Anyone Can Be The Company

If I'm your customer (or prospective customer) then anyone I talk to at your company is not only your representative, but for that moment they're the 'keeper of the brand'. (BTW, when I say brand I mean reputation - I really don't know what anyone else means when they use that word.)

Today I called tech support for an ASP phone system we use, because I was unhappy about some features. I'll spare you the whole story, but I was told that the things I didn't like were A) not a problem because nobody else had complained, and B) impossible to fix. When I shared the fact that the phone rep had turned me into a 'very unhappy customer' - she hung up.

A few moments later I called back, punched up the CEO's name in the company directory, and told him my story. When I started telling him what the original problem was, he chimed right in - "I don't like that either" he said, "and we've got a new release coming that changes how that works." He then listened to what a lousy job his support person had done, apologized, and told me he'd take care of it. It was a good call and despite the incident I feel good about the company again.

I normally wouldn't share ths story, but I just read a a great guy who answers the phones at Patagonia , and it's a great story of the opposite extreme. Here's one example:

One day a woman called Patagonia to say that her cat had chewed up her new Snap-T®. She asked if she could get a replacement.

"Absolutely, ma'am," answered Patagonia gatekeeper Chipper Bro Bell. "What kind of cat would you like?"

Check out a great bio on this guy here.

Posted by Craig Danuloff at May 26, 2005 6:24 PM