When it comes to customer service, it matters. It is one of those things that I have always been quick to notice… and lately I’ve come across some amazing examples of it.
In the past 30 days I’ve received remarkable, incredible, stellar…. unbelievable service from several companies I have new relationships with. Stunning!
Observation: Start-ups have better customer service because they have to. They see the connection between a happy customer and their bottom line. They know that a happy customer will tell their friends about a fantastic experience. Conversely, they know that a bad customer experience will spread like wildfire. Incredible customer service is a cheap marketing strategy!
But start-ups aren’t the only ones with great customer service. That’s what makes AT&T and Apple such a crazy combination for the iPhone! AT&T has has had horrible customer service for decades and they are so big they don’t care one ounce. They know for every 10 customers they lose to bad customer service there are 10 more who will create a new account. And Apple has created a culture of stellar customer service to the point where people will spend an extra 1000 for a laptop just because they know if they ever have a problem they can take it back to the store.
Southwest Airlines is another long-standing company with stellar customer service. I’ve purchased tickets with them before, not read the rules, and had to call to ask a refund… even though I didn’t deserve one. Not only have they given it to me, they’ve always done it happily even though it was my mistake!
Why does stellar customer service matter? In today’s marketplace a purchase is all about the experience. If you go the extra mile your customers will love you forever. They will wear your t-shirts and brag to their friends that they are your client.
Customer experience is the next great wave of marketing.
In the last 30 days I lead a big change in how we send emails at work. We ditched our old email delivery service for MailChimp. One small part of the decision was that MailChimp offered a better price. That was important– but the selling point for me was stellar customer service.
There have been a couple of times recently when they lived up to that expectation. Last week I was trying to do something and couldn’t figure out how to make it work. So I dialed up their live chat and explained what I needed. The person told me that their system couldn’t do what I needed it to do, but it should. So, while I waited, they created a solution for me. Yeah, that’s unheard of!
So I wasn’t surprised to see that MailChimp had earned a 5-star rating for customer service from their customers. My question for them was, “How do you keep it up?” Check out the comment that Ben, one of the head chimps had to say:
His philosophy is, “Don’t just answer. Explain.”
Explain what’s happening, so the customer learns something. People like to learn, so you just made them happy. The bonus, when you explain, is they won’t do it again.
So everything we do is based on “explaining things.”
All departments are focused on the customer experience. Here are some of the strategical things we’re doing in each department.
Design:
- Build the product so it “explains” while you use it. That’s ongoing and never ending. Help text, hints, intuitive interfaces, usability tests with customers. We’re hooked on clicktale, crazy egg, google analytics, yslow.
Hiring:
- Only hire people who are smart and who like to explain. No call center drones.
Marketing:
- This, IMHO, is the biggest one. Do our best to only attract customers who like learning, who have a good sense of humor, and who like to tinker. We call them “power users.” Scare away customers who need too much hand-holding (either because they’re too new to email marketing, or they think they know everything, but ironically, demand account executives to help them with everything). Big giant monkeys on our home page, and saying stuff like “reports that’ll make you poop your pants” tends to do the trick. 
If you attract the wrong people with the wrong expectations, they will never, ever be satisfied.
Webinars:
Weekly webinars that go over all the basics. Right now, Dan does them. Soon, every member of the customer service team will do them. Terror and stage fright keeps things fun.
MailChimp Academy:
- Videos teach people how MailChimp works so they can learn on their own time. They’re on mailchimpacademy.blip.tv, but also peppered throughout the product.
There are a million other things the customer service team is experimenting with, but that’s sort of a high level view of our strategy.
The question is… how does this philosophy work in the world you work in?
The other day our youngest son had his mom’s iPod Touch with him as he headed to the bathroom. Resting the device near the sink seemed safe. That is, until he started washing his hands. Moments later he came back out and handed a soaking wet iPod to his mom.
Fearing the worst we fired it up and were happy to see that it was still working. But on further inspection it was clear that there was some moisture under the screen.
Never fear, we have a fix for that! Actually, this works for iPods, cell phones, and pretty much any small electronic advice that’s a little bit wet. Put this tip in your arsenal.
Step One: Power off the device as soon as possible. For an iPod that just means shutting it down. But if it has a battery or is connected to a power supply… turn it off quickly!
Step Two: Dry it off as well as possible with what is visible to you. Don’t take anything apart. Don’t shake it. Just get it dry as possible with a towel.
Step Three: Wrap it in a paper towel and place it a ziplock bag. Don’t seal the ziplock bag! That’ll just make things worse.
Step Four: Place the bag in a window sill or on the dashboard of your car.
Step Five: Give it some time. A day usually seems to do the trick.
Step Six: Take it out of the bag and fire it up.
Typically, this process will remove moisture from circuitry. If it doesn’t fire up it’s safe to say that you have cooked a board or something like that. You can try the process again but if it doesn’t turn on at all it’s not looking good. For us, this process has fixed several phones and, we’re happy to report, removed moisture from mommy’s iPod screen.
What if this doesn’t work? If there is a major problem and this didn’t work I’d suggest talking to my friends at The Pod Drop. Seriously, these guys are better than Apple repair. Typically, Apple will just give you a new one and if isn’t under warranty they will tell you to buy a new one. I’ve seen it myself, the folks at The Pod Drop can bring back almost any DOA iPod. Even better, if they look at it and it can’t be repaired they will likely buy it from you for parts and apply that towards the purchase of a new one.
As I posted a few days ago our family got a new HDTV for Christmas. Since this was our first forray into HDTV, I didn’t have many of the cables I’d need to fully enjoy the full quality. Specifically, it left me with 3 problems I wanted to fix. First, I want to play Nintendo Wii in widescreen so I needed a non-standard cable. Second, I wanted the audio from the cable box to our audio system to have the optical audio cable. In truth, I’ve wanted this cable for more than 6 years but didn’t want to pay $50 for it. Third, I wanted an HDMI cable to connect the TV to the cable box to get the best possible signal.
So Paul and I headed to Target. Those cables were going to cost me more than $100 total! So, then we went to Radio Shack. They had a 6 foot HDMI cable for over $100 by itself. Out of frustration I posted a couple comments about it on Twitter.
That’s when Peggy suggested Monoprice.com. Let me tell you… I am glad she did. Instead of paying $100-150 retail for those three cables I paid $22, including tax and shipping.
Long story short. Don’t get ripped off at Target or Radio Shack with their cable or HDTV accessories. Go straight to a supplier and pay wholesale.
UPDATE: I got the cables a couple of days later. They were AMAZING quality. That’s right, I got better and longer cables for about 10% of the price of retail. What’s not to love?
