As a marketer and Go-Giver, I constantly look at how businesses . . . well, do business.
While some will say the purpose of business is to make a profit (and thus provide value), and others will say the purpose of business is to provide value (and thus make a profit), it still comes down to this: In order to make a sustained, continued profit, businesses must provide value. To the degree they do this, they will have a loyal following who will continually do business with them and refer them to others.
Or, to paraphrase Ernesto in The Go-Giver, they must focus on providing the ultimate experience.
Ultimate experience = gain business.
Average to good experience = business by chance.
Negative experience = lose business.
The latter was the case with a local painting contractor who, while being hired to repaint the exteriors of all the condos in my community, offered to paint our individual patios for an extra charge. Sounded good to me.
Now, the fact that they didn’t actually do the job was not an issue. They might have knocked on my door when I was out of town. Totally no problem; easy to reschedule. The problem was, I was billed for the job.
The person on the phone assured me it was just a “computer thing” . . . that I didn’t owe the money, and they would call me to reschedule.
They didn’t. But worse, I received another bill, this time telling me my payment was overdue. Nice person on phone explained again that it was just a computer problem and wouldn’t happen again.
Rinse and repeat. It did. A third bill. It now said, PAST DUE! (Yes, the bill yelled at me) 🙂
I called and spoke to another very nice woman. “Unfortunately,” she explained, “the computer is programmed that way. We’ve had other complaints about this and are trying to get someone to figure out how to change the program so that it doesn’t do that.” Oh, and did I want to set a definite appointment for the painting?
I did not. I (of course, very politely) let her know that I’d like to cancel and “may I please have my account totally removed from the computer so that I don’t receive another bill?” I now fully realized that their computer problem had become my computer problem. Dangerous for a business these days to allow this to happen.
Hopefully, she will let the powers-that-be at her company know what happened.
And . . . shame on them. 🙂
As you already know, their computer is only the symptom, not the cause. The cause is a company culture that doesn’t understand it is their responsibility – not their computer’s – to make sure their customer is taken care of properly and enjoys, in this case, the ultimate patio painting experience.
They meant well, but good intent simply doesn’t matter when you provide negative value.
I was so glad to see you close with the concept of responsibility. That word was screaming out at me while reading your whole post. Too bad that no one just told you that they owned the problem.
I guess it’s up to us to do business in the right way so our actions and intentions spread.
Now let me tell a contrasting story.
There is a grocery store chain called HyVee that is employee-owned. I have had many outstanding experiences there, but this one will always stay near the top in my storytelling lineup.
I was making manicotti for for my husband’s family (he has 10 sibs plus spouses and kids – you do the math) and I ran to the store with a very long list, got home and put a cake in the oven and started on the filling for the pasta. Due to time constraints, quantity required and general laziness that day, I resorted to preshredded cheese, which I opened and dumped in with the rest of the ingredients. I started stirring only to notice that the cheese had MOLD in it!
I called the store, expecting that the best I could hope for was that they would offer to replace all of the ingredients which I had just ruined by adding the moldy cheese. I grossly underestimated their sympathy for a stressed-out cook and their desire to add value.
As soon as I said I couldn’t come back to the store until the cake was out of the oven, the customer service professional who took my call said, no worries, they would send a driver out with my ingredients if I would just give her a list of what I needed, quantities required and my preferred brands.
That’s right, she even asked what brands I used!
Not only did their driver arrive in short order with everything I needed, they also added a gallon of premium ice cream to “go with the cake I had in the oven.” Talk about taking responsiblity and building a culture of go-giving!
I now live in a town with no HyVee, more’s the pity, but I’ve told that story to some pretty large audiences, so I’ll bet they are still getting buzz and business out of the value they added for me that day.
Dixie, I like to read stories like yours much better than the one I wrote. And yours is an excellent example of the fact that with just a bit of effort and creativity, a business can create an asset of value that elicits customers wanting to just sing its praises. Good for HyVee . . . and good for you for mentioning them.
By the way, I don’t recall getting an invitation to your manicotti dinner. I’m sure it was merely an oversight on your part. (???) 🙂