Slightly Askew

I wrote my first ever Amazon review a few days ago.

It was about the rather wonderful Kenwood Smoothie To Go SB055.  Here’s a brief excerpt:

This smoothie maker will not, of course, change your life. But it will make you forget all those horribly awkward previous incarnations that got used once every six months. You know the ones: dishwasher safe but too big to fit in the dishwasher; quickly became scummy around seals and spouts.

Good eh?

I got a warm fuzzy feeling from writing that review - albeit a capitalist one.  Rewarding Kenwood for their innovation by giving prospective customers a delicate but honest shove in the right direction - at zero cost to supplier or customer.  The only cost is my time.

You do it too.  Maybe not on Amazon, and maybe not with the verve and swagger of I, but you do do it.

Down the pub, over dinner, or on the phone.  We’re always talking about products that make us happy, or service that makes us frustrated (if you want frustration, try finding a customer support number in 30 seconds on www.123-reg.co.uk).

So if you want more customers, give your existing customers - and anybody else for that matter - something good to talk about.

Easter eggs anyone?

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Me and the lady were being good citizens on Saturday: paying-in some money for a friend at a high street building society who are, apparently, proud to be different.

In walked a young couple.  They went to one of those ask-a-question queues (we were in the cashier queue, there was a queue for the machines, and a queue of people wondering what queue to join).  The male-half of the couple spoke.

I’d like to change my address please.

I really wanted to make an amusing comment about needing an estate agent instead of a building society, but my seldom-seen restraint kicked-in.  The customer services representative (or whatever his job title was) responded.

Okay sir, I’m going to need you to fill in one of these forms.

As if people don’t have enough bloody forms to fill in when they’re moving house, I thought, restraint still intact.

Well, how long’s it gonna take?  Cos I’m trying to buy something over the internet and I can’t cos my address don’t match the one on the card.

Surely it would be instant, wouldn’t it?  All they have to do is change a record on a database.

We have to post it to central records, sir.  It will take a few days….

…but since I’m in a good mood, and it’s an exceptionable circumstance, I’ll do it for you today.

What?

You’re in a good mood?  What’s that got to do with some bloody customer service?  Just change the fucking address!  And if you can do it instantly for them, you can do it instantly for every other person that needs to change their address.  I can’t imagine they get more than five requests a day.

If there’s a logical shortcut that improves the standard of customer service, make that shortcut the standard.

Surely?

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Anyone who’s read the the bit on the left that says a little about me will know that one day I hope to have a cat.  Writers have cats.  Farmers have cows.  Scary people have violent dogs.  That’s just the way the world works.

Caroline found a cat last week.  It was crying by the roadside.  She brought it home and gave it food and water.  It was gone the next morning, but it came back.  Again, we gave it food and water.  We gave it our attention, and it stayed with us in the garden until we went indoors.  The next day it came back again.

Give a cat food and water and it might come back.  Show it some affection too, and it almost certainly will.

Maybe cats are like customers.

If you give customers a product or service at a good price, they’ll come back. But only until they find someone else who offers a good price.

If you give customers a great product or great service at a good price, they’ll come back.  But only until they find someone else with a great product or great service at a good price.

So how do you keep them coming back after that?

Make them smile.

Happiness is a bloody powerful emotion.  Some songs make me happy.  Some adverts make me happy.  Some products make me happy.

Make me happy and I will remember you.  I will keep coming back to you.  Great products, great service, and good prices are what I expect from any business with half-an-ounce of common sense.

Do more.

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