Customer Service: How do you handle your ‘Moments of Truth?”

A few weeks ago, I traveled to PLANET’s Green Industry Great Escape to network and learn from some of the best landscape companies in North America.  It was an amazing week with new and old friends, learning about their businesses, and learning from the educational sessions.  One thing that always seems to enter a conversation with me is customer service.  It’s paramount in today’s unique marketplace…

It’s been said by smarter people than me that there’s opportunity in failure. No, we’re not talking about taking a step off a cliff or falling off a ladder. There’s not much good that can come from either of these “poor” moves. Instead, we’re talking about failing to deliver prompt and precise customer service, the complaint about which is “your moment of truth.”  Can you satisfy the customer and ultimately rectify the situation and save the account, or will you let this “opportunity” become your second failure.  Being an avid baseball fan, I’ve always thought you get three strikes before you’re out.  With poor customer service it takes only two.

Many of you know how vocal I’ve been about some poor customer service I’ve received from AT&T. It took me literally eight months to resolve a static-filled line, wrong number, slow internet, failure to issue a credit service-circus with them.  In my book, that was a big strike one!  I realized a few days before I was leaving for the Bahamas that my phone would not work down there, and I had clients who needed to access me via text, phone and email, so I had to add the International Plans to my AT&T cellular plan.   So, when it came time to add an international text, data, and calling plan to my phone, I held my breath for strike two …. And they’re out.

It didn’t happen, folks. Nope, AT&T came through like a champ and gave me tremendous customer service. What can I say? They took a very bad experience and turned it around by giving me excellent customer service the very next time, and followed it up with a three-question customer survey that indicated they truly cared about improving their service.  I was not only surprised that they cared what I thought (is my account flagged for receiving past horrible customer service??), but that they sent the survey via text.  Easy, fast, and focused on making it EASY  ON THE CUSTOMER.  Check out the screenshots below of the survey.   Pretty cool, huh?

You know, the truth is, no matter what business you’re in and how good you think your service is, it can always be better. I got GREAT service from Steve at AT&T and the company followed up with a text message survey. What innovative things are you doing in your biz for good customer service?   Do you have something as EASY as a text message Customer Service survey for your clients?  What do you do that makes it EASY to do business with you?