…in 3 easy steps!
Step 1: Take 19 days to reply to a customer service-type question.
Here’s a real-life example. My husband and I have what we call a “sucky thing”–one of those vacuum sealer things to preserve food. And boy-howdy, does it suck. It has, in fact, broken after hardly any use but months after its purchase. I contacted the maker asking what could be done about it. Here below is the reply.
From: RivalService <RivalService@speedymail.com>
Date: July 9, 2007 12:39:15 PM PDT
To: XXXXXX@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Rival Comments/Questions – From Leslie Dell’Acqua [#1751106]
Reply-To: RivalService@speedymail.comLeslie,
It can be replaced under warranty and you would need to send the seal a meal back to us and pay for all of the shipping and handling charges. Feel free to contact the Holmes customer service line at 1-800-777-5452 to have it replaced under warranty. Ruben
–Original Message–
From: XXXXXX@gmail.com
Date: 6/20/2007 1:30:18 PM
To: RivalService@speedymail.com
Subject: Rival Comments/Questions – From Leslie Dell’Acqua
Sure, they offer to repair/replace it if I pay for shipping both ways (about the cost of a new one, btw, maybe more with the mysterious “handling” charge), but note the date on my original request (6/20) and the response (7/9).
Step 2: Call your email “speedymail” (note the return email address) but take almost 3 weeks to reply.
Step 3: Get your customer’s name wrong (left out the “Burns-” part).
We won’t even mention that the correct spelling of the product’s name is “Seal-A-Meal”– a registered trademark with hyphens.
Sure, your clients might take forever to get back to you, and often they won’t even bother to let you know when you don’t get a project, but you don’t get that same luxury. Reply within 1 business day to any contact–even if it is just to say “I’m swamped and will get back to you shortly.” Also, get her/his name right. And yours, too.
Think I’m going to buy another Rival product any time soon? Your clients have even shorter fuses. It’s a simple thing to stay in contact today, and its payoffs are big.
It can be deadly these days for consumer companies to fall short of expectations. One can’t begin to calculate what poor customer service can do in this blogging age. Even though I have no current need for one of those “sucky things”, I wouldn’t even think of buying one from Rival after reading your post.