Customer service isn’t what it used to be … in ways both good and bad.
I recently ordered a dishwasher from a major U.S. retailer, received a delivery date for the dishwasher and all was good. One day before the delivery date, I received a call pushing the date back a week. On delivery day, two hours after I was supposed to have received the dishwasher I was told it wasn’t on the truck. I had to press them for information about what exactly that meant … would I get it later in the day? In a week? Next month?
Ten minutes later, I received a call asking me how the delivery service went. Salt in the wound. I let them know there was no delivery, and they said they’d find out what was going on and get back to me within the hour. That follow up never happened, and I never heard from the folks who had said they’d get back to me.
That’s the bad.
The good? I was able to use Twitter to resolve the issue by reaching the company’s dedicated support. There were no long hold lines on the phone, no getting bounced from person to person, and I had immediate feedback. Granted, I cancelled the order and bought from someone else, but the fact that I was able to get instant feedback from a real human being via Twitter to resolve the issue made the experience convenient, and increased the chances that this negative experience wouldn’t turn me away from the brand permanently.
In this issue of CAR WASH Magazine, we tackled several issues around the concept of the modern customer experience. While some things remain true at the core of the experience, there’s no doubt that the landscape is ever-evolving in how customers expect to conduct commerce and interact with brands. For me, and many customers today, the expectation is that I’m able to interact with brands in ways that result in quick feedback and during hours that work for me, not the business.
Smart companies know they need to evolve. For example, loyalty programs have long been a way to keep your customers incentivized to increase their spend with your brand. Best Buy’s loyalty program has more than 40 million members, and has been in place since 2003. That’s one heck of a pool of customers. But, even with 40 million people, Best Buy decided in 2013 to revamp the program to meet changes in the retail landscape … proving that even a successful loyalty program needs reworked at some point. What does your loyalty program look like?
You’ll find insight on all of these items in this edition of CAR WASH Magazine. We cover the next version of loyalty programs, handling hostile customers in today’s tech-savvy world, and give you a look at myths that undermine customer satisfaction.
In this issue, you’ll also find data from our 2014 Consumer Study, which indicates that more people are choosing to use a professional car wash. And, of course, there is our usual array of industry information, professional profiles and a marketing missive about online reputation management from our friend Champ Savage.
As always, if there is something you’d like to see covered that we haven’t already or if you have a suggestion for how we can make this publication more valuable, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
Sincerely,
Matt DeWolf
