Good, Better, Best.
It is a rainy Sunday morning on Memorial Day weekend. The "cold cut drawer" had broken on my refrigerator the evening before, and upon quick inspection it appeared that the glass shelf would need to be replaced since the track was attached to it.
I woke up and called the number on the sticker inside the unit. When Mary in parts finally came on the line I gave her a model number and she politely said, "You may have read the wrong line dear, our model numbers begin with the letters FRT". When I asked for the pricing on the replacement shelf, she quoted me an unexpectedly high number. She then asked, "How is the glass?" I told her the glass was fine but the track attached to the frame had snapped.
She asked me to go back to the unit and get up underneath the shelf. She then explained that although all those plastic pieces look as if they are one with the glass, they are each sold individually and can be replaced. With the same polite tone and patience she showed me how to remove them from the glass without breaking it, and pinpointed which part was really broken. My total cost was $42.00 (still high for a plastic rail, but significantly lower than the $ 200.00 + shelf I was ready to order and pay for.)
A short-term view might suggest that Mary could have generated a better sale and more revenue for the parts department by allowing me to purchase the item I thought I needed. However, for the sake of $ 158.00 difference, the service experience I received was remarkable. When it comes to purchasing any future major or minor appliances, as I stand before the other brands guess what I will remember about Frigidaire? Perhaps another customer service person may have greeted me with an attitude because he or she was stuck working on a Sunday morning of a holiday weekend. Mary did not just do a good job, she did the best job she possibly could, and that is all I will remember.
I had a similar experience years back with when I called Keurig to explain that my unit was making a frightening grinding and hissing sound. I had no idea how old it was, but it was over the one year period. The person that day heard the noise over the phone, replaced my unit for free and only asked I return the K-cup insert so that the company could damage it out. Since that day I have purchased several Keurig units as gifts always repeating that story.
Service matters. The culture of the company may start in the C-Suite and trickle down throughout the field. However the field itself is often overgrown, too spread out and unaware that what they do and say can have such lasting impact. We certainly know that people remember bad experiences, but we don't pay enough attention to the gradation within positive experiences. Sewing into the front line with coaching, training, tools and concrete examples of the ripple effect of their actions creates an atmosphere of engagement —engaged employees are superior employees. They start to desire the feeling that serving up excellence brings out in themselves, and studies have shown it can permeate other areas of their lives as well.
People only know what they know. Not everyone will jump into such programs with zeal, but companies may be surprised at how many would at least try if given the opportunity to learn how to transform good to better, and better to best. In a world full of mediocrity, it is excellence that brings the ultimate value to every interaction.
Regardless of the industry, knowing how to cultivate an attitude of service is what separates you from the pack. That's not just good news, it's the best news.