It’s 2013 and throughout the years there has been one form of advertising that has and always will trump every form of advertising: Word of Mouth.
Whether is was good or negative experience, people will always listen to someone they know over a paid for advertisement; on TV, in the paper, or even on the radio.
I’m also a believer in ending on a positive, so I will start with the terrible experience that we had in just ONE week.
Our washing machine was acting up to the point were you would have thought it was twerking all over and when the load was done, the washing machine was nowhere even close to where it was when we started the load. This was going on for some time, so we set up a service call for a technician to come out to the house. With both of us working full time and our girls in various activities, we are on a pretty tight schedule; so when the service technician said they would be by between 3-5p, with a phone call thirty-minutes prior to their arrival, we’d have time to meet them at the house.
Guess what? No phone call.
I came pulling up on the drive to see the service truck, and I assumed that my wife had let him in. Turns out she wasn’t home and he had been waiting for 15-minutes. As it turned out, the washing machine was fine, but neither one of us received a phone call that was promised.
The second case of terrible service comes from a home improvement store that was supposed to send someone to the house to give an estimate on a remodeling project. We paid the fee up front and their associate was to be at our house on a specified night between 5-8pm and again, they were to call us 30-minutes before they left as we may be starting dinner or putting the girls to bed.
At 7:55 we needed to call the store to find our where their employee was. We were asked if we were sure that we had the correct day and time. We were asked to verify our credit card, address, phone number, and the credit card that they have on file to confirm the visit. We were then given the employee’s phone number to call to see where they were and if they were still coming to the house.
As a person in management, you never have the customer do YOUR job.
Earlier in this blog I mentioned that I like ending on a positive.
For the past few weeks we were looking to move Kelsey from her crib that had been converted into a day bed to a full size bed. We ended up stopping into Lebeda in Bloomington where we were informed about their different products, given our space to discuss what we wanted to day, and when we were ready, we ordered Kelsey’s mattress and box frame.
We set up a delivery for Friday morning, which would allow me to still get Breanna to school and Kelsey to daycare on time as well as make it into work. (For the record, in the 12 years I have been in radio I never mention this fact.) Well, we received a phone call on Thursday saying that there was an issue with the delivery time and we were trying to come up with a solution. After a few phone calls, Sherman Tice who is the Manager at Lebeda informed me that the former Bloomington Manager who still works for Lebeda will be coming by tonight to deliver and set up the bed.
HOW COOL IS THAT!!??
That goes above and beyond what I would expect for customer service and I know when it’s time to get a new mattress for our bed, we’ll be contact Stan at Lebeda because of the amazing experience that we had with the company.