
Seven steps to remarkable customer service - beau
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html
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simon
As a former employee of Lands' End, I can attest to the quality of their
customer service. (The quality of the internal employee care is less good than
it used to be, since back when I started there in 1998, but I could just be
bitter after the I/S department layoffs! :-) Anyway, the whole customer
service area is saturated in an ethic of serving the customer. It really is
amazing. For example, there are no timers on the calls. Ever wonder why some
CSR's are so brusk? Well, they're usually trying to beat the clock. If their
average call time goes above some magic number (often as low as two or three
minutes) then they get written up by their supervisor. No such problem at
Lands' End. I had to smile that Joel linked to the OCS (The Online Customer
Store where he orders his logo'd shirts). I was one of the lead developers on
that project. :-) As for what happens to the returned items? They're sold off
in the company employee store for a few dollars. If the company makes
stipulations about the use of their logo, then a patch is applied over it,
before selling to the employees, to protect the customers brand. As I recall,
most customers don't mind.

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ninwa
I absolutely agree with his thoughts on the power of admitting fault. It's a
matter of taking responsibility for ones self and it shows character. If only
everyone took this advice. PS: nice reddit-esque dealio you have going on here
:)

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jwecker
Most of my life I would have agreed wholeheartedly. I still agree, but it's
nuanced now. For the past while I've been growing a property management
business on Maui, and I've discovered a demographic that the moment you say
anything close to "sorry," you see them transform- they see dollar signs and
suddenly they become monsters. We've had to enact a policy at our company- if
you ask someone how their stay has been and they say "well, it rained a few of
the days," whatever you do, _don't_ say "yah, sorry about that- too bad," even
though that's the most natural thing in the world to say. If we ever said
sorry to something like that some would immediately demand a refund for their
stay (funny as that sounds). Only apologize for things that really are your
fault. "Sorry, my fault" are magical words only when they are true (both
parts). Turns out pretty much every hotel and property management in Hawaii
has a "black list"\- customers who they will not give a room to. Thankfully it
doesn't happen nearly as often in tech. Corollary: trust your customer.

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staunch
A bit of a different perspective to some of what Joel wrote.
http://positivesharing.com/2006/07/why-the-customer-is-always-right-results-
in-bad-customer-service)

~~~
akkartik
All valid, but notice that Joel makes no comment about feature feedback from
customers, only bugfix requests.

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andreyf
Is it just me or is this is a really long way of saying "be nice to people"?

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jwecker
The first item is a verbose way of saying "Six Sigma."

