Recently, I canceled my pest control service.  I wasn’t happy because more than once they said they would follow up with me and they didn’t.  So, I wanted to switch to another company.  When I called to cancel, the woman on the other end of the phone promptly told me that since I was canceling within 12 months….that first visit they did for free…well, now I need to pay for it!  I told her they never said anything about that, ever!  She said it was in the contract.  I never signed a contract.  I was so mad that they try to pull that one on me.  How am I ever supposed to want to return to use their service when they treat me like that?

My new pest control company said that they never require contracts.  They want their customers to be happy and if they aren’t, they want them to be able to leave.  No problems.

Customer service is so important to me.  It’s important to me that I treat MY customers well, no matter how wrong I think they are.

And it’s important to me that businesses I deal with treat me fair.

So today I had an amazing customer service experience.

Let me first introduce you to the problem.  Over a year ago (didn’t seem that long ago) I purchased a spiral vegetable slicer – called a spiralizer.  They are awesome!  You can cut zucchini or squash into long luscious noodles.  I received the package in the mail and put it away without unpacking the box, thinking I would use it soon.  A few weeks later I moved.  So…fast forward to 13 months later, I’m ready to make noodles!  Upon opening my package, I found that two of the three blades were missing!  Yikes!  That won’t do!

At this point, I couldn’t remember where I purchased it.  So I looked around the internet to see if I could just purchase the blades.  No luck.  I looked on eBay and Amazon and WalMart.  So I figured all I could do was buy another one.  I had clicked on some Amazon links for the product and as I looked at one I saw a notation on it that said, “You have purchased this item!”  What?  Awesome!  I looked at the invoice and it was 8/10/13.  Wow, that was a long time ago.  So I clicked on the product to see if I could send an email to the seller to get some replacement blades.  The contact process said I had to contact Amazon, so when I had the choice to email or call, I chose call to get things rolling faster since it was a Friday evening.  Amazon has you put in your phone number and click a button.  Then someone is supposed to call you.  I figured that wouldn’t happen anytime soon.

About 2 seconds later, my phone rang.  It was David at Amazon.  I told him my situation and he looked up my order.  He offered a couple of solutions but then decided the best way was to have me return my product and purchase another one.  The seller that I had originally gotten it from was out of stock, but he found another seller.  However, since the time of my first order, prices had gone up a bit.  But once again, David said he could apply a coupon which ended up making the price the same as the one I had purchased before.  And while we were chatting, he emailed me a link to print out a free shipping label to return my current product.  Once that arrives to Amazon, they credit my card.  I looked in my Amazon cart, saw the new product with the discount coupon and ordered.  Since I’m a Prime Amazon customer, I will be getting free shipping with arrival in two business days.

Can you believe that?  No questions asked.  No problem.  Solutions offered.  Happy customer.  Very happy customer.  I might even be able to still make my zucchini noodles before my zucchini gets too ripe.  I’m going to look to Amazon for future purchases.  I’m going to give them a great review.  I’m going to tell everyone about this.  I told my husband about it.  He had been looking to buy a wallet, so he went directly to Amazon, found what he wanted to bought it from them.

What I saw from this is that Amazon takes care of their customers from every angle.  They do everything they can to make the experience with them easy.  They let you know what you have already purchased so you don’t re-purchase it.  (Raise your hand if you have done something like that!  Okay, don’t!  I don’t want to know!)  You can check all your orders.  They suggest other helpful items for you.  I could go on and on about all the subtle and helpful things they do.  Best of all, their customer service experience is amazing.

Now I know that many customer issues are different.  But what can you learn from this and how can you apply that to YOUR business?

What can you do to reach out to your customers and prospective customers?  How can you serve them?  If there are issues, how can you make it a winning solution for them?  For both of you?

All I can tell you is that I am a very happy customer who wants to continue to purchase from Amazon.

And I want to do everything I can to make sure that my customers feel the same way!

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I look forward to hearing from you.  Please let me know if you have any questions or how I can help!