Those extra special touches
I found myself doing something last week that I never do. I placed an order with a cold caller. Really, I never ever do that – hate cold calls and never buy anything over the phone (or on the doorstep for that matter). But last week I did.
Actually, from the point of view of the caller it was probably a cold call but at my end it was much warmer. Why? Because I’d already heard of the company and at one point had considered buying from them but for some reason never got round to it. He also phoned at exactly the right moment as I was needing to order some stationery (he was phoning from an office supplies company). In fact at that exact moment I had a slip of paper on my desk in front of me saying ‘buy printer cartridges’. So, he was onto a winner wasn’t he? I knew the company, I had wanted to use them and I had a need for their products.
So I ordered a couple of things on the spot. Not a massive order but we generally don’t need much stuff. The order promptly arrived the next day along with a packet of chocolate biscuits – now they know the way to a girl’s heart don’t they? And that’s really the point of this blog post. It’s the special touches like that that really make a difference. I’d already had a good experience through placing the order but I’m really going to remember them now aren’t I? And I found myself talking about it at my business breakfast on Tuesday – not because I consciously thought ‘let’s plug my new stationery supplier’ but because I wanted to tell everybody about the biscuits.
In case you happen to be in Cornwall, the company I’m talking about is Office Smart. I’ve only placed the one order so far but it was an excellent first impression. Now, I wonder if they can help us with our filing cabinet problem…
Stairs, filing cabinets and piles of paper
Yes, that’s right, we’ve got a problem with our filing. The big idea was that we buy a sparkly new filing cabinet for our sparkly new office, and leave the old one at home for home stuff.
But can we find somewhere that will deliver a filing cabinet to us and carry it up the stairs to our office? Is that really too much to ask? My foolish assumption was that delivery people would be equipt with things such as a stair trolley and would therefore be in a much better position to get the cabinet up the stairs than us. But no, it appears not.
We thought we’d found somewhere that would do it but several weeks after placing the order we were told they couldn’t do it because there was no lift in our building. If we had a lift we wouldn’t need help getting the darn thing up the stairs! So, that order was swiftly cancelled.
It’s now a month since we ordered the filing cabinet, the filing is mounting up, and we’re no nearer a solution. So, my question of the day is – is there anywhere that can sell us a filing cabinet and deliver it up the stairs for us? Or is there an alternative to a filing cabinet? Something that doesn’t involve one hefty piece of furniture? We’re open to suggestions!
A positive experience with BT
The other day I wrote about my frustration at trying to use BT’s automated phone system. To balance that a little I actually had a very positive experience on Friday. We were having some problems with our phone line (or so we thought) so I called the fault line.
I got through to somebody very quickly – just had to enter my phone number and select one option and then was straight through. And the lady I got through to was brilliant. She went through the problem with me and ran a test on the line. The test came back clear – no problem with our line at all, so it was most likely the equipment. She offered to send me an email with some suggestions as to how to test it myself and agreed a time to phone back to see how I was getting on.
Meanwhile, I discovered that it was something very very silly. Definitely not a problem with the line at all. So when she phoned back at exactly the time we’d agreed I sheepishly explained that everything was fine and it had been my mistake. She was great – very understanding. What a delight to have such a helpful person to talk it through with.
BT: worst automated phone system?
Yesterday I added a new article to the site describing some of our experiences of moving our business into an office. I described some of the problems we’ve encountered with setting up our business phone line with BT. What I find particularly interesting is that a phone company can do such a terrible job at providing phone-based customer service. Surely with their years of experience and expertise they should have an outstanding phone system?
Here’s the problem I had. I had an issue that I wanted to discuss with BT – that is with a real person who could listen to my problem, check our account and discuss it with me. So, I phoned the number provided on the paperwork they had sent and started the usual process of selecting options from the automated menu system. The first couple of times I chose the options which actually applied to me – yes, I was phoning from the number I wanted to enquire about; yes, I wanted to enquire about an existing order. And each time I’d end up at an automated message which told me that I had one order in progress. I already knew that, it was that order I wanted to ask about! There were then no further options so the call was ended.
Hmmm, not very helpful is it? I started experimenting with the options I selected and at one point got through to someone who reckoned they couldn’t access the kind of order number I had on their system, at which point they put me through to a number which just rang and rang and … rang. Why would a customer service department attached to the number given on the paperwork associated with my account not be able to access my account details?
In the end I resorted to randomly selecting the options which didn’t apply to me and eventually got through to someone who could actually help. This particular person was very helpful and sorted out my concerns very quickly. They were even very understanding when I explained how frustrated I’d got at trying to get through to someone who could help me. They reckon that the powers that be are aware of the difficulty customers are having with the phone system and are going to improve it. Do I believe that they will? Not sure. I certainly hope that I don’t have much cause to ring them up in the future.
Moving ISP
We’ve tentatively started the process of moving to a different broadband supplier today. We’ve been with Pipex for a very long time but have been getting increasingly disatisfied with them. The connectivity has been pretty reasonable (apart from a couple of weird blips recently which may be our router or may be them, not sure…) but their customer service has been atrocious.
If you have a problem you have to pay a high rate to phone and usually end up speaking to somebody in India who spends ages going through the standard stuff with you and doesn’t really try to understand what your actual problem is. If you email for support you are first faced with a message saying ‘we can’t even say hello unless you tell us all your security info’ and then get a random and completely nonsensical reply several weeks after you’ve solved the problem for yourself. Utterly laughable.
Not to mention when they phone you but then refuse to tell you what the call is about unless you answer the security questions. I have a policy that I won’t give out any info over the phone unless I have made the call. Asking me to give my date of birth, mother’s maiden name, bra size etc. when they have initiated the call makes absolutely no sense and is … um … rather insecure.
So, bye bye Pipex, and hello Zen Internet who have been recommended to us by a friend. First impressions are good – I phoned up yesterday for some info and got a very helpful response. So let’s see how the transfer of service goes (eek!). We’ve been told that we may lose our phone line for one to two hours but apart from that we shouldn’t be internetless for too long. Hope not!
Five Star Service, One Star Budget
Some of the advice may seem like it’s common sense in a ‘I already knew that’ kind of way, but as the author points out – it’s not the knowing, it’s the doing that counts. If nothing else the book acts as a reminder of what you should be doing. You can use it to dip into when you feel your business needs a boost, or as a manual for transforming your customer service if you work through it a chapter at a time. Well worth a read.
A truly brilliant business book.
Rating: 
Buy “Five Star Service” from Amazon >
