The Customer View

E-Service that Aces the Test

You just never know where you’ll find businesses that “get it.”

I am mentoring a young man who is preparing to take the GED (high school equivalency) exam.  In order to assist us in our work together, I purchased a GED preparation guide from a company I had never heard of, on the Web.

I had seen this web site http://www.ged-secrets.com/ earlier, and had skimmed it, but hadn’t really read it through.  There was a lot of text there, much more than I typically like to see on a web site.  But when I took the time to actually read through the text, there was a lot of substance there, in the form of a direct memo to the reader from the president of the company (Peter Morrison, head of Morrison Media LLC).  The site addressed a number of pertinent issues head-on.  And the product was offered at an affordable price, with a money-back satisfaction guarantee.  What’s not to like?  Other than needing some web site and marketing advice, this guy seems to be offering a good product at a good price, and he stands behind it. 

So I ordered the guide.  And this is when I began to really get impressed.

I had the choice of ordering this book in published form, and they would mail it to me, and I would receive it whenever the Post Office deemed convenient.  Or, I could order the guide as an e-book, and get immediate delivery.  I like immediate.  And I like the e-book idea, in the event that my young friend loses his copy, I will be able to print out another for him.  So I ordered the e-book.

The process went swiftly.  In exchange for my credit card info, I was provided with a link to go to, where I could download the e-book.  Having done so with several other e-books, I knew the procedure of downloading and saving the e-book to the folder where you want it.  I hit “save” and soon, a 185 page document, bursting with tips, practice questions, and other preparation tools was sitting in my e-books folder.

By the time I had downloaded the guide, I had received 4 emails, none of them would be considered intrusive, at least by me.  To the contrary, this was e-business at its best.  This was timely, relevant, and useful information, anticipating customer questions.  I loved it!

Email #1 provided me with a thank you for my order, an invoice for the order, a confirmation of my contact information, and the email address of their customer support, in the event of any problems or questions.  Nice.

Email #2 informed me that their company name appears a certain way on credit card invoices, just so that I wouldn’t be confused when I saw the charges posted on my bill.  Nice touch.  Sounds like it was inspired by many calls/emails, from people mistakenly claiming to not have purchased the product.  Sending it by a second email gives it a much better chance of being read, rather than folding this info in with the rest of the first email.

Email #3 gave me the link to where I could download the e-book, and reminded me that I had 24 hours to download the guide.  Of course, this was all stated on the web site when I made the purchase, but you know, sometimes people get distracted.  This was essential product information, so, as a business, you can't send that message too many times.

Email #4 is where they really got me.  This one was no doubt clearly born out of untold numbers of repeated questions from angry and confused customers who were not fully practiced at the art of downloading documents.  So these folks at Morrison Media took the initiative to explain that the e-book required an application called Adobe Reader®, and that if the user did not have a copy of this application, one could be downloaded for free.  And then they provided step-by-step instructions for downloading and setting up Adobe Reader.  Then, and only then, did they get to how to download their own product, the e-book, step-by-step. 

What they have done here is beautiful.  The front-line service people have taken customer complaints from a customer base that may not be so computer-literate, and passed this information on to marketing people who could do something about it.  What the marketing people did about it was make sure that the process was spelled out sufficiently for their customers to understand.  This explanation was sent moments after the order, so the chances are good that the customer has his hands in the order or the product.  And in addition to being timely, they were thorough in explaining basic computer instructions, yet didn’t speak down to the customers. 

Then, the next day, just to make certain that I loved them as much as I could, they sent me Email #5!  This one, again from the president, said that Morrison Media had experienced some email delivery problems yesterday, and if I had not had my email answered by their support team, please resend it, as they have brought in additional staff and set up a web-based support hotline to catch up on the unanswered email.  That is great stuff.  I am so far very impressed with the service this company provides.  Now let’s see if that guide is any good.  My young friend better pass this GED test!

   --- Chuck Dennis

Marketing with Service

The soap box  I spend a lot of time standing on is always about the intersection of Marketing, Sales and Service - so here is an example that I think merits a comment.

Service in and of itself is one of the best marketing tools that any organization has.  It's pre-sale, during sale, and post-sale impact can boost or blast a company's reputation and image.  One of the best examples of this is Gentle Giant Moving Company http://www.gentlegiant.com  - where service is one of their primary marketing weapons.  Proudly emblazoned on their website are the following service awards:  2002 Small Business of the Year - Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Local Torch Award (2002, 2003, 2005) Better Business Bureau, Improper Bostonian's Business Best - 6 time winner, and Best of Boston 5 years in a row.  Phew!   Just for the record, I'm a repeat customer - 3 times to be exact.  Why?  Service.   Above and beyond service.

So how do they market service?  They strive to win these awards consistently and then they tell people about them.  In their interactions, on their website, on their "on hold" message when you're waiting to be connected to a service associate.  They offer a real service guarantee http://www.gentlegiant.com/guarantee.html and aren't afraid to spell it out.

On my first move with them, the crew leader introduced me to every member of the team (4 guys), and then said that they were going to make sure that I was competely satisfied, and when I was, they were going to ask me for a testimonial letter.  Talk about setting expectations! 

Here is the key.  Instead of wasting my time marketing to me by telling me a lot of things that any moving company may say - they just focus on the one thing I care about the most: that I'm going to get great service.  And if for some reason I don't, they'll address it.   How can they make such a claim?  Easy - by delivering every single time.  And then doing extra.  For example, after my first move was done and everything was in place, they asked me if I was happy with the position of the furniture, because they would be happy to move it around some more until I had everything in the perfect spot (an offer even my husband doesn't make).  They offered to help me insert a water pan under my washer and dryer (which came with the house and was already in the unit and hooked up when they got there).  They thought a plumber would charge me too much to do this. So they did it for free.  On move #2, they fixed a broken door in my basement, and again offered to move any of my furniture that was already in the house to a better spot, if I was so inclined.

And better yet - they focus on service for their employees AND their customers.  In my upcoming move this week, the service associate asked me if I had any pets.  I told them they would not be moving into this new space and that all the furniture was coming out of storage. He then asked me if they had ever been around the things that were being moved.  "Yes," I said.  "Why do you ask?"   The answer was that they wanted to be sure not to assign any moving person who might have pet allergies to my move if there was risk of exposure.  What an amazing thing to even think about that - and to engage your customer in providing that level of service to your employee.  I'll tell everyone I know who needs to move about that one simple but amazing thing.  How powerful is THAT kind of marketing?

   --- Lisa Dennis