Yesterday we had a customer that wanted something special. 🌻 🌻 🌻
They were a good a customer. A large customer. And they didn’t think what they were asking was unreasonable.
After all, exceptional customer service is one of our company’s tenets. And doesn’t excellent customer service mean bending over backwards to meet customers’ requests?
The customer probably had this request satisfied by a competitor at some stage.
But what the customer was asking was outside of our existing processes and system solution. And that is why these requests fall into the category of over-servicing.
To provide a service option that is outside a company’s existing systems and processes is over-servicing.
Over servicing a customer inevitably goes wrong. The process pathways are unfamiliar, the system will error, and the end result is grief.
To over service becomes an expense that doesn’t make commercial sense.
And the customer will expect it again, next time.
But we don’t ignore the request. There could be other similar requests. And so, these need to be logged and given a priority. Our company will determine whether the requests suit our mission, align with our values and make commercial sense. ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
And if it does, then soon we will be able to say, “sure, we can do that”. They are no longer ‘special’ requests. They are normal.
🌠 🌠 🌠 That’s how a company grows.
🌠 🌠 🌠 And that’s good customer service.