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What's Next's Great Customer Service Award of the Week

It's easy to find examples of bad service, shoddy products, and customer dis-service. But sometimes, companies that provide great customer service get lost in the shuffle. So I'm going to try to find one example every week of exemplary service and outstanding products. This week's example is MarketingSherpa, publisher of marketing case studies and seller of a variety of marketing and technology reports.

Shopping Cart Took the Money and Ran
With so much to read, I sometimes don't get to read Marketing Sherpa's newsletters until after the 10 day period when the material is free. So sometimes I end up paying for the articles and case studies. Last week, I ordered $40 worth of articles.

But the shopping cart froze after it took my money and before it let me download the articles. Anyone who deals with shopping carts knows they all suck, and theirs is no exception (although they plan to launch a proprietary one soon.)

Losing Money, Gaining Loyalty
I called the next morning and was immediately sent the link. That's to be expected. Unexpected was getting all four articles printed out and sent to me via snail mail. Now that's service.

You know they lost money on the deal. But they solidified a relationship with a customer who'll sing Marketing Sherpa's praises to a few thousand other potential customers.

Do you have an example of great customer service? Please share it with me.

Categories: Customer Service Issues

BL Ochman | Aug 23 05 10:03 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Thanks for this wonderful blog item. Ron and Sharon who run our customer service work very hard, and it's great to see public appreciation for their work. I'm going to read this out loud to everyone at our Monday Morning staff meeting so the team can hear how Ron and Sharon are stars!

Posted by: Anne Holland at August 24, 2005 9:11 AM

Amazon won me over. Surprised?

The usual story. I live in Mexico, books got stuck at the border, and after waiting for a while I just sent a message through their customer service contact form.

I didn't expect very much, because the Mexican Postal Service stinks, and I've lost a couple of shipments before.

Bang, next day I had a response and a new shipment no questions asked, no extra charges.

The sweet part? Around a month after that, I got an email from them saying "the courier returned your original shipment, it whas an administrative issue, etc". Nothing got lost, I can trust the courier service a little more now :)

My $ 0.02

Posted by: Andres B at August 24, 2005 3:24 PM

That's a great story. And so much better than my dreadful experiences with Amazon.

Maybe Amazon has really gotten their act together.

I hope to encourage companies that are doing great customer service to do even better by spotlighting them.

Posted by: B.L. Ochman at August 24, 2005 6:31 PM

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About BL Ochman

Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations

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