How an incident with the family dog provided a memorable customer service experience.
My husband, son and I went to Montreal this weekend to visit with family and on our drive back home on Tuesday, about an hour and a half out, we received a few pictures from my daughter in addition to a panicked call.
Our 10 year old Husky/Bullmastiff, (Coco), was sick and dispensing it from both ends…. The initial deposit was made in the living room, after which she walked in it, trailed it over the tiles through the kitchen, down the hall across the front mats, threw up in the rubber shoe tray at the front and then proceeded to walk up the carpeted stairs to the upper hallway where she made her second deposit and laid down in it …. completely spent at this point!
From what I saw in the pictures my daughter had sent, we knew that a one day carpet cleaner rental would not do the trick. I called a large retailer in our city to ask if they sold any carpet cleaners that could handle the job.
The store’s customer service agent answered, I asked if they had any heavy duty carpet cleaning machines in stock, and without a word, I was put on hold.
Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed, and I asked my son if I could borrow his phone to call them from his mobile. The same agent answered, and I asked with whom I was speaking. She provided her name, and when I told her that I was on the other line on hold for almost twenty minutes now, she apologized and stated that the store was extremely busy. She then asked if she could call me back in half an hour with an answer, which was fantastic because at this point, we were just over an hour from home.
Thirty minutes passed, forty minutes, forty-five minutes…. I am STILL waiting for the call. We ended up stopping at a 2nd retailer in Burlington, where an associate was able to show us two models that would do the job and the associated products that he recommended. He even suggested an all-natural dog shampoo and told us which pet store nearby sold it.
With so many retailers, small and large adding an eCommerce component to their services, customer service centers are growing. It is important that the customer service attendants are experienced and know how to handle a call, and make the customer experience positive AND memorable.
Both retailers had the opportunity via their customer service experience to either help, or to add to the frustration… to win an advocate for their business. Not hard to guess who will be top of MY mind for any future needs…. Just sayin’
P.S. Coco is back to her rambunctious self and my carpets are clean again!
Idea Factor provides a full suite of marketing services including B2B lead generation (gathering qualified sales leads), surveys, data mapping, event tele-boosting, trade show follow up, in-bound and out-bound omni-channel call center services, data cleansing, list cleaning, customer retention and loyalty programs.
Our commitment to excellence in customer service has awarded us repeat business for more than 25 years, from both our global and community clients. To find out more go to www.idea-factor.com or look at our list of services here.
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