I have always held the belief that if a company must brag bodaciously about their customer service, or sidle up to your TV screen with a cowboy hat and smile, or insist that the blankity blank service gratification associations in their industry rate them platinum plus, that you probably will never see great product or service – or even find someone in the company that cares about you. Your money yes. You no.

Take The (blank)er Store for example. Now The (blank)er Store has an immense television presence. Top-of-the-line marketing. Their founder and big guy warms right up to you – you know, all warm-and-fuzzy like. Heck he could be your grandpa.

Want to talk to anyone but their sales force? Not in your lifetime. What are the clues that make my claim? Why am I just another (blanker)er?

1. When you call the telephone number listed on their website you are subjected to a commercial and wait two to five minutes – for a human if you’re lucky.

2. When you ask to speak to a “marketing manager” a script-fed maven on the phone asks you, :”Well did you want to be removed from our mailing list?” You say “No, I just wanted to talk to a manager in marketing.” You would think she would have no idea why I am calling. But the question she asked probably gives my query away – even to you. Maybe she does know why I’m calling. I’ll get to my reason later. At this point in a big happy, high-rated, best-in-its-class, highly-successful and service-oriented business it should not make a difference. I mean really, I just want to speak with a marketing manager, please.

3. The receptionist feigned not knowing who to transfer me to.

I say that because I waited another three minutes. She came back on the line and said she was transferring me to Stephanie Stevenson. (Hmmm, perhaps Larry Lawrence, Bill Williams, or Carly Carleton instead, but I digress.) I was connected to an audible black hole, only silence.

Yet I am a patient man in search of the truth so I continue to hold. Suddenly I get Julie’s voice mail. Her last name is unrelated to her first name. She has that manager quality tonality but I’m wondering. There was only one ring and then the voice mail announcement.

Well I leave a polite message with my home phone number since it is lunch time in Texas where Julie’s office is. When I’m eating rattle snake I would also rather not be interrupted.

“Julie, I was transferred to your voice mail, though I hope not intentionally. I have a concern that I hoped you might help me with. It took quite some time just to reach your voice mail. I would appreciate a return call at your earliest convenience. Thanks very much.”

4. Not one manager or executive is listed with a telephone number on their website. There are no email addresses either. It appears you have to go through Miss Call Screener aka Miss Justify Taking TheirCallFirst.)

5. The Maryland office is a distribution center with INSTANT voice mail.

6. An analysis of the website leads to few clues other than they have no desire to talk to you unless they have apparently met you first, want to talk to you on their terms, you know Miss Screener, or you have access to Texas telephone number records.

7. The website sends you a popup so a sales consultant can begin the assimilation process. While you are frustrated and searching for information the popup covers up the page and follows you around.

8. Executive names had to be found using Google.

The (blank)er Store has isolated itself from everyone EXCEPT the sale.

That should be a red flag to anyone actually interested in taking their television advertisements seriously. Perhaps it was my naivety. I had actually hoped the marketing person at a c0mpany that sells (blank)ers would find my story interesting and have some empathy for the situation in which their marketing efforts had placed me. They might have even been willing to help me get to the bottom it because as I would have told the marketing manager, “It probably isn’t your fault.” But, alas, I am unable to speak with Stephanie or Julie or even the big guy, old what’s-his-name. (I did forget it. Bad branding perhaps?)

When I am older, I will definitely look into competitive (blank)ers.

At this point I’m just going to throw the marketing correspondence this company sent to my home in the fireplace. It is addressed to my now deceased father. (It’s been awhile.) Some sleazoid at some “sales-lead” firm probably sold the name to The (blank)er Store, but I will never know who. I had it in my mind that I might be able to stop these letters because it isn’t the first. It is (blank)er’s first. As a customer-service professional it angers me that companies buy poorly vetted lists and in turn haven’t the courage to take a phone call.

So when The (blank)er Store or (blank)er and (blank)er tell you (yes I have an issue with them too) that their businesses are the best or the most successful at what they do, it may be because they choose their customer very carefully using aggressive marketing techniques. As a customer you should concern yourself with more than the company’s version of their success.

When they need to qualify you, establish your eligibility, or find out first if you are calling about their email list their (blank)ing product or service may not be exactly as they they claim.

©2012 Faster, better.... All Rights Reserved.

This season our family wanted to replace an old, inefficient refrigerator. The Nice Purchase Company (name changed to protect the innocent) had a nice LG refrigerator at a good price so we made the commitment. The delivery, water line, and old refrigerator pick up were scheduled for the same day, December 13, 2010. This was my understanding at the store as we ordered our appliance. We waited three weeks for the big day!

On Sunday, December 12 at about 0930 a voice mail message is left by the automated voice of the Optimum Purchase Company asking me to call 888-OptPurchase and ask for the Appliance Install department to verify someone over the age of 18 will be home during the “installation.”

Now I had been expecting a call from the May B. Blunt Delivery Company based on an email I received from Optimum Purchase. The delivery company was to deliver the refrigerator after having called me to set up a time. Well we assumed the telephone message we received on Sunday was made to do just that.

Now on Sunday I very anxiously returned the telephone call from the Optimum Purchase Company but reached a nice lady that said that office was closed until Monday at 7:00 AM. That being the case I dug out the ice cooler we use at the beach and a few boxes to temporarily hold food anticipating the refrigerator would go in as planned on the thirteenth.

On the morning of the thirteenth at about 7:15 AM we received a telephone from a cell phone. The caller was the old-refrigerator-haul-away guy. He said he would arrive in forty-five minutes. I thought, “Wow, they are really moving on this. Great.” They arrived when they said they would and hauled the old refrigerator away. As we had no room in the upstairs frig I put the frozen foods on the back porch. It was snowing. Lucky us.

A call was placed to the Optimum Purchase Company and I asked for the Appliance Install folks. Patricia, the operator transferred me after asking a few questions and connected me to the Appliance Install gal, Tawanda. I told Tawanda I was expecting my refrigerator to arrive and water line to be installed today and that the old-refrigerator-hail-away guy had just left with the old frig. Tawanda said that I did not need to speak with her, but that I needed to speak with a delivery person. She transferred me yet again.

A nice lady picked up after about two minutes. She checked my information and verified that the May B. Blunt Delivery Company was going to deliver my refrigerator but that would call first. The call I received on Sunday was probably to install the water line. She explained that she should cancel the water line install because they water-line installer would not install the water line unless the refrigerator was there. She also gave me the number of the May B. Blunt Delivery Company that I had yet to hear from.

While I was on the telephone with the delivery lady my caller ID indicated a call was coming through from the Optimum Purchase Company. When I hung up I used my caller ID to retrieve the number. Gosh, I was hopeful that this was information from May B. Blunt.

Alas, there was no area code for the telephone number. I tried a couple of local area codes but never connected to Optimum Purchase. As luck would have it, or at least I thought so at the time, I received a call from a Georgia area code from the Optimum Purchase Company. The rep was very kind. She wanted to confirm that the water line installation would be done between 0900-1300 hours. I told her I had not received the refrigerator from May B. Blunt yet. She said she would cancel the installation for today and gave me a telephone number to call when the refrigerator was delivered so I could schedule the water-line installation.

So here we are with a cooler and box full of frozen and other food items sitting on the back porch. The refrigerator isn’t here and probably will not be here today because I have not heard from May. B. Blunt even though I received an email indicating the refrigerator was due anytime but that I would get a call.

Having worked in customer service management occupations most of my career I was a bit aghast at the lack of coordination, confusion as to who does what to and for whom, and the number of disconnected people that appeared to be involved in the delivery and installation of our refrigerator. I understand now that this is going to be complicated.

The point is that customers have a choice. When a retailer makes a promise and it is not kept or only partially kept the retailer suffers a reputation hit. One would think that in tough economic times the retailer would take great care to coordinate and fulfill promises made to customers. It was painfully obvious to me that a manager of this retailer had not called his own numbers to verify their processes actually work or at least no one had called in a long time.

©2012 Faster, better.... All Rights Reserved.

In my personal journey toward faster and better, I discovered that telling a customer what you can do for them is far more successful than telling a customer what you cannot do for them. A positive can-do message even if it does not entirely meet the customer’s expectations builds on your honesty and integrity and that of the company.

Inexperienced sales clerks, tech support or customer service staff, supervisors, managers, and even owners often start a sentence with “We can’t” or “That isn’t possible” or We don’t do that, or a curt “That isn’t what we do here.” The first message the customer hears is NEGATIVE not the least bit positive. The first negative message sets the tone for the rest of the customer’s personal experience.

The primary responsibility of any staff member serving a customer is to create a positive experience. That customer’s experience should be one where the sale is closed, where an alternative product referral is made, and in the absence of the best option a positive discussion about the customer’s requirements demonstrating the company’s and your personal interest. You want that customer to return someday. Return business is likely when the customer believes you truly care – even if you did not have exactly what the customer needed.

Negative messages send customers out the door scratching their heads. They are wondering why they visited the store, signed up for that service contract, or took a chance with your product or establishment in the first place.

When a customer presents you with a need, fear, want, or desire and you cannot help that customer you have to ask yourself what you CAN do for them before you respond. Perhaps the simplest example occurs most frequently at the retail store. Let’s say a customer visits your hardware store to purchase a two-inch metal pipe used to route electrical wires. You know that your hardware store carries several sizes of the plastic type of conduit. You even have everything the customer would need in smaller diameter sizes of metal conduit. The larger size conduit ius typically used in new construction of business buildings and not homes. Your business serves primarily the local homeowner.

Your mission is not to use a negative message and not to use the word ONLY. As an example, “We only have one-half inch pipe” or “You’re in the wrong place for that.”

Using the words ONLY suggests to the customer that even YOU are disappointed you do not have what he or she needs. That’s not just a negative message it’s a downer from which it is hard to recover. Your can do message is developed in conversation by first taking the time to qualify the customer’s needs. Ask questions about the work the customer is doing that requires this product. Use those answers to determine if you have an in-house solution that meets the customer’s needs. I cannot even count the number of times I have made a sale when the customer came to me absolutely convinced they understood what they needed. They either were not completely informed or they were ready to hear about alternative methods or products.

Your product knowledge and experience gives you the clout to ask intelligent questions and at a minimum to locate a person in your company that can ask the right questions. Once you have clearly understoood the customer’s needs you make positive suggestions or internal and external referrals. You make the effort to describe what you do have and what you can do or sell to the customer under similar circumstances. Ask yourself, “What do I have here that can fulfill the customer’s need?”

The positive message may even be that you would like to help the customer find what he needs elsewhere because you know the best positive message may be an external referral. “I understand what you need the larger metal conduit for. That is the best choice, There is a company right here on Main Street that sells products like this to local electrical contractors. They have a retail desk. Would you like me to call them for you to see if that product is in stock?” You have not wasted your time. That positive message speaks highly of your product knowledge, your experience, the integrity of the company and it’s mission to serve it’s customers.

While you are serving this customer it probably doesn’t hurt to make a product suggestion from your store. You may even suggest that you have all the tools he or she needs to install the conduit or do any other work associated with the project.

Your marketing message, your store front, the way in which you greet customers in person or on the telephone should reveal your company’s pleasure that this customer visited or telephoned to ask their question.

Positive messages lead to sales, sales lead to profits, and profits lead to continued employment and the success of the company. Positive messages also build on the community perceptions of the company that it is more than a company that builds a good widget or one that carries brand name products.

Positive messages are made possible by training, product knowledge, personal experience, and company empowerment. Positive messages are not an accident. Companies that allow negative messages are missing out. Negative messages marginalize possibilities, minimize revenue, and reflect a company with a less-than-successful organizational attitude.

©2012 Faster, better.... All Rights Reserved.