I have had occasion in the past 2 weeks to have my computer tower fixed – when I say fixed I do mean that quite loosely. The whole experience has been a reminder to me that our service and how we approach our customers is the key element in everything we do. I can only say that my computer experience has been a nightmare from start to finish. So far I have made 5 trips to either drop off or collect my system and at the moment it’s back being fixed again – this to a company who advertises a collection and delivery service!
When I finally lost the will to live and tried to complain about the service, the final chapter in this catalogue of horrors went beyond my wildest dreams. When I finally got hold of the owner I was met by such a complete lack of interest and concern I was truly astounded, I listened on the other end of the line while he discussed both the PC and myself with his colleagues and after I finished explaining what had gone wrong and asked what he was going to do to put it right all I heard was ‘right, hold on’ and he proceeded to resume his conversation about me and the tower with his staff. At this point I must admit to being slightly put out and so I hung up. It then got better, I was called back by his receptionist, who told me the same thing I had been told by the technician earlier and there it stopped, I had to suggest that maybe they could drop the working and checked system back to me rather than making me come out for the sixth time and this was, I concede, agreed to. At no point has anyone simply said sorry and meant it, I’ve heard a cursory ‘sorry love’ in passing but never a proper apology.
All this made me think about how we treat our customers – have we ever done this? We all make mistakes as we’re all human but to ignore it and pretend it never happened is surely the quickest way to destroy any reputation we may have. We made a mistake last week with a customer, it was a genuine case of lack of communication, however, we apologised at length and with sincerity, collected the car the next day and diagnosed the fault. The customer has now accepted the apology and has booked in to have the work carried out with us. Had we treated that customer with the attitude and ineptitude I have been subject to we would never have seen him again and our reputation would have taken a hit.
Without a consistently high standard of customer service we won’t have a business for long – who wants to spend money with people that don’t care and can’t be bothered to hide it? I don’t - I would rather support local businesses who value me as a customer and do what they say and hopefully that’s why as we begin preparations to enter our next year in business we’re proud to say we have customers still with us from day one, still supporting us and still referring us and to them I would say a heartfelt and sincere thank you.
