As a customer, how many times has “It’s the rules, ma’am.” stood in the way of a mutually agreeable solution? How many times has the sharp drop-off between “Thank you for your business.” and “That’s no problem. We can work with you on that.” sent you spiraling over the edge of logic, into the abyss of disgruntledness and negative perception?

Black and white

Rules are meant to protect the primary interests of the issuer (“The Man”), and establish a field of parameters. We acknowledge rules, perhaps even study them (think: driver’s exam prep). We know they’re there; we’ve run into them before. They cause us to consider risk versus reward. But one size does not fit all.

…and shades of gray

Life and circumstances being what they are (unpredictable whims of nature, or holy master plans if you’re feeling more respectful), sometimes situations – everyday mundane stuff – don’t fall easily into clearly defined boxes. You know what I mean – the slight pause when you decide between 64 mph or the “safe bet” 60 mph for the cruise. The age you give the cashier at the restaurant where kids 12 and under eat free (and your kid’s 13).

The applicability or necessity of certain rules can be fuzzy, even sticky. Making the right choice, doing the right thing may not be so clear-cut, obvious or popular. The right choice may not make your company a buck nor cut out x-number man hours of annual administration time. The right choice may cost your company easily deployed, by-the-books, across-the-board simple rigidity (the kind even a monkey can parrot) that efficiency experts recommend.

“It’s company policy, ma’am. No exceptions.”  I call B.S.

Many times, doing the right thing – making the right choice – can be the right thing to do even if it’s against the rules.

Life, unscripted

It takes good judgement, independently vetted and dispensed, to determine the appropriateness of a formal rule to any situation.

The sooner companies citing “no exceptions” rules wise up to the fact that sometimes life won’t wedge into a predefined box of circumstances, that good people make human mistakes, that there are exceptions to every rule and statistically few customers are out to game the system, the sooner those companies dissolve high-handed barriers that keep their customers at arms length.

And isn’t the key to entangling your customer, wrapping them up in service and value to create loyal ambassadors, isn’t the key getting them closer, not pushing them away?

Business is business, I get that. Structure and procedure are important, especially to scale. But there’s a point when rigidity overrides just plain smart thinking, when a businesses’ need to exert control and maintain procedure squashes out the softer art of interpretation, situational awareness, service-mindedness, and basic human compassion.

Your rigid rules just made you look like a jackhole. And customers don’t like jackholes.

Learn from the likes of the Ritz Carlton. Turn your rigid rules into suggested guidelines, and let your smart employees serve your customers well.

Watch their lifetime value soar.  Bonus: they might even tweet about you in a good way.

I entered a short URL (how does mox.ie strike you?) then proceeded to grab the IP address to which to point the A record. At that point I had to tangle with my host (one with a notoriously poor user experience…you know who you are). Hours later, I had a new record added and propagation was underway. Tick, tock. 24 Hours, then 36 hours went by. The URL service admin panel still claimed not to find the record. So Igrabbed a screen shot from my host (the dashboard reflected that indeed, I’d added the record) and sent a nice message to the help desk requesting some help.

Customer experience: lacking

Suffice to say, I was floored by the response. From the community manager, no less! The person responsible for stewarding the brand with its publics and connecting those with needs to those with answers. The brand champion, go-to guy.

What should have been this:

Customer + 1 user error caused by omission of critical content  / customer-centric community manager – snark = more deeply entrenched customer

Looked like this instead:

“…you just can’t pick a domain out of thin air. [cites IP and DNS mumbo-jumbo, complete with colons and dots] A custom short domain requires [lists 4 points]. Check [lists short domain registrar] to find one available to you.”

Wow, really? Why didn’t the setup page say so in the first place? And was the attitude necessary?

There was no closing salutation (definitely no “Sorry.”) to his stinging reply, no phone number, no offer to Skype me through it. No attachment or wiki with detailed, step by step instructions. Just geek talk, minus the empathy and customer-centeredness a more enlightened company might take. My actual setup process wasn’t wrong, I just left my ESP in my jacket pocket so I didn’t know off-page stuff was required before I could set up the account.

This is not a lesson in DNS, trusty readers. This is actually a lesson in digital (in)civility, customer experience, community management, and branding.

Brand image: meh

To the company’s credit, it now seems very sensical that some off-site prep work is necessary in order to set up a custom short domain. I get it.  However, for it to presume a moderate-to-advanced level of knowledge by all customers is short sighted. The presumption, coupled with the manner and tone with which the company “resolved” my inquiry, leaves me without a working solution.  It also put a sour taste in my mouth when up until those touch points I had a favorable opinion of the brand.  I’m now more…reserved.

I’m but one person. My opinions and perceptions my not be of appreciable value to the company. And yet I firmly believe that experiences like this – where content and experience are given little value and customer issues are dismissed – often typify the values held by executive leadership. Gotta say it. Your employees, in particular those with customer contact (like a community manager!) are your brand, like it or not. They often take their cues (as to what’s important) from the head honchos.

In this instance, my word of mouth reach and influence is a drop in the bucket for this service provider. But the drops all add up. And well, there’s value in my experience, value that if channeled, could improve the experience of future customers and inspire me to speak out in support of the brand.

April is customer service month. How’s about setting aside some time to see where, and in what ways, your company could improve upon existing attitudes, behaviors, and processes that intersect with your customer base? In some cases, doing things the way you’ve been doing them? Well its not really doing your brand any favors. Interested customers like me could be part of your solution.

Listen to us, please.

Compared to some like iFroggy, the communities I manage are tiny.  But my work and the communities in which I participate compel me to list some real opportunity areas for the community-centric organization:

Provide a clear RTB

• Why does your community exist?
• What are the primary objectives for the program or site?   (what does success look like?)
• What do you offer participants or visitors?

Whether you choose to list this information in clear-cut Q&A format on a FAQ page or weave it throughout in descriptive text, these signals may provide new visitors with affirmation they’ve found what they’ve been looking for.  Internally, use responses to these questions to ensure program activity and codes of conduct support these defining pillars.

Identify a contact person or two

Invariably, someone visiting your site or with knowledge of your community will have a question which hadn’t been anticipatedwhen the site or program was originally planned.  That’s a good thing.  But do you want that person to spend their time trying to A) figure out precisely whom to contact  and B) digging all over the interwebs for Susie’s contact information?  Could be a frustrating experience.  The professionalism or legitimacy of the community could even be questioned (yes, we’re skeptical of a poorly planned and executed web presence.  We wonder if anyone’s actually paying attention).

Naturally, you may receive some spam or solicitations if you post this information in a prominent place online.  Yet it’s more community-centric to filter out 63 pieces of spam and hear from 4 interested constituants than be completely unreachable because you couldn’t be bothered with the hassle, or mistakenly thought “everyone knows who we are and how to reach us.”  Because some people really don’t, and others want the passive permission to reach out that well-placed contact info offers. What happened to basic premises of customer service?

If your face changes, tell people

Anyone who knew of Richard@dell knew when he left to join Visa because the information, once public, flowed readily in multiple channels and outposts.  When the face – however recognizable – of your community departs, be sure to push out messages that explain what participants can expect by way of changes, if any.  What does the change mean to them?  Offer assurances.

A sub-point on this one, if you have authors who contribute to the community blog, be sure they’re advised of any administrative changes like, say, how to submit future posts (a new email address and name would be nice).  Keep the community train moving.  Otherwise you have passengers milling about at the station aimlessly.  Doesn’t take much for them to catch another train.

Offer the courtesy of a prompt response

We live in a world of instant gratification.  Like it or not, we all want to have our needs addressed promptly, or at least get some sort of progress indicator.  The blasted hourglass symbol or swirling arrow tell us that something is in the works, and we’re [semi] satisfied with that knowledge because it means our query or command was submitted.

The same needs come into play when we’re trying to participate in a community or interact with a web site.  We need signals that it’s picking up what we’re putting down.

If you have a form on a page, make sure completion of the form triggers a thank-you message of some sort.  If you have a generic email box, consider an auto-reply message that clearly indicates the process and approximate schedule for human replies.

Community members may not pay monetary dues, but they’re giving your site or program something of value – their time and interest.  Reward their attention with simple courtesy and you may reinforce the community-centric reputation you’re trying so valiantly to build.

Give them every opportunity, and then one more

You can list a toll-free number and email address on every page.  You can feature sharing buttons for Yelp! and Get Satisfaction.  These are good steps, but more can be done to really impress upon visitors that your community is there to serve, how can you help?

I believe Freshbooks is community-centric.  In addition to providing a well-designed product and good experience for a reasonable fee, the company practically begs users for raw, naked feedback.  Freshbooks seems to want to know your pain and your joy.

After logging in, there’s an unobtrusive invitation on the top of the site to complete a 30 second survey.  I love that they recognize my time is valuable and that taking surveys suck, so they define right up front what it’ll cost me.  Since I give Freshbooks twenty bucks each month to organize my business finances, I want to be able to give them feedback freely and am glad they’re interested in serving me better.  What I really like is the closing message that populates the page after I log out.  They push out a form, just ripe for typing.  ”Here I am,” the form whispers, “let ‘er rip.”  The form includes a phone number (with hours of availability!) if I’m a talker.  Freshbooks really, really wants to know what they can do to make my accounting crap easier.

These are 5 of 10 immutable laws for the community-centric organization. Stay tuned for my next installment which covers 5 more truisms as I see it.  What would you add?

Freshbooks log-out screen

Does being visible or “reachable” constitute a customer-centric environment?  Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D. have spent their professional lifetimes diving into the issue, and they believe its much more than that.  So do I.

In the foreward to Akin Arikan’s book “Multichannel Marketing:  Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success” they explain:   “[customer-centric] is to put yourself in the customer’s own shoes and try to experience doing business with your company the way the customer does…see your business from the outside-in perspective of the customers whose needs you’re trying to meet.”

Get outside of yourself

As the duo goes on to elaborate, adopting a customer’s view of a business, product or service is a critical factor to an organization’s success. Why? Because businesses need to sell units or licenses or procure service contracts and the best way to understand how to do that effectively and efficiently is to get inside the mind of those you hope to sell. Think not in terms of your own efficiencies - that comes later, after you learn how to resolve the customer’s pain points. When you think in terms of the customer and what they want to achieve, you’ll not only learn more about their motivations, triggers and sensitivities, but you’ll gain an appreciation for what it’s like to do business with yourself.  Can you handle the truth as your customers experience it (instead of blithely buying your marketing department’s own rhetoric)?

Some companies fail to adopt a customer-centric mindset.  The decision may be intentional – after all, it costs money to improve systems, enhance experience or define better internal processes.  Sometimes short-term necessities must take precedence over long-term investments. Other times the decision is less purposeful.  Say, if the company lacks an awareness for the new consumer-driven marketplace fueled by copious amounts of readily available information and an accessible (and vocal) peer network.  When you choose to ignore social media or discount its potential impact, you make a business decision with far-reaching, downstream implications.  You just may not know it yet.

Use it or lose it

Therein lies the importance of maximizing customer relationships – those you have, and those opportunities you may have to acquire more. As Peppers and Rogers so aptly state, “There is no secondary market for customers…forward-thinking companies will create as much value as possible from each and every customer.”

Value may take several forms, the most obvious and measureable is in the form of sales generating revenue and profit. Another form is potential future earnings (sometimes exponential, given positive word of mouth) based on a current experience.  Indeed, every email issued to customer service, every inbound inquiry, all the Facebook wall posts and tweets aggregate with the product’s performance, instruction manual, and a host of other factors to comprise one’s experience and mindset. The manner in which a problem is addressed or an issue resolved can dramatically impact a customer’s furture intention to buy.  Those customers have friends and networks, lest you forget.

The squeaky wheel

Other folks have written that a business can’t afford to let the voices of a (perhaps contentious) few customers direct operational strategy.  I agree.  Things get watered down, or you risk rewarding many for the sake of a few who are likely uncommitted, anyway.  There are also times when you can’t afford a client or customer.  Their input may not be constructive or well-meaning, their allegation patently false, or their argument conveniently devoid of their own (in)actions.  Some folks you just can’t reason with.  Those are the ones who often want a free lunch.

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges a customer-centric company faces lies in nurturing a culture and building a brand known for focusing entirely on the customer, all the while observing boundaries which allow that company to remain in business.  Zappos found its much-celebrated sweet spot, managing to make money and be profitable while sustaining an outside-in perspective.

The cold reality

When a company sees itself for how it operates day after day, customer after customer, truths will emerge.  Training and policies and workflow can mitigate many wrongs.  To affect and sustain long-term growth, however, a company must consider the myriad ingredients comprising lifetime value of its own customers, and build an organization around the idea that the relationship has an expiration date.

The clock’s ticking.  Can your business exceed customer expectations?  Will your business philosophy of  ”surprise and delight” turn one customer into many?

More chances to serve customers in the information revolution

Wikipedia defines customer service as follows:

The provision of service before, during and after a purchase.

Takeaways:  One – Customers are gathering intel about your brand before you even have an opportunity to “sell” them.  Two – Every aspect of your brand (including business processes) that surrounds them during the sales process matters.  Three – Customers file mental score cards about your brand that matter…sometimes much later.  And in the digital age, sometimes at scale.

Surprise and delight

Jamier L. Scott is quoted by Efraim Turban, a professor of information systems at California State University, in his book Electronic Commerce – A Managerial Perspective, as saying:

“Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.”

Takeaways:  One –  Attributes of service should be dovetailed with each milestone of the conversion funnel/decision cycle; there are tactics and even processes appropriate for each progressive layer.   Align your brand message with relevant consumer tasks.  Two – Service overlays or boosts satisfaction.  Therefore, customer satisfaction is derived from met rational and emotional needs, creating an environment for trust and affinity.  Two – Service is about holistically addressing and even anticipating triggers along the decision path.  Answering before asked, giving before needed, introducing other to add more value than expected.

Service isn’t overhead.  It’s the cost of doing business

Micah Solomon writes the following in his Fast Company article titled “Seven Keys to Building Customer Loyalty and Company Profits”:

“Online customers are literally invisible to you (and you to them), so it’s easy to shortchange them emotionally. But this lack of visual and tactile presence makes it even more crucial to create a sense of personal, human-to-human connection in the online arena.”

Takeaways: One – Just like email can omit tone, inflection, and body language (often leading to misunderstandings), eCommerce transactions and self-serve info search omit the human element, the personal touch, the concierge level of attention to detail.  Like the mint on your pillow, you can certainly live without it, but boy do you take notice when its there, a sweet surprise.  Two – The nature of online platforms and task completion can be very sterile, for reasons of utility, personal security, and more.

That means more than ever – as the web is the first destination for product research and a growing slice of retail spend, you’re relying on your brand to carry a lot of weight in the spaces where prospects and customers spend time.  Are your brand messages woven consistently throughout each channel, to provide optimal brand experience (and customer service) where other inputs (touch, taste, smell) don’t exist?

Not a drop in the bucket

In their book Rules to Break and Laws to Follow, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D. write:

“Customers have memories. They will remember you, whether you remember them or not.” Further, “customer trust can be destroyed at once by a major service problem, or it can be undermined one day at a time, with a thousand small demonstrations of incompetence.”

Takeaways:  One – brand promise still matters, even in the information revolution.  Two – everyone spending their money wants to feel like they matter, that they count and are appreciated for having made the ‘right’ brand selection.

Give ‘em more than what they ask for and you’ll be repaid ten fold.

We’ve all enjoyed stellar service.  Not long ago my friend Jim remarked to me how tickled he was following a call he’d just made to Nike.  Interestingly, the agent couldn’t help Jim locate the shoe model he was looking for, but that didn’t really matter.  Despite the disappointment (Lord, save us from more black sneakers), Jim closed the call feeling hunky-dory.  Fact is, the dude had Jim at: “Brother, how can I help you tonight?”  It was 11:30pm on a Sunday, a real Jerry Maguire moment.

Late-night weekend friendliness may not be what you’d expect from a big brand.  But as a consumer, when did we become conditioned to expecting less?  How did we resign ourselves to tolerate substandard treatment?

Did you read our FAQ?  Use the community forms?  Submit a support ticket, then.

Last week I had something funky going on with PayPal.  Three emails and two phone calls (replete with a jacked-up IVR experience, thanks to the robo-menu) I was well on my way to mad when someone finally solved the issue.  While I never got clear explanation as to the cause, I *did* receive an obligatory “Will you rate your service?” survey link via email.  Huh?

So we have one big brand that surprised and delighted.  And we have another big brand that made issue resolution complicated, lengthy, unsatisfying, and vaguely insulting (I took their blinking survey, and for the record it was the longest in history, adding insult to my injury).

Rather than consider the PayPal issue an isolated case, in my mind I’m connecting it to other thought fragments to develop a bigger brand impression – the difficulties I’ve had canceling recurring subscriptions, the less-than-intuitive account interface.  PayPal’s ubiquity makes use a necessity.  I’m not a PayPal account holder with an affinity for the brand; I’m an account holder with limited choices.  There is no brand love, and that can make all the difference.

A customer is a customer is a customer.

All sales are not created equal.  A brand curries no favor when it holds a monopoly (or is otherwise the exclusive supply source) which forces a certain behavior (purchase) from consumers.  Yeah, okay, so you got the buck.  That’s a short-term win at best.  Consider the lifetime value of reinforcing a positive impression with a committed customer versus the value from an isolated or begrudged transaction.

Listen to the little people.

The point – in this increasingly social economy, user-fed outposts like Yelp and OpenTable provide microphones to amplify the voices of the little people. If the Nike example above is representative of most customer service calls, then it stands to reason those aggregated voices equate to positive brand impressions.

Disjointed operations and half-baked efforts (like I feel my PayPal experience was) will become increasingly obvious.  I’m willing to bet that as financial straits groom more cautious (and conscientious) consumer spending patterns, our tolerance for low quality customer experiences will weaken.

They’ll talk.  Do you like what they have to say?

Simple negligence, shoddy efforts, or intentional deceit (the fine print a legal team can’t decipher), these practices will indeed catch up to companies.  I think it’s best to do some housecleaning now and build a framework of turn-key practices with an eye on winning and keeping customers.

Mix it up

This post was inspired by (eyes averted) a country song by a band called Little Big Town.  I’m definitely not a country fan as a rule, but this band has a bit of a groove and some southern rock influences that make me think of home (their track “Boondocks” is a simple pleasure that’ll make you want to stop your WiFi service, if only for 4:36).  The song “Bones” is really about a man/woman relationship but has real implications for business.

What goes around, Comes around.  

Feel it breathing down heavy on you.

You made that bed you’re laying on, Deeds that you have done now you can’t undo.

You got bones in your closet, You got ghosts in your town

Ain’t no doubt yeah they’re gonna come out

They’re waiting for the sun to come down.

You can’t hide from your demons, Feel them all lurking around

You’re running scared because you know they’re out there

They’re waiting for the sun to go down.

It’s a long and hard row to hoe when seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon.

Be sure your sins will find you out.

The past will hunt you down and return to tell on you.

It all stands to reason that every dog will have his day.

But your day is leavin’

Better hold on tight, here comes the night.

For kicks and grins, I’m going to try to start a little meme.  I’ll tag a few people and ask that they write a post inspired by the lyrics of a song, and tag 3 to 5 others to do the same. I think songwriting may be one of the most admirable areas of content creation.  It took me 898 words to say what I mean in this post, while good songwriters often express complex thoughts in just a hundred.

Amber Naslund, Brass Tack Thinking (star-quality wits and smarts with a love for music)

Paul Squires, Perini (funny, outgoing, and a newish Twitter find for me ((plus the accent))

Kellye Crane, Solo PR Pro (full of Southern charm and serious PR chops)

Continuing the essence of a “service” theme [yesterday's post centered around transactional customer service as an opportunity to extend your brand, more fully surround your customers with your brand promise], I’ll take a different approach to the same theme tonight.  It would seem my roles as parent, co-leader of household, professional, and general adult-type-person would afford me with several perspectives and experiences on service, so you could say I’ve completed my focus field work already.

Gem of an Idea

The 9/22/08 issue of BusinessWeek includes an opinion piece by Jack & Suzy Welch that I think I adore.  When asked the question “What’s a big business imperative that doesn’t get enough attention,” the couple considers a few buckets and lands on stickiness.  That’s right.  The I’ll-weather-the-storm-with-you factor that had all of us sticking with the Coke franchise even after they switched the formula (our collective voices were truly heard – and that’s even before the digital age and speed!).  “Customer retention” and “loyalty” are other flavors of the same concept.  What is it that keeps you, the customer, coming around for more?

From the article:  “…stickiness can change the game.  It transforms business from a transaction-based model to a more lasting, mutually beneficial one in which companies improve their own revenues and margins by improving their customers competitiveness….almost all companies can experience stickiness by sharing knowhow.”  Furthermore, “It requires moving from a product-focused business to a product-and-long-term service business by guaranteeing productivity gains to customers.”

The article was addressing big business, particularly manufacturers.  However I believe the same principle applies to almost any business.  And if yours happens to be a commodity, saturated, or price-sensitive business, then most certainly the impetus for identifying your “sticky factor” exists.

Stand Out Above the Crowd

We know it takes money, resources, communication, and process to serve customers.  There’s a “sweet spot” where these factors intersect and carve the ideal radius for any business to prosper in.  But what happens if due to time constraints, stressors, economics, or general Acts of God one of those ingredients shift and you’re finding yourself outside that sweet spot?  How much better, *new! improved!* could your business be if you dug deep and found that extra layer of gloss that could reasonably, consistently be applied in a way that would make your customers shine?  As with my example yesterday, for me all it would have taken was a sincere reply made through a returned phone call.  And a Post-it note – much less a typed letter – accompanying my reimbursement check would have been like salve.

As marketers, I think part of our responsibility lies with identifying ways to extend client brands completely through to their customers, surrounding and enveloping them.  Doing so consistently, cohesively, and thoroughly will contribute to the entire brand experience.  The entire interaction will feel continuous for the customer.

In Your Job Description

It’s also our responsibility to help identify ways to develop or foster the next generation of interaction which transcends transactions/exchanges and delivers relative meaningful value to the customer.  The kind of value that feels 1:1 but can be delivered uniquely and through efficient economies of scale.

So the opportunity before us is to help all clients and stakeholders drink the Kool-Aide (distributed ownership) and find unique ways to deliver it (encouraged gospel-spreading).  Works for me.

I’m not one of those customers, I’m really not.  You know the type.  The ones who claim the spot wasn’t there when they brought the shirt in, that the plate of half-eaten steak was cold when it was served.  But having been in service-focused businesses all of my adult life and many points during childhood helping out at the family company, I walk a fine line between supporting customer orientation and a businesses’ responsibility to shield employees from irrational, if on occasion abusive, client behavior.

Which is why, during a recent disaster with my dry cleaner, I chose to hold fast to my temper and exercised my ability to reason and empathize.  Maybe they just had a bad day.

I Can’t Help You

Short version: dry cleaner lost a pair of new pants.  Customer (me) phoned and left voice mail.  Dry cleaner doesn’t return call.  Customer calls again 24 hours later, reaches apologetic and nice girl with no authority.  Nice girl takes message, assures someone will call back within 24 hours.  Then 48 hours pass with no call.  Customer calls again and reaches new nice person with modicum of authority who wholly commits to a phone call no later than next day after warehouse has been searched.  Another 48 hours, new new nice person is called (again by the customer) who has authority and is very apologetic.  Still no pants, what can they do for me?  She’ll get a reimbursement check issued to me right away.  So sorry, my business is important.  Hm, I wouldn’t know that by their commitment to drive closure.

Hello? [echo] Is Anybody Listening?

I received the reimbursement check today, the one that’s supposed to soothe my annoyed nerves and placate the fashion void left by the perfect pair of khaki stretch capris that are no longer within my reach.  Check, good.  No reply to my firm yet polite email outlining my issue? No apology letter accompanying said check, offering the incident as isolated and how new communication plans have been put in place to ensure prompt customer follow up in the future?  That’s bad.  Say it with me:  check good, no response bad.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Ironically enough, the dry cleaner’s email contains the words “customercare” as part of the address.  Funny, I’m not feeling particularly well cared for.  I wonder how many other customers might feel the same way?

I was quick to point out both to the two nice persons I spoke with as well as the manager at “customercare” that these ladies I spoke with seemed concerned, apologetic, willing to investigate to the best of their ability.  I’m sure the blame of this situation doesn’t fall with them, which is why I was empathetic to their situation.  Likely people in similar roles are berated some by frustrated customers.  And at this point, for me, it was no longer about the missing pants (well, not much anyway).  It’s more about my treatment by the ultimate stakeholders – the general manager or franchise owner.

It’s a sad state of affairs when the front-line staff internalizes company messaging like a mission statement, and that level of ownership isn’t consistently, supremely demonstrated by the senior staff.  While those senior staffers don’t have direct interaction with customers like me, it’s their responsibility to represent the brand in an honest and ethical manner.  A brand has to be lived by all, by the whole of the organization.

A Dime a Dozen

The truth of it is, I’m irritated that I had to shoulder the responsibility for an error I believe to be theirs to reconcile.  It’s my belief that an organization committed to values like “customercare” would not only seek to resolve my issue quickly and to my reasonable satisfaction, but they would also understand the value of listening to my feedback.

Dry cleaning is not likely to be an aspect of your life that you’ll feel particularly passionate about.  Um, loyalty is probably not a strong attribute here.  I suggest it’s more about convenience, and next about value/price.  But there’s no underlying reason compelling loyalty for the most part.

But I’ll say this – I’ll be switching cleaners. And not because my pants were lost.  But because I cared enough to talk, and no one there talked back.  Or listen.