Business Has Forgotten Its?Purpose

Authority is better positioned close to the customer.

Recently, I ordered two SKUs of ink cartridges for our printer via the company’s website. One was black ink, and the other was a three-pack of colored ink cartridges. I thought working directly with Epson would be the easiest and most efficient.

Epson, an $8 billion company, managed their way through their order fulfillment process and sent me 2 Black ink cartridges.

A picking process error. Not a big deal, right?

I was directed to contact customer service via an 800 number on the order confirmation email.

I gave them all the information about the error I was trying to correct. The individual I spoke to was kind and appeared to know what they were doing. She told me she needed to contact the warehouse where the ink cartridges shipped from, “to confirm the mis-ship”.

This seemed odd. I felt mistrusted as if I was lying. You don't want your customers feeling like you called them liars.

She said that it might take a day or so and that she would call me back.

She never called me back.

So, three days later I called customer service a 2nd time. I got the same response and a commitment to call me back.

Hmmm.

Given the precision and similarity of their response, it was clear they were following a script.

This is a simple home printer ink cartridge that probably costs Epson less than $1.00 to produce and sells for between $20.00 and $37.00.

Three more days passed.

I called for the 3rd time.?

I said I was running out of colored ink. I need you to send me the three-color cartridges that I have already paid for and give me a return authorization so I can return the black cartridge you shipped me in error.

The lack of response was disrespectful and disappointing.

Time-tested proven solutions

It took 3 phone calls to customer service and twelve days from the day I first ordered to receive the correct ink cartridges. This rarely happened at the companies I worked for. Our customers would not accept this poor service.

Two solutions: Streamline the return process with a focus on delighting the customer and give your front-line employees authority to fix customer problems without complex processes (having to check with the warehouse) or management having to get involved.

You might ask, how would you track the frequency of credits issued and mistakes in the warehouse processes?

• Track the number of credits issued by each Service Agent and to which customers they were issued. Include in this any trends you see by agent or by customer.
• Tracking the credits back to which warehouses are making mistakes gives you a view of effectiveness and efficiency.?

When I was a sales rep for a medical device distributor many years ago, my company gave us the authority to issue “Instant Credits” to customers for up to $200 per order.

Customers loved the idea of on-the-spot instant credits.?

It gave them immediate satisfaction.?

They could close out orders quickly and effectively.

None of my competitor sales reps had this authority.?

Reconciliation with orders and inventories are critical processes, yet involving the customer in these is unnecessary. This should all be done behind the scenes to make ordering from your company painless.

Build your company’s processes and train your people to respond to your customers like this: “Mr. Mike, I understand your situation. I will immediately fulfill the color cartridges part of your order and then investigate how you got 2 black ink cartridges. I’m sorry for the mistake we made.”

It sounds easy, yet this will take training and oversight from management.?

And a commitment to quality.

An ideal first?response

As I thought through this situation further, an even better outcome would have been for the customer service rep to have the authority to say to me:?

Mike, just keep the 2nd black cartridge that we mis-shipped to you to compensate you for your time and any trouble we put you through. Thank you for your patience.

That just pushed the gas pedal to the metal on customer satisfaction.

In this situation, the cost of the black ink cartridge is probably less than $1 for this multi-billion-dollar company. The shipping charges they will pay far outweigh the cost of the cartridge.

My conclusion

Engaging your team in the solution guarantees their buy-in to follow the process.

You’ll be surprised Mr. Kratzberg, CEO of Epson, The Americas, with the outcome you will find when you give front-line employees authority.

The outcome??

Customer satisfaction, loyalty, and repeat orders.