It's OK, Customer Service (even eService) can be Fun!

My sister, a customer service maven in her day, forwarded to me a wonderful little email she received from the customer service department from Better World Books :

Hey Carole,  <name obscured by me to protect my sister's privacy!>

We're just checking in to see if you received your order (The Golden Door Cookbook ) from Better World Books. If your order hasn't blessed your mailbox just yet, heads are gonna roll in the Mishawaka warehouse! Seriously though, if you haven't received your order or are less than 108.8% satisfied, please reply to this message. Let us know what we can do to flabbergast you with service.

Humbly Yours,

Indaba (our super-cool email robot)

email: [email protected]

Order Number: 53090456101

Fund literacy, care for the environment, and get a fair price on the books you want.
BetterWorldbooks.com (http://www.BetterWorldbooks.com/)

2 Million Used Books. Free shipping in the USA, $3.97 worldwide.

Become a fan of Better World Books... on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Better-World-Books/10669898542

OK, so what did these folks do right?  How about everything?

Let's list some highlights, shall we?

• prompt confirmation of order
• confirmation of order was personalized, with customer's name and name of item ordered
• then... HUMOR!
  Okay, not knee-slapping, milk-through-the-nose funny, but just a little bit of a hah-hah, a few in a rapid-fire row: "heads will roll," "108.8% satisfied," and "flabbergast you with service."  These all caught our attention, and in a good way - with a smile!
• then... FULL DISCLOSURE!
  After sharing a smile with the email, we then learn that it was sent NOT by a witty and clever service rep, but by an automated email responder.  Wow, they used technology to perform a function AND make a funny?  Is that even legal???
• then... the closing of the email, and all the info YOU need to know (their email address and customer order #), as well as info that THEY want you to know (their excellent mission, their web address, their amount of inventory, their free shipping, and their Facebook page.  None of it obtrusive.  And the reader is happy to read it, because they've already been given a smile or two.

See, great customer service is not that difficult.  I like it when businesses get that.

   --- Chuck Dennis

Comments

[Chuck Dennis]

More on this interesting company in this article: http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/27/smallbusiness/books_that_talk_back.fsb/index.htm