Let me get right to the punch line . . . good customer service is so easy because customers’ expectations are so low.  It’s a relative thing.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it shouldn’t be that way, but it is and aggressive companies should be taking advantage of the fact that their customer’s have been beaten down by suppliers for so long that a simple recognition of the fact that they paid money is enough to make them happy.  In a world with few initial differentiators and almost no sustainable differentiators, customer service can make all the difference in making sure you beat your competition, get repeat sales and have a customer base that is your best and biggest marketing department.

So here’s a story from a recent experience that might make this more clear . . .

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve flown something like a gajillion miles on United Airlines.  There’s a nice trophy stating this fact in a box in my basement somewhere.  As you’d expect, though, other than a mass-produced plaque with my name on it, United never recognizes this fact and it, along with $9.58 might get me a mint, double-hot, no-foam, low-fat, grande mochachino latte at Starbucks.  All of the crappy seats, snitty flight attendants, flight delays and United’s patented smelly lavatories (what’s up with that anyway?) are mine for the taking, just like they are for everyone else.  Further, I don’t look forward to a pleasant or enjoyable flight.  I actually pray for a safe flight that gets me to my destination within some reasonable deviation from the scheduled arrival time.  It’s a school bus with wings and that’s all I’ve come to expect out of it.

So, wasn’t I pleasantly surprised (shocked, actually) when a flight a few weeks ago on United offered a positively memorable experience?  The toilets still stunk and the plane looked like it was previously used to transport cattle, but the crew was phenomenal and it it made the rest of the experience a total non-issue.  From what I could see, this all stemmed from the attitude and direction of the captain who seemed not only responsible for operating the 757, but for the happiness of his passengers, too.  What a concept!

What he did to make this happen – at least the stuff I witnessed – was simple, cost virtually nothing and took little time.  While the passengers were waiting in the boarding area to get on the plane, the captain took the microphone (uh, oh, I thought, this is gonna be bad) and gave us the complete low-down of the flight plan, the plane’s status, the crew and what was happening at both the departure and arrival airports.  No bad news.  No delays.  It’s not like he had to be out there for bad news, he was essentially out there for no news – just for the customers.  He told us that it might get a little bumpy over the Midwest and that they’d try to skirt the storms that were creating the turbulence.  What made this different from the usual pre-flight blather was that he 1. covered a pretty complete list of the stuff a passenger would want to know, 2. showed empathy to those who might be concerned about turbulence and, 3. DID IT FACE-TO-FACE.  Instead of being the anonymous voice in the the speaker, he took the time to explain this stuff standing among us.  Simple, good, unique.

Then, as we boarded the plane, the captain stood at the door and handed out his business card (which had a phone number and email address) to every passenger that boarded.  I asked him if he should be spending his time doing his pre-flight checks and he told me they were already done.  He said: “I just show up a few minutes earlier so that it doesn’t hold up the passengers.”  I have to hire this guy.

To top it all off, about midway through the flight, a flight attendant brought me back another business card from the captain.  This one was signed and had a small note hand-written on the back.  “Thank you Mr. Herman for your support of United and for flying a gajillion miles with us.”  It was in the database, he just chose to use the information to recognize a customer.

His attitude was contagious.   The flight attendants were smiling and attentive, people actually listened when announcements were made and the passengers talked about how great United is during the flight.  My water glass never reached half-empty because there was someone always attentively refilling it, and I don’t only mean that metaphorically. 

Oh yeah, there’s one more thing.  At the arrival gate, the captain waited, shaking people’s hands as they disembarked, thanking them for flying United and asking if they had any questions.  I almost had a stroke.

I’d estimate that virtually everyone on that flight considered United to be a good choice for their next journey – even the jaded ones like me.  Service is so bad that even a small offering of reasonable service changes our entire mind set.  Just think of all the low-cost, easy-to-implement things you could do for your customers to get that same kind of response.

A few days ago, I wrote a post titled, Caught in a Geek’s Gravitational Field.  The truly unimportant post just outlined the geeky stuff that I have been working on and the fact that the mess I have been making has gotten me into an infinite loop of debugging, fixing and re-breaking many things simultaneously.  In describing the my dilemma, I mentioned several products that I have been having particular difficulties with.  Surprisingly, within hours, I began hearing from representatives of a couple of these companies expressing concern, making suggestions and offering services.

I was shocked for a variety of reasons . . . 

• First, and like most people, I don’t expect to get good support even when I ask for it and I certainly don’t expect it to be offered without me asking
• Second, the post was created on a Saturday morning on the East Coast and I had responses that morning
• Third, the people who responded were not regular readers of this blog so they were searching for people like me
• Fourth and perhaps most surprising, the two products I got virtual immediate responses about were free versions of the companies’ offerings

You can see some of the interest shown by these companies – Telligent, the creators of Community Server and VMware, the creators of a wide range of computer virtualization products – in the comments following the post.  Both followed up further via email as well, making sure they closed the loop.  Needless to say, I was extremely impressed with both companies’ efforts.

So, if this isn’t an indication of how the business world is changing, I don’t know what is.  Here I am, an individual using free software, getting offers of support from companies on a Saturday morning.  I didn’t complain or bad-mouth these companies. I didn’t advise that others steer clear.  I completely understand the fact that the solutions I was using were free and I get exactly what I pay for.  Nonetheless, these companies or, at least, their representatives, understood the value of a happy customer (perhaps especially one who blogs).  They were actively searching for me to make sure that I had support and to get feedback about how they can make their products better for people like me the next time. 

This is how you create loyalty folks.  Time to step up the support efforts if you want to compete.

The whole situation is even more impressive for me in light of the horrible customer support experience I’m having with another product/company that has been part of my geeking activities.  As part of my server rebuild project, I chose a new 3Ware RAID controller.  The documentation sucked, but the installation was fairly straightforward.  The RAID array (initially 3-750GB drives later to be expanded to 4-750GB drives as part of the project) was slow to initialize and get running, but it was reasonable enough.  Extending the array with the fourth drive took 5 full days.  Even though this is entirely out of whack, I didn’t complain nor put in a support request.  Now, however, I can’t get the Windows Server 2003 to recognize the larger array and this is a problem.  I put in a support request on Saturday and didn’t hear back until Monday.  After explaining my situation in detail via email, the response I got was a terse sentence telling me that the 3Ware controller was right and Windows 2003 was wrong.

That’s it.  That was their response.  Not how to fix it.  Not where to go to read more.  Not even a request for more information.  Just, we’re right and they’re wrong.  Very helpful (dripping of sarcasm).  I took a deep breath and replied politely that the response I got wasn’t very helpful and repeated my problem using words that an 8-year old might understand.  To this, I got another response telling me that I’m calculating Kbytes incorrectly (1,000 vs 1,024) and that I shouldn’t eexpect more space when adding a fouth 750GB drive.  I’ve just responded again suggesting that being off 750GB in a 3TB array could not possibly be because I’m miscalculating the size.  You get the idea here.  I’m frustrated and I’m not holding out a lot of hope for getting this problem resolved.

Would I acquire another product, even one I paid for from Telligent or VMware.  You bet.  From 3Ware, I don’t think so.  The guys I’ve paid $0 are supporting me like a valued customer.  The vendor that I’ve paid loads of money to is putting the least effort into support possible.

There’s the reality of quality customer support.