A few months ago, I had a most interesting customer service experience, one that mystified me, about which I promised I would eventually blog. LONG STORY ALERT: if you don't want to read this, skip down to "---END LONG STORY---" to get to the point.
I was a Sprint PCS customer for nearly 7-1/2 years...was...nearly. After two years of off-contract month-to-month service, I decided I would purchase a new phone (at a discount) and re-up my contract. Now, Sprint has not been great to me (lots of telemarketing recently, some network issues, etc.), but they've been good enough for me to not bother switching.
I purchased my phone, contracted my plan, and went on my way. The phone was essentially DOA. The battery held a 15 minute charge and then died. I used it for a few days (plugged in mostly), went to return it, and instead of returning it, I ended up upgrading to the new UpStage - sweet phone!
Well, a few weeks go by, and I come to the realization I need a phone that has a full keyboard for business purposes. I also need to upgrade my plan (by ~$50/mo., up to ~$120/mo.). I went back to trade up, and got a nasty surprise. Since I had traded up once previously on that broken phone, I wasn't eligible to trade up again. What's more, including the time I spent using the broken phone, I was six days past the deadline to switch plans or back out.
No one at the Sprint store could help me. No one at Sprint customer service could help me. They insisted I pay $650 for the phone I needed, and I was on my own figuring out what to do with my UpStage.
I started shopping around. I looked at Verizon and AllTel. Verizon offered to sell me the phone I wanted for $150, plus they threw in a free belt clip, car charger and $100 bluetooth headset.
I called Sprint and told them after doing the math, even with the $200 disconnect fee, I was going to save hundreds of dollars by leaving them! I tried spelling everything out for them. I was a customer of more than seven years. I was upgrading my plan from $70 to $120/month. and I was happy to commit to a two-year contract. I was trading back the phone I had, which has some value to them. All I wanted was for them to roll back my status by six days so I could get the products and services I really needed and stay a Sprint customer.
They said they weren't authorized to do this.
I called one more time, this time to the department that handles account closures. I explained the entire situation, and that I was outside the Verizon store, about to leave Sprint. I told them I didn't want to have to leave under these circumstances. They said there was nothing they could do...except, perhaps they could work on plan pricing to make up some of the difference. Well, ok - that's a start. Sure, you can put me on hold for a couple minutes while you figure out what you're able to do. Waiting...waiting...waiting...click. Five minutes later, the line goes dead. I believe it was the network (if that's not a sign, I don't know what is). Still, I gave them 20 minutes to call me back and work with me. Nothing. So, I walked into Verizon, switched my service, bought my phone for $150, got my freebies, and a week of eBay later, I sold my UpStage (I paid $150 for it - promotional price) for $263, which easily covered the Sprint disconnection fee. All in all, I saved roughly $400 by leaving Sprint for Verizon.
--- END LONG STORY ---
That was a very long story, I know, but it comes with a very strong point. As a hosting company, (cue Pussycat Dolls) don't you wish your entire customer base was just like me ? Don't you wish every customer stuck around for seven+ years, through good service and bad, and didn't leave at the first sign of trouble or the first hosting deal that was $1 less per month than you charge? Don't you wish your customers would call you three or four times while considering leaving to give you the opportunity to keep them as customers under very reasonable terms? Don't you wish your customers would solicit you to work through any and every angle possible to remain your customers in the face of adversity?
You don't need me to tell you this, but most of your customers are not like me. They will leave a whole lot more quickly than I left Sprint, and they won't give nearly as much notice. Sprint failed me, not because they employed bad people, not even because they weren't right (I was technically past the switching date). Sprint failed me because they chose not to give their employees the power to keep me as their loyal customer. Sprint failed because they chose to implement a policy that leaves no room for people to make decisions that are best for customers and truly best for the company.
Smaller businesses typically don't have this problem as much as larger businesses. Either employees are given the power to make customers happy, or the decision makers/management are not so far removed from customer service that they are unavailable to make such decisions themselves. It seems the larger an organization gets, the harder it is to remember customer service is a very human process. No matter what size your business is, I encourage you to purchase a book called The Simple Truths of Service, by Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz (I linked to Amazon, but they may not have any copies available at the moment). The stories they share about good customer service are simply amazing! The book is short (you'll finish it in 20-30 minutes, maybe), but the lessons are profound.
Perhaps a small investment of time spent reading this book will equip you with the ideas and motivation to do things for your customers that will make them show the loyalty I showed Sprint up to the very end, and perhaps the actions you take will result in a much happier ending for everyone.
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