P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Austin TX
Eat there.
Our server last night was incredible. I wish I remembered his name (kicks self.) He is actually the reason I juiced this site - I wanted to send kudos to Chang’s. Awesome food, atmosphere and SERVICE!
If you’re in or around Austin, it’s a worthy place to satisfy your Asian food cravings (plus, the “shot glass desserts” are brilliant…)
So, to the young man who helped the couple that ordered dumplings, Moo Goo Gai Pan, and Honey Shrimp… and two of the dessert shots, thanks so much! From the guy who put away too many glasses of the iced tea…
I wish I remembered your name! I’ll ask the wife…
Edit! The Mrs. of course remembered our server’s name. Big kudos to our man JOSH!!!
Tags: p.f. changs, restaurant, service
Remedy Roofing, Houston, Dallas and Austin TX
Sometimes, service is not about the product, or even the before and during the sale or service. Every once in a while, a good product and sale can go wrong from a service perspective in the follow-up stages. This is one of those times.
The same hail storm that ripped up my car did a number on my roof.
I waited a couple months for the rush to recede and collected the multitudes of pamphlets that arrived on my doorstep, seemingly an endless supply of targeted marketing. I watched as houses up and down the street received new roofs, and decided to go with Remedy Roofing, a Texas outfit.
They came and did an estimate quickly, and I was impressed. The job went well also. Good follow up and a quality job - my roof appears to be well done, and my gutters are as well.
Then things went a bit south. My insurance company splits the payments, and I had given Remedy two thirds of the bill as soon as the work was done, and then requested the remainder from my insurance. Oddly, when I asked them to fax a bill to my insurance Company, the salesman asked me - “What’s the biggest number on your adjustor estimate?” - I didn’t quite understand, and asked what he meant… “I need to know the total - the biggest number on your estimate from your insurance Company.” I gave him the numbers and total - not thinking twice…
My insurance company recieved an invoice that day, for the EXACT amount of the full adjustor estimate…
A week later I had a check to mail to the roofing company. My insurance company has been stellar through this and my car repairs. Of course, within that week, I was called twice by the roofing salesman, telling me his boss was breathing down his neck (after a week? what type of cash cycle model are they using?) and to “Just write a postdated check and stick it under your doormat.”
I wrote the check and called them, requesting an itemized receipt and any additrional paperwork I might need for the roofing warranty. He said he’d get it, and that the estimate/contract would suffice as warranty. I wondered… what if the estimate didn’t take something in to account? I was confused. Still am…
Nothing came.
I called again, two weeks later, again requesting an itemized receipt and the paperwork. The sales guy blamed the office staff and told me he would get them to send it…
That was a month ago, and I still have nothing.
So today I decided to call the office… interestingly enough, you can’t get through to the office. You can only leave a voice mail. I used the email contact form… but I don’t have much faith that anything will come of it.
Lesson for today? Service does not end after the sale. It merely begins another dance between company and customer… Honesty is always the key, and follow-up is as important to the customer as presale service. I will not recommend this company to anyone in the neighborhood, not because they didn’t do a good job with my presale experience or on my home, but because they didn’t do a good job after the sale…
Tags: follow-up, remedy roofing, service
Time to get back to writing…
I’ve been away for a while. Time to get back to posting… lots to say. Thanks for your patience!
Wal-Mart, winning me back, one associate at a time.
I was digging through a dresser junk drawer that has followed me around for years the other day when I ran across some old pins – Wal-Mart Distribution Center pins that I used to wear on my badge fifteen plus years ago. My “Trainer” pin was there. That particular pin marked the beginning of this career in Learning and Development. “Back in the day” when I started with Wal-Mart, the service culture permeated the entire organization. Sam had just passed, and the reverence for his way of doing things was still fresh, almost to a fault. I believe I have mentioned it here, but the very first time that the Wal-Mart Board of Directors met in a Distribution Center was in the facility I was based in, and I got to coordinate the meeting. The exposure to people like Rob Walton, David Glass and especially Don Soderquist really left an impact on me.
I’ve never forgotten sitting on the tarmac with Lee Scott in Porterville after the Board Meeting waiting for “the jet” and him saying, “If you ever need anything, give me a call.” Of course, he wasn’t the CEO then. I still have yet to call for that chit… I wonder if it has expired. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: customer service, Wal-Mart
Required Reading: The BBB/Gallup Trust in Business Index
I recently read a survey done by Gallup for the Better Business Bureau. The study focuses on TRUST in Business. I like that. If I trust a business, that is really saying something. Trust is one of those very elusive things that I struggle with in many aspects of my life - getting it, giving it, keeping it. I’m pretty tight with my trust distribution to companies I am a customer to. I have learned via loved ones in my life and traveling down my own roads that trust is earned, not freely given.
In the Gallup survey, it is reported that good customers service is the primary prerequisite for one in five people to trust a company. If you add honesty and integrity to customer service, the numbers skyrocket to a composite 50-60% of what make people trust companies. That’s not a surprise, really, but if you look at what people look for in a company, the data falls nicely in to the Pareto principle, or 80/20 rule. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: customer service, research, survey, trust
Caliber Collision, Hwy 620, Austin TX
After a major hail storm ripped up my little car, I had to file the first claim in some time longer than a decade with my current insurance carrier. The interaction with them is another post that could be titled “Service Recovery.” They gave me a list of “Preferred” repair shops, and my car has been gone for two weeks tomorrow… Which brings me to my first point.
Honesty in time and date estimations with customers is not an option. When you tell a customer a time or date, you’d better either get the job or task done before that date or at the very least let the customer know the status and when they can expect the work or service to be done. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: auto body repair, honesty, poor service, service, timeliness
Get a human!
I’m conceptualizing a post about surviving service in the world of Interactive Voice Response (IVR, an oxymoron and acronym all rolled neatly together.)
In the mean time, I’ll share one of my favorite links, the “gethuman list.” Read the rest of this entry »
The outsource dilemma: It’s your ears.
Thank you for calling XYZ Company, welcome to Gurgaon!
A primary focus of my roles in the last twelve or so years of work has been training agents in contact centers.
My first interaction with call centers was in Sandpoint Idaho, when Coldwater Creek was a small company of 250 people. I was the training department in its entirety. We trained our agents then to be virtually ominpotent uberagents - the calls were answered within three rings (or less than one ring much of the time) by a well spoken, happy, smiling human being who could handle all of your product questions, place or track your order, basically help you with anything you could think of, including supplying the returns address for our major competitors of the time.
Fast forward a decade or so, and I find myself traveling through the bustling streets of Delhi, Bangalore, or Hyderabad. The industry has changed, as now the agents my team is supporting are supplying technical support to consumers in the US rather than selling clothes to the “Land-Rover Woman” but the premise is the same: People on the phone serving customers. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: call center service, India, Philippines, service
Six Sigma and Service…
I currently work in a six sigma shop… and while I understand and use the process, there are some places it just is NOT the right thing to do… That said, this is a favorite article of mine. Enjoy.
Six Sigma Doesn’t Belong in Customer-Centric Environments
Some tenets of a Service Culture
If I collect these momentary brain dumps in to lists of Service Tenets, who knows, maybe someday I’ll have a good list. Here are two to start.
Service Culture Tenet: Everyone serves each other first.
I started my professional career as a training manager for Wal-Mart logistics. Back in those days, Sam’s philosophies were still very much alive and well. My job was to train new supervisors and managers in the distribution centers, and whatever else, of course. There are a few memories I have of that job that have helped shape my philosophy of service interactions. The interesting part and point of this post is that those experiences were provided me by the leadership of the Company at the time.
I don’t remember how or why I ended up there, but a group of fellow training managers and I were at Sam and Helen Walton’s modest home in Bentonville for some sort of event. Read the rest of this entry »