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Monday, November 10, 2003
Keep Talking
Let's me start by apologizing. Not the insincere "tell your brother you're sorry" kind of I'm sorry". More the "wow, that must be painful, what can I do to make it better" kind of sorry. It shouldn't be this difficult.
Robert Scoble copied me on a piece of email today to see if I could find the appropriate people to help a customer who was having trouble getting a response from someone about a problem. Turns out (though it all happened before I was involved) the word made it to Steve Ballmer, who got the right people to call the customer.
I just came out of a long management meeting where we discussed what steps we're taking in our division to better listen to customers and respond appropriately, so I was feeling pretty fired up about getting something going. And I'm pretty fired up about listening to customers and "doing the right thing" anyway.
This particular customer (not in our business group, by the way--but then, what difference does that make?) illustrated how small acts (like not communicating a delivery date) can really make things painful for channel partners and customers.
As a company, many are really trying to do the right thing, and be a lot more open and responsive. At the end of the day, we are interested about how we're being perceived, and we're open to getting direction on things that are important to our customers. Sometimes (a lot of times) it's not price. It's about being trustworthy, open, respectful, etc. I really believe that.
I'm still here after 13 years because I think I can help be a voice for these types of changes, and folks like Robert are newly here because they really want to do what's right for our customers. We both really (actually!) believe our company mission, creating software (and getting it to customers) to help our customers and partners reach their potential (economic, creative, whatever).
So, make sure to be tenacious enough to get someone to listen. It must be like how I feel after telling my seven-year-old to make his bed. Eventually, he actually does it.
And by the way, I hope you all realize what a valuable resource you have in Robert...
Posted at 05:04 PM in Marketing | Permalink
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Comments
it's good to hear that there are people out there who actually make the effort. over here where i am, it's a case of 'yeah, we sold it to yeah. it's your problem now, not ours. you want it solved, buy a new equipment.'
grrr... and for the record, i think that LG malaysia seriously needs to get their act together. will never buy another monitor nor CD-burner ever again. Cheap but breaks down a lot.
Posted by: Wena at Nov 11, 2003 1:54:08 AM
So why doesn't IE do transparent PNGs after all these years? Could you work your magic with that question too? It's been asked by practically every web designer in the world, and the closest we ever got to an answer was "No comment". I see no reason to believe that because Ballmer had a spare few minutes for a PR job, you guys suddenly learnt how to communicate.
Posted by: Mike Hearn at Nov 11, 2003 5:27:01 AM
Yup Scoble Rocks! :-)
Posted by: S Bradley at Nov 11, 2003 12:51:58 PM
"I see no reason to believe that because Ballmer had a spare few minutes for a PR job, you guys suddenly learnt how to communicate."
For the record, this wasn't your normal PR job. I urged a poster in a newsgroup to send one email to Mr. Ballmer with his concerns. I didn't expect a response to that poster within 24 hours. But he had one. This wasn't a "big fortune 500 customer" either.
This was a case of building trust a little building block at a time.
Posted by: S Bradley at Nov 11, 2003 10:18:49 PM
Yes, humans are really running large corporations. Scary, I know, but It also means that when they fail they can fail big time. But when they succeed we take them for granted. You build trust one customer at a time. Operational excellence is brand. Keep up the good work.
Posted by: john cass at Nov 12, 2003 9:03:01 PM
Oh wow! I can't believe there's actually a large corporation that understands the importance of customer service.
I recently discussed this very issue with Ralph Wilson of WilsonWeb.com. It seems especially true that on the Internet, staff of large businesses think they're doing you a favor by selling you their products/services.
There is one conversation that absolutely amazes me:
http://www.serverbeach.com/forums/showthread.php?&threadid=1584
Although I have servers at ServerBeach, and am quite happy with them, I found the rudeness of ServerBeach staff mind-boggling.
I personally believe that consumers will put up with a lower-quality product if the staff is polite and respectful and responsive. On the flipside, I'll pay more for a product than I need to if the staff is rude at the cheaper retailer. I think it's more common than most people are aware of.
Posted by: John Scott at Dec 22, 2003 11:09:07 PM
