Posted by: Jim Petzel 5 years, 10 months ago
During my hiatus from the working world I am diligently exercising and getting my body into athlete shape again. While I have no illusions that I can get into my 26 year-old form -- I know I can be a much better 56 year-old. Part of this process has been identifying the right elliptical piece of equipment to use in our home. After some research we chose one and ordered it with confidence that it would be set up and in place before Christmas.
The process started really great. We made payment and the order was shipped off in a couple of days. That however was the only thing that has gone right in this process and it reminded me again why companies with good products ultimately fail. I know this organization has a good product because we have had previous models over the years and we didn’t just use them to hang clothes. We actually did use them. We will however never buy from this outfit again because they have lost the plot along the way in the following ways that can be a lesson to all of us in our businesses:
1. Companies fail when they don’t take ownership for their supply chain – Most organizations focus on their core business and require other companies to support their efforts in a wide variety of different ways. In this situation the order went off right away but a local supplier could not make delivery and do the set up for another month. In going back to the manufacturer it was clear that they were not going to take accountability for the local delivery outfit nor did they have a clear process to manage them to any level of reasonable service or standards. They were allowing the customer experience to be managed by others with full knowledge that it wasn’t going well.
2. Companies fail when customers simply cant reach them easily – This organization was extremely proactive in attempting to upsell their product but they made it very difficult to reach with questions or concerns either on line or by phone. Here I was spending more money than I did on my first few cars and I was being left holding and listening to the world’s worst possible music.
3. Companies fail when their front line staff does not have the skills or are discouraged to think on their feet and take action. Because the delivery was delayed significantly my product went on sale after the first of the year. In attempt to bring some light to the darkness I took the time to wait once again on hold and finally reached their representative who immediately offered to honor the new price but then retracted it. “Sir the discount is for the 2018 model and you have ordered the 2017 model.” I told them I was fine in accepting the old model since it already ordered and scheduled for delivery. I just needed a credit for the discounted price. “ You don’t understand,” said the rep “I can’t give you this year’s price for last years model. If you want to cancel your order and order the new one we could do that. At this point I knew no amount of logic was going to work but I attempted any way -- “So you are going to ship my machine that is discontinued back to your place and ship out a new one. This old machine is not something that you will likely every sell because you now have new ones in stock. Do you understand what a bad business decision this is?” No response.
4. Companies fail when they create needless silos especially if those silos are customer facing – My conversation continued with their representative. “You don’t leave me any choice. Lets cancel the order.” To which the response was “Sorry sir I don’t handle that.” I don’t use profanity very often but I also don’t do stupid very well.
5. Companies fail when the only way to escalate an issue is to never do business with them again – Despite everything I still had planned to buy the new machine after cancelling my first order. After holding again and cancelling the order we waited a few days and noticed that our account wasn’t credited so I went back through the process of holding yet again to get someone live on the phone. I was told that their POLICY was to provide credits within 4-5 weeks. I capitalize the word POLICY because I have learned that in business the next words out of anyone’s mouth are going to be insane and its their way of justifying what they know is going to be a crazy statement. I asked to speak to their supervisor. They said that there wasn’t one which means that I was either speaking to the emperor of the universe or the company has chosen to make it impossible to escalate a service issue. In looking on line I couldn’t find out who even makes up the senior management team of the company. They want to be invisible!
I purposely didn’t mention the name of the company involved because I am not here to use social media to trash a brand. They will run themselves out of business without my help one customer at a time. They have a cancer that they don’t even know exists because they think their product and the next celebrity to promote it is their saving grace.
This is only meant as a reminder to us all that Apple makes a good phone but they have become the world’s most valuable company by placing an even greater focus on the customer experience. Amazon can get away with an 18% increase overnight because their customers can no longer imagine life without them. Netflix hit $100 billion in value because they changed an industry even though others had decades of advanced market knowledge by focusing on how the customer feels.
New dinosaurs are created every day by startups willing to make both a good product and a great experience while other brands appear to focused on their navels - their own internal issues or simply their longstanding products. There, however, is an unchangeable fact in the market. . . . the customer experience always wins!
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