Here at Lowell's, we strive for an exceptional level of customer service. We want our customers to remember and recommend us. When they do, we grow.
In reality, we make mistakes. But we do try to learn and improve when we make them. And we try to make up for mistakes whenever possible.
Recently, we have had some, er, memorable customer experiences with other organizations. In upcoming posts, I'll document some of them. It will be quite entertaining.
In the process, I'll use three categories to talk about customer service levels:
- Heroes: Heroes are the folks who surprise, delight, and really create memorable customer experiences. They are the ones who care the most about their customers, and really deliver what customers want. Heroes create vibrant, growing businesses.
- Zeroes: These are the people who, in some way, have seemed to just stop trying. There's nothing particularly bad about their experiences, but there's nothing great, either. They're just complacent. And the end result is a blah, unremarkable encounter. 'Zero' businesses are usually stagnant or shrinking. They tend to have shifted their focus from customers to internal processes, and often end up quite bureaucratic as a result.
- Neroes: Named in honor of the emperor who 'fiddled' while Rome burned, a customer service Nero is someone who actively creates a crappy, customer-repelling experience. 'Nero' experiences often come from rogue employees, but some organizations seem to allow poor service to spread throughout. Nero businesses often implode as customers simply evaporate.
We're going to have some fun with these posts, but we're also going to try to extract important business lessons from them.
We're also very interested in hearing about your hero, zero, or Nero customer service experiences. Comment below about your notable experiences. We can't wait to hear from you.
[where: 111 Mechanic St, Lexington, KY 40507]
