Thank G-d that BusinessWeek is keeping its eye on the ball and keeping a scorecard about the absolute most important element to any business--start-up, turnaround or the grey, old battleships--CUSTOMER SERVICE.
It befuddles the mind when reading business plans for start-ups that fail to include a line item expense for customer service, and enrages the intellect when being subjected to the absolute worst customer service from companies that are purportedly brand leaders. Telecoms and high tech have been infamous for failing to appreciate that they have an obligation to deal with customer complaints--and many, even Dell, have recognized the error of their ways.
Although many figured it out after they lost their customers--and subsequently, the keys to the executive washroom (and all of the other keys to the building), there is actually a universe of corporate managers that understand that customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty are the lifeblood of any business.
Unfortunately, based on personal experience, I don't think that 1800Flowers falls into the category of "we get it"--and if you believe Warren Buffet when he suggests that poor customer service is a tell tale sign of a poorly run company, then 1800Flowers' revolving door of senior execs says something about the company's board of directors.
On Feb 10, my wife placed an order via the 1800Flowers call center--flowers to be delivered on Feb 13 to our only child ( daughter) in honor of her 21'st birthday. When it was obvious the flowers hadn't been received by 7pm on the 13th--we phoned 1800 flowers to discover the phone lines were overwhlemed, and no matter how we attempted to naviagate, we kept encountering insturctions ot leave a voice message. Then we tried submitting a complaint by email--and received an auto reply that our inquiry would be addressed within 24 hours--which by then would be almost a full day after the birthday presented was suppposed to be delivered--and five days after it was ordered.. We tried phoning on the 14th, but what a surprise, the automated answering system indicated they were not accepting any calls--as they were overwhelmed. We tried calling on the 15th---same thing--no matter how much we tried to speak to a human--all ports were blocked.
Finally on the 16th--6 days after the order was placed and 3 days after the birthday--we were able to connect to a live customer service representative--who explained the reason the flowers were never delivered was because "the local vendor they had designated was too busy." The customer service rep believed that was a reasonable explanation and when asked if thought it would be a good idea for 1800flowers to find another local vendor--as opposed to simply dropping the entire thing--without bothering to call us, he therwsie said''hey, this was our busiest week of the year--so I'm sure you can understand..."
What I understood is that the customer service rep could have the stupidiest person ever put on a customer service line--and when he offered to provide a 20% discount card on the next purchase, I became convinced he was from another planet (or a former customer service rep from Dell).
When I asked " Why in thew world would I ever purchase anything from your company again when they failed so miserably on this purchase, and made absolutely no effort to resolve the problem, and had absolutely no customer service available for 4 days...??".. The customer service guy had no response--and when we asked to speak with a supervisor, we were told that none were available, and "it wouldn't be any better--but we could still have the 20% discount on the next purchase. " I politely suggested that I'd never use 1800flowers again (I' probably used them 1-2x a year for the past 10 years)--and under no circumstances did I want him sending us any solicitations.
What a surprise that the following week, I received a form letter apologizing for our not being satisfied, along with a 20% discount offering on my next purchase.
What should have happened: the customer service rep should have been trained to understand english and customer frustration. Who in their right mind is going to be appeased with a "sorry--here's 20% discount discount card when a special flower arrangement for their only child's 21'st birthday is bungled so completely??....
What he should have done was immediately offer a free something--as in "can we send your daughter a bouquet right now?--or can we not only credit you, but can we keep an additional credit available for the next time you'd like to send flowers to anyone anywhere?" Not a measely discount on a purchase--and he made zero effort to keep me as a satisfied customer--or to prevent the situation from turning ugly-which I clearly forewarned him about: -includingthe liklihood of my lamenting on a blog that's read by hundreds of media and marketing industry execs--and emailing everyone in my family and universe of friends that they should never do business with 1800flowers.
OK--the birthday was the day before Valentines Day--the biggest flower day of the year (or is it Mother's Day?)--And shit happens. But to have no customer telephone support for 3 straight days--and to have voice recordings that suggest that if you leave a message, someone will get back to you within the next day is lunacy. On the biggest day of the year, a smart company would OVERSTAFF with customer support to make sure those customers come back for next year's busieest day of the year. This isn't rocket science .
Jim McCann--I hope you're reading this--because I doubt anyone on your staff really cares.
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