It’s somehow tragic: a parody of why a company would do customer service in the first place:
Imposing rules that keep your staff from helping.
Denying them the tools to actually do their jobs.
And lastly, replacing the tools with phrases that sound helpful but aren’t.
- Customer: unhappy.
- Employee motivation: Zero.
- Job: done.
Great customer service comes from a culture, not from a handbook
Luckily,
not all businesses work like that. We’ve been searching out examples of
delightful customer interactions that had very little to do with
handbooks - and everything to do with a service mentality and culture.
So here’s a small roundup of inspiring stories of employees dealing with customer problems in unusual ways. Enjoy!
1. Resourceful: John Lewis organises snowstorm sleepover
One
afternoon just before Christmas in 2009, High Wycombe is hit by a
sudden blizzard. Roughly 100 people end up stranded in the John Lewis
store, unable to get home. What happens next, is unbelievable: The store
team mobilises all available resources and organises an in-store
sleepover, effectively turning the bed department into an impromptu
B&B.
We simply LOVED this when we heard about it.
So we interviewed Deborah Strazza, the store manager. There was such
mojo in her telling of the story that we turned the recording into an
'audiodeck". If you can't view the story here, you can also find it on
the Prezi website.
2. In character: Captain Mike of Netflix provides Trekkie support
This
one became a bit of an internet sensation when it went viral. “Captain
Mike Mears of the good ship Netflix” and customer “LT Norm” conducted an
entire support conversation as characters from Star Trek.
They
never fall out of character and their dialogue is a delightful read,
complete with trekkie in-jokes, and using language of different military
ranks discussing an engineering problem. An amazing example of a real
connect between company and customer - and a refreshing shift away from
soulless support conversations clicked together from boilerplate text.
3. On the house: Wolfgang Puck feeds a desperate kid
A
son flying home as an unaccompanied minor calls his dad during a
layover at Chicago O’Hare and says that he’s broke, and hungry.
The
dad tells him to go to an airport restaurant, explain the situation and
ask them to take his card details over the phone, so he can pay for a
meal. The kid tries several places. One after another refuses.
Until
the Wolfgang Puck restaurant. They can’t take payment over the phone
either. But they suggest he send his son in – and they’ll feed him, for
free. Just like that. “Don’t worry about paying for the meal. Just do
something nice for somebody else.”
When we read the
father’s account, we contacted Iris and Sarah, who were on shift that
day. They said there was nothing extraordinary about offering a sandwich
on the house. It was just “listening to the customer and switching on
human being mode”. Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
4. Creative: Krispy Kreme employee customises an absurd order
An odd one, as the customer’s request was designed to be impossible to deliver. But that makes the solution even more fantastic:
Jia
Jiang is a businessman with a plan for one crazy request a day. The
idea is to steel himself against rejection. This day’s task: go to
Krispy Kreme and demand a custom set of donuts, glazed and arranged to
represent the Olympic logo. And ready in 15 minutes.
That
day, he fails to achieve his rejection goal. Jackie from Krispy Kreme
takes his order and sketches out a plan. She explains how she’ll go
about it. She even googles the correct colours for him. And when he
can’t believe she’s actually created a donut Olympic logo, she doesn’t
even accept any payment. You can watch the entire video here.
Jia
Jiang was humbled by her initiative, and Jackie was overwhelmed by the
response the video got. When she was interviewed, she said “when a
customer wants something special, and it’s within my power to do that,
for me that’s an artistic challenge.”
The simple basics of great customer service
Not all customer interactions can be delightful. Every business has its standard requests and ways of handling them.
But
what these stories show is that unique solutions aren’t rocket science.
There are a million ways to deliver experiences that are personal,
meaningful, creative, funny, resourceful, and warm. (And even better,
everyone seemed to be having a blast.) All it takes are:
- Employees that feel empowered to help – not bound by restrictive rules (also see this blog post
- Personal interactions – that take customers and their problems seriously
- The recognition that customer problems are often unique – and that staff solutions should be, too.
Yes, technology can
help. But great customer service stories come down to a great service
culture that hires people for their empathy – then lets them do their
jobs.
Once that kind of culture is in place, unique
service isn’t about driving down costs or defending against the few
customers who intend to take advantage – it’s a hugely satisfying job
for ‘people people’ and an amazing opportunity for a business to build a
reputation, one interaction at a time.
Unfortunately,
chances to personally delight customers during unforeseen blizzards are
once-in-a-lifetime. Customers demanding spot-on service across all
channels are a reality.
