Lasting impressions that keep customers or lose them forever.

How often do you have an experience as a customer that just blows your mind?

I recently had two. One good experience, and one very bad one. I’ll start with the good one.

Like many travelers I invested in a pair of noise cancellation headphones. The pair that I purchased are made by Audio Technica. For those who are curious the model is the Quiet-Point ATH-ANC7. I bought them while on a business trip to speak at an event in Singapore. Well I recently lost the jack that connects the headphones to an audio device. My first thought was “Oh great” It’s probably a proprietary accessory item and I will have to spend time and money jumping through hoops to get a new one from the company.

I went to the company website of Audio Technica and sent an email to tech support explaining my dilemma. Within a few hours I had received a response which said the following…

“No problem sir. Just reply to this email with your address and we will send you a new one.” WOW! No request for a purchase receipt! No charge for the item! No shipping fee! No hassle!

Within a few days I got part and my headphones were back in action.

What was the cost to the company for making this happen? Minimal. Yet they will easily reap many rewards from me as a happy customer who will continue to sing praises about my experience. Audio Technica has won me over by providing me with great customer service in a world where it is increasingly hard to find.

Now onto a bad customer experience.

A few nights ago I went to Safely (A Northern California Grocery Store Chain). It was late at night at approximately 10 minutes to midnight on a Friday. As I entered the store there were no hand baskets in site, so I walked up to one of the registers where there was a small stack. I grabbed one of them and immediately one of the store employees says… “Sir I can’t let you take that!” Startled I turned toward him with a funny look on my face thinking you have got to be joking right?

He then says… “We don’t let customers use the hand baskets this late at night because people steal them”. Here we have a major grocery store chain acting out of fear and dampening the customer experience. Ok, so I go and get a shopping cart for the few items that I need. Then I have two more employees confront me on one of the aisles to tell me that I need to come to the register now to check out because the manager wants to close. This threw me because the store used to be 24 hours and now it is closing at midnight. I said… OK I will be just a few minutes and I’ll be right up. Their response was no it had to be now. I looked at my watch and it was still a few minutes before midnight. At this point I just left my items and walked out of the store vowing to never shop at another Safeway if I could help it.

How we treat our customers has a long lasting residual effect. When we have a good experience we may tell a few people. When we have a bad one we tend to tell everyone. Regardless of what business you are in, think of what you can do today to leave a lasting impression that will make your customer or client to feel well served.

Safeway Grocery Store = Boooo!

Audio Technica = Cheers!

Jesse