September 14, 2005
September 14th, 2005
Superb customer service is key to make loyal advocates out of your customers.
In this issue:
1. The Tale of the Former Faithful Customer
2. CustomerServicePoint.com Info
The Tale of the Former Faithful Customer
A little while back one of my readers sent in this little clip from a Nordic newspaper; it was a letter sent to the editor..."I have bought my last drop of petrol at the Statoil station in Breivika. A sarcastic, impolite blonde girl (behind the counter) has seen to that.
Regards, former faithful customer for many years"
Customers can be enormously passionate about customer service (or the lack thereof). This person took the time to sit down, write and send in a letter to a well-read newspaper (I checked the circulation: 90,000+/day) to ventilate his utter disgust.
Personally, I don't know Statoil, other than the name, so I did a quick check on their web site. Statoil is a gas and oil company working in 29 countries. They've written down their values in their values statement "We in Statoil". This is the digest:
"These values are what we stand for and believe in:
- Imaginative
- Hands-on
- Professional
- Truthful
- Caring"
From the looks of it, there is at least one employee scoring very low on these values. Statoil is a company with 23,899 employees, and for all I know 23,898 employees have really taken the values to heart. But the bad thing in customer service is this: it takes only one to drive customers away!
Statoil should be happy about this letter.
Not because they employ someone with little regard to who is ultimately paying her salary.
Not because they lost a former faithful customer.
Not because 90,000 other (potential) customers may have read it.
(Obviously not!)
But here's a person who has vented his frustation.
Most don't. They just take their money elsewhere. (US reader disgusted by high gasoline prices: count your blessings! In Norway, filling up a 25 gallon tank costs the equivalent of $115-$120... Gulp!)
Statoil should be happy, because kow they know... and they can act upon it...
Imaginative, Hands-on, Professional, Truthful, but most of all Caring!
Their values are put truly to the test here! Are they just big words, or hollow?
And your companies values: would they stand this test?
CustomerServicePoint.com Info
Customer Service Point was conceived and created with the help of Site Build It! and it helped me build a nice side income. If you are looking for an extra income stream or a work-at-home alternative, check out my story.I want to hear from you! If you have a story to share about how one employee drove away customers (anonymous please), or another customer service story you'd like to share with the readers of customer servings, contact me. Maybe you'll see your own article and name published in this e-zine!
Customerservicepoint Weblog
Keep track of the weblog at http://customerservicepoint.blogspot.com and you are informed of changes to the site as soon as they are made.
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Customer Servings is the e-zine for www.customerservicepoint.com, your resource on improving customer service. The newsletter is sent at irregular intervals.
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If you have any suggestions for subjects you would like to see in future issues, or have comments in general on Customer Servings or Customer Service Point, please contact me.
I welcome your remarks!
(C) 2005, Marjan Steneker
You are free to use original articles in Customer Servings, if you attach the following bio (including the link): Marjan Steneker is webmaster of the website on good customer service http://www.customerservicepoint.com/