If you ever want to know what Customer Service truly is and is not, let your Air Conditioner fail and start calling AC Repair companies.
Our AC went out yesterday. Of course, yesterday was the hottest day of the year here in Dallas. Thankfully, it stopped working in the evening instead of during the heat of the day.
My first step was to try to ‘solve the problem’ but I quickly realized that my AC problem solving skills ended after trying the ‘is it on’ and ‘is the breaker on’ steps.
I then called the company that installed the system to ask for a service call and after waiting on hold for 5 minutes and being asked a ton of questions in a very mechanical manner, I was told that the first available technician could be at my home on Wednesday.
Normally, that would be OK, but with the 2 chinchillas that we have, we needed something faster than that. Chinchillas need cool temparatures…anything above 75 is deadly.
My next call was to a local AC company, but since it was 9PM, I received nothing but voicemail…ditto for the other 2 companies. I then decided to try one more person who I had heard good things about. Dwight Stewart, owner of Dwight’s Heating and Air in Sachse TX, answered the phone on the first ring. Imagine my surprise to actually hear a live person answer the phone.
I explained the situation to Dwight. He walked me through some basic troubleshooting steps and asked some questions. After the troubleshooting didn’t work, he said he would be at my house the next day and would call me first thing in the morning to let me know when he would be there.
I received a call at 8:21AM from Dwight telling me he’d try to make it to my house around mid-day today and would call when he was about 30 minutes out. I then received a call at ~ 11:45AM telling me he was about 30 minutes out. He showed up to the house at ~12:15PM.
30 minutes later, the AC is fixed (the capacitor was busted) and all is well. Many thanks to Dwight and his excellent customer service.
More organizations and service professionals need to learn from Dwight’s service.
[tags] Customer Service [/tags]
2 responses to “Customer Service Defined”
You will note in this sequence the amount of “saying what you will do” and then “doing what you say you will do.”
Tremendous confidence can be built that the problem will be solved before the person ever shows up. Go over troubleshooting steps (the guy has a plan!). Didn’t work; will call first thing with schedule (and then does!). Gives a time and promises a call 30-minutes out (man, does this guy deliver!). The biggest thing repair and installation companies have against them is consumers believing they will actually solve the problem.
You had no doubt he was going to fix the problem when he got there, right?
And even if something went wrong and he needed a part or something, you would have thought he knows what he is doing and is on it as compared to “can’t these repair people have the parts with them?”, right?
All because he answered the phone, promised to call, promised a time, and promised a call 30-minutes out before he ever got there. And then delivered.
This stuff is very simple. It’s just really hard for companies to execute.
So true Scot. Doing what you said you will do when you say it will do it is the key and most organizations don’t quite get it…or aren’t able to do it because of their processes and/or organizational structure.