Customer service online vs offline
Customer service is an essential part of your business, whatever you do.
You may have a bakery, a restaurant, a supermarket, a bank or an airline, a good customer service makes a big difference. In fact, if you give me good service and a smile, you have a very big chance that if I need that particular service again, I will come back. I am even willing to pay a little bit extra if necessary. I am sure that I am not the only one that thinks this way.
However, why is it so difficult to get a good service out of some people. Especially when we speak about high-street shops, offline retailers.
Why do online business try their utmost to give you that great customer service? There is strong competition and any small detail makes a difference. I know, but there is also fierce competition offline and no one seems to give customer service the real importance.
The other day I bought a 8 Euros pair of socks in Calzedonia of Halandri for my son. I got home and they were small. So, I went back to change them and the person in charge says, no way I cannot change them because you have torn the seal. So what?! are you willing to loose a regular customer for 8 Euros? (less than that if you think what their real cost is) The answer is yes I do not care, thank you very much.
On the other hand you have online retailers like amanzon.com that will go out of their way to give you an excellent customer service. I mention amazon.com because we all know it, but there are many other online businesses that focus strongly on customer service. These details count and definitely make me go back.
Why offline business do not see this? why don’t they care?
For me the answer is clear, I prefer to buy my stuff online and support those real entrepreneurs trying to make a difference.
The power of 1%
The power of 1%
Today is December the 11th and we are all thinking about 2010. The key subject for many of us is how are we going to improve next year, how are we going to grow personally and professionally.
If this is your case, I have a great reading for you.
I read this last year and it is a letter sent by Alfred Lin, COO-CFO at Zappos.com, to all employees of the company. Zappos.com is an e-commerce company specializing in footwear recently acquired by amazon.com
One thing I encourage you to do is to refer back to our Core Values document and specifically the challenge in there: make at least one improvement every week that makes Zappos better. Ideally, we would do this every single day. It sounds daunting, but remember improvements don’t have to be dramatic. Think about what it means to improve just 1% per day and build upon that every single day. Doing so has a dramatic effect and will make us 37x better, not 365% (3.65x) better at the end of the year. Wake up every day and ask yourself not only what is the 1% improvement I can change to make Zappos better, but also what is the 1% improvement I can change to make myself better personally and professionally – because we, Zappos, can’t grow unless we as individual people grow too.
A great message from a management point of view and very adequate for all aspects of life.
So what do you think? is it doable?
Link to the full letter: here
Image source: www.sxc.hu