In the past, I have written about the importance of consistency in delivering a great service experience. In my opinion, you will likely win at the service game if you deliver good, no great, customer service consistently (rather than having it great one time, average the next, and not-so-good the next time). I want to highlight a critical component of delivering consistently great customer service which is not taking loyal customers for granted.
Let me share a personal experience to illustrate this point.
We have a home security system as is true for many people. We have been loyal customers of the same company for 23 years. A few weeks ago we were preparing to leave for an extended trip and called the security service to notify them. Their remote system test revealed that the system was not communicating with the monitoring station.
The security company explained that this failure was because “our home had not been upgraded from a 3G to a 4G system, which is why it was not working.” Because they failed to notify us that an upgrade was needed, the system had not been working for at least a year.
What are the messages to companies regarding customer service?
Never take your loyal customers for granted.
In this case, our provider took us for granted. We weren’t complaining so from the perspective of our security provider; there wasn’t a reason to worry about the Daniel family.
Have processes in place to ensure consistent service is delivered.
We were paying for a service that we were not fully receiving for over a year. Aside from the increased risks we assumed (unknowingly), this failure brings into question the integrity of the security services provider.
When you have one service failure, do not compound it by having a second (and third).
In this case, the first failure was failing to let us know of the needed upgrade. They compounded their problems by having a disastrous service call to upgrade the security system.
What is the impact on our family’s decision-making about security systems? We are contemplating some home remodeling and we will consider using other security companies. This contemplation would not be the case had our present provider not taken us for granted!
Lynn Daniel
PS: To all would be burglars reading this blog, the security system is up and running.
