Faulty products and $450 fees have become the norm for brands
Getting the basics right shouldn’t surprise and delight your customers, it should be at the very core of every business’ marketing strategy, writes LIDA’s Lucy Acheson.
When was the last time a brand genuinely surprised and delighted you? Despite so many professing to be customer-centric, investing in technology and beavering away on elaborate customer experience strategies, sadly, this is an infrequent occurrence.
Every once in a very long while, a unicorn-like ‘kind’ gesture materialises and it’s as powerful as any advertising. But is it a case of a brand going the extra mile, or are we so used to average experiences, it merely seems like it is?
You’ve taken advantage of a small business for who it will cost more to process an international return than to simply smile and wear the loss.
Huh?
‘For starters, if you deliver an imperfect product, admit and rectify the mistake immediately without expecting the customer to go to great effort to sort it out. ‘
Large corporate’s are in the game for one thing and one thing only: profits. They would not know what a great product is, if it hit them in the face. The business model is promote, create desire and sell, mainly crap to the masses. This is what they have and continue to do and service doesn’t come into it.
Huh?
The last time a brand surprised and delighted me? Yesterday. And surprisingly it was a telco.
We needed to buy 3 pre-paid SIM cards for work, after checking a few deals online we went with Amaysim. Bought 3 SIMs using the company credit card, then got an email a few minutes after the purchase saying that 1 of the 3 purchases had had our card declined.
Fearfully (thinking of previous experiences with appalling telco customer service) I opened up an online chat with Amaysim to try to sort it out.
—–
Me: “Hi, I just bought 3 SIMs. These are the numbers, but I got an email for one of them saying the card was declined”
Them: “OK, thanks. Let me check. Yes, I can see that one was declined, do you want me to reprocess it on the same card and see if it goes through?”
Me: “Sure, that would be great”
Them: “Ok, that’s gone through now. Is there anything else?”
Me: “So confirming that all 3 SIMs will be mailed to me”
Them: “Yes you’ll have them in a few days”
—–
Took about 3 minutes tops. The same thing with Telstra or Vodafone would have taken 20-30 minutes and probably involved the operator going off to talk to a supervisor.
Surprised and delighted… Yep!