheet, customer service is an expense, and is balanced by the asset of Goodwill. The less we pay for customer service, the less the goodwill. But customers also have a role to play, by realizing that customer service costs money, and someone has to pay for it.
David,
Cost of good customer service can ALWAYS be offset by eliminating waste. There’s not a business out there that isn’t crippled to some degree by wastefulness. Eliminate the waste and you can pay for anything.
Biggest waste? Junk for executives. Two thousand dollar office chairs. Forty-inch flat panel displays for their top-of-the-line computers used only to send e-mails. Stuff like that. You clean house on that bloat and you can pay for anything. Just eliminating departmental one-upmanship would go a long way to justifying better customer service. When you’ve got two departments trying to outdo each other on who can buy the most worthless junk, you can watch a lot of money fly out the window for bupkis.