© 2010, Barry L. Linetsky, All Rights Reserved
In a free market society, a business exists to serve its customers through voluntary trade. That’s why customer service is an ethical issue.
When a company fails to provide reasonable service, it fails its customers. When its failure is an intentional act, it commits an ethical indiscretion, a customer betrayal, perhaps even fraud.
Sometimes we come across a business that actually takes its customer service responsibilities seriously, as they properly should. Such companies should be commended for their ethical behaviour as an act of encouragement.
Within the context of today’s cultural ethos of corporate entitlement and lack of personal responsibility and respect of the individual, those businesses that make it their policy and put in place the methodology and culture to provide “wow” service should be acknowledged as heroic. They are usually rewarded with repeat business through customer loyalty and exuberant word-of-mouth praise, the most effective marketing communication methodology known to mankind.
We’ve all heard legendary service stories that are truly heroic, where an employee has gone to extraordinary lengths to serve a customer by driving a briefcase out to the airport, or making a special delivery on Christmas Eve, etc. These are wonderful and commendable events that exemplify a commitment on the part of individuals to deliver great service. But what is truly heroic from a business perspective are the achievements of staff at companies where “wow” service doesn’t appear to be heroic because it’s what they do every day. These are the companies that have recognized that their business exists to serve customers, and so they develop a culture of customer service that is integrated across the organization and through all of its systems and processes, and reflected in its policies, management, leadership, and treatment of its staff. Such an achievement is no easy task. If it were so, everyone would be doing it.
The Walt Disney Corporation is a company that exemplifies customer service excellence, at least as it relates to the management of their theme parks. Great Disney stories about “wow” service are readily abundant. They happen all the time. People return to Disney parks year-after-year because Disney creates and delivers great experiences.
Yet more than half a century after Disneyland opened in 1955, it is remarkable is that so few companies have been able to aspire to and successfully follow the Disney lead. That’s because Walt Disney came to quality and service as a basic personal value. He understood that a commitment to providing customers what they want is the only ethical way to earning profits.
In today’s nihilistic age, few executives perceive business fundamentals as an ethical imperative. Most eschew ethics in favour of pragmatism. In doing so, they put profits ahead of an integrated pursuit of business fundamentals and philosophic world outlook.
It is for this reason that as consumers we so rarely experience great service from any company, and when we do we are shocked out of our complacency of nil to low expectations to become company evangelists.
BOSE Corporation: Service Heroes
These musings about service excellence were induced by a recent experience of great service from Bose Corporation, service that made me feel that this company is as passionate about ensuring that it takes care of its customers as is Disney; that for Bose, service excellence is a matter of ethical principle, not pragmatic expedience. Bose makes high quality sound and speaker systems.
About a dozen years ago I purchased one of their LifeStyle stereo systems that included a 6 CD changer, very small cube speakers, and a big sub-woofer. I listened to it every day in my office and received great enjoyment from its high quality sound and elegant design.
One day this past November I hit the remote control to start the CD player and just like that, it wasn’t working. So I called up Bose support to see if there was a reset button or some other easy solution to my problem. Unfortunately there was not. The fellow I spoke to at their call-centre said I could send it in for repair - they have a fixed price repair policy - which would cost me about $220. Or, as an alternative, which he offered without prompting on my behalf, I could purchase any Bose system to replace it at 50% off, or I could buy their top of the line 3-2-1 Home Theater system for a price that was about one-third of the retail selling price of $1,799.
Wow, I thought, that’s some offer. That’s great service. They anticipated my needs and quickly provided some options that were of real value to me to ensure my needs were satisfied.
I decided that it was better to pay a few hundred dollars more to have a new system than to repair an old system, so I ordered the system right then on the phone, paid by credit card, and received an email containing an order confirmation and mailing label with a bar code. I was required to package up my old system, attach the mailing label, and send it back to Bose at my expense before they would send out the new one. (Too bad, I was hoping to keep those little speakers). This was a bit of a problem because I had to find a box that the oversized elongated sub-woofer would fit into. It took me a couple of weeks to find an appropriate box to package up the system. I couldn't get the speaker stands into the box, so I taped them to the side and shipped it overnight to Bose.
Three business days later my new system arrived at my office, which means they had shipped it within 24 hours of receiving my system. The paper work had all been done before hand, so I guess that when they scanned the bar code of the incoming system they released the outgoing replacement and processed my payment. I received an e-mail from the courier company with the shipping info and a tracking number so I could track the delivery online.
Where my old system played CDs, the new system also plays DVDs and includes a hard drive to store 200 hours of music, so I decided I could make better use of it at home attached to my TV than at the office.
A couple of weeks before Christmas I finally got the new system home and went to set it up. I popped open the box, and realized that I shouldn't have sent back the speaker stands because they were bought separately. Duh – Homer Simpson moment.
Now I'm thinking that I’ll have to go out to buy new speaker stands to mount the speakers on. But hold on. I began to think about how impressed I’ve been with Bose and the outstanding level of service they have provided to me already. Maybe they realized that I had sent in the stands in error and are holding them for me! Could they be that good? So I get back on the phone and call Bose.
I tell my story to the service rep – he’s in Massachusetts and I’m in Canada – and he tells me it’s unlikely that the warehouse still has the speaker stands, but he asks me to hold. About 30 seconds later he’s back on the line telling me that he's shipping new stands out to me today, gratis.
Wow, I say. That's really great.
He says Bose should have told me not to send the speaker stands.
I say, we'll you couldn't have known I had speaker stands.
He tells me it's their job to know.
The very next day the stands arrive, shipped overnight by courier! How awesome is that?
So now I'm a raving fan of Bose not only for their great products, but also for their customer service.
All through this process, from the failure of their equipment after more than ten years, to dealing with my stupidity for sending back my speaker stands, they took control of the situation, treated me with dignity, and made it impossible for me to have any reason to even consider taking my business elsewhere. They were reliable, responsible, empathetic, prompt, courteous, friendly, generous, and handled everything beyond the level I would have expected as my standard for excellent service.
As I told this story to people it was interesting to see how cynical many were. Yes, it would have cost them more to track down the old stands in some warehouse and package them up and hold them for pick-up or shipping, than it was to ship me new ones.
But they didn’t have any obligation to replace them at their expense. I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t try to recover some of the cost by, for example, asking me to pay half, or pay for the shipping because it was my fault I sent them back in the first place. There was none of that. The service rep comes back on the phone and inquires: you have black speakers in the box, right?
Me: Affirmative.
Bose: I'm sending new stands out to you and they'll ship today.
Me: Could you send them to my home instead of my office?
Bose: Could I have your postal code.
I provide my postal code. He affirms my address. Done. Thanks for calling Bose.
That’s great customer service as service should be. That's how you win raving fans and lifelong customers!
Another person indicated that the reason Bose is able to provide such great service is because they sell a premium priced product with a significant profit margin; that they choose to use their revenue to support service.
This appears to be true. And that’s how it should be if you want to be a great company rather than a flash-in-the-pan has-been brand struggling to win new customers while being abandoned by existing customers.
All purchases come with both explicit and implied customer promises – and as a customer, you expect to receive what the company promises. But you can’t test a promise until it is time for redemption. The real test of a company’s integrity is when something goes wrong. When that happens too many companies won't even stand up for their basic promises. Too many would rather spend a lot of time, money and effort wearing you down rather than winning you over.
Consider this typical example. I once tried to exchange a garden flower box I bought to a smaller size at a very popular chain of local garden stores a number of years ago. They refused. They pointed to their posted return/exchange policy of six days! Six days – not seven days. That means if you shop on Saturday and wait until the following Saturday to return or exchange it, you have to create a scene. That’s an explicit anti-customer service policy and I’m happy to say that the company has since gone out of business. I can’t even conceive how they could have considered that to be a policy that was anything but harmful to their business and destructive to their brand. They committed customer service suicide.
It is true that you often get better service or more respect when you pay a premium price, and you should get what you pay for. But we all know that too often you still get treated poorly. It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science (and a degree in business management may be detrimental here) to recognize that if as a business you are going to aspire to brand excellence, then it has to be reflected in every policy, and show at every point of customer contact.
I assume that Bose call-center employee in Massachusetts who took a call from some foreigner who was dumb enough to send back his speaker stands with his stereo handles these kinds of calls everyday. He didn't ask for proof of purchase or even check with the Canadian distribution centre to verify that I was telling him the truth. He didn't have to open a file, collect all kinds of information from me, and get approval from his managing supervisor. The company already had a process in place to guarantee customer satisfaction before the customer called. They had a process in place so that the customer would perceive their ubiquitous service delivery as heroic.
Too few businesses understand that at the centre of brand is the customer experience. To be a great brand takes great effort – heroic effort – but when done right it wins customer loyalty and if other aspects of the business are managed appropriately, results in long-term business success. Bose did it right and made me feel good. Know that if you choose to buy Bose, great service is part of the package that you pay for.
Air Canada: Service Villains
In contrast to great service, here's what's more typical: the creation of policies and procedures by retrograde and anti-social executives that will make themselves and their employees look and feel like morons and sociopaths. Many such executives apparently have an attraction for working in the airline industry. A long time ago now, in what was likely the good old days of airline service compared to today, Air Canada bumped my wife and I off our honeymoon flight because, they said, we didn't call the airline 24 hours in advance to confirm our booking. But I have non-refundable, non-transferable tickets, I said, so choosing another flight wasn't an option. The service attendant then made a big stink about it, citing the company policy and how they have the right to bump people with non-refundable, non-transferable tickets without notifying said people, all the while holding up the rest of the customers, now anxious to find out if they too have been bumped from the flight. Finally, after conferring with higher powers, we were moved up to business class seats, and made sure that we clearly understood that these service reps were going out of their way to make an exception for us only because we were on our honeymoon, and that we ought to be grateful that they had gone the extra mile to be helpful. It’s twenty years later and I still haven’t forgiven them, and continue to look forward to reading about their ongoing troubles, even though their service may not be any worse than anyone else's in the industry. Nonetheless, their friendly and pleasant anti-customer attitude remains the same.
It is against these kinds of experiences and the low level of expectations they endeavour that I come to judge Bose, and Bose Corporation knows it and thus uses service as a lever of differentiation. Praise be to Bose, for their entertainment components and their commitment to high ethical standards of service excellence.
