How you look after your customers when things go wrong says more about you than your products.
I judge companies on several things, but the quickest way to my heart is to sort a problem quickly and with good grace. If you can do it with a smile and a clever twist, I’m yours forever.
Things go wrong. It’s a fact of business but as my former boss David Furby used to say, “It’s better and easier to keep a customer than to have to find a new one.”
Sadly British manufacturing hasn’t always been totally Rolls Roycey and there’s a good, if possibly apocryphal, story about washing machine manufacturer Hotpoint, who went through a phase of making pretty average products that were notorious for breaking down.
Despite this their customer satisfaction levels were top of the industry, simply because they had a large fleet of really good engineers. They were very quick to answer ‘help my kitchen has flooded’ calls and a nice man would show up pronto and repair the machine.
Their customers forgave Hotpoint’s sub-par products because the human response to a crisis was friendly, efficient and usually free.
For me great service is judged by how well you can solve my issues or fix my broken thing. This is not an earth-shattering revelation, but it’s surprising how many businesses lose sight of its importance in their sales and marketing processes.
When I worked for a PC manufacturer a huge chunk of the company’s brand was built on expertise — not just in pre-sales advice — but also in post-sales service and support. Computers are complex machines that run hot and fast for long periods, so they all go wrong at some stage. Most IT pros understand this and subsequently IT support contracts are just as valuable as hardware and software sales.
Understanding this and making it a central part of your base proposition is the keystone to building a brand that people trust. Keeping customers is simple. Keep them happy.
Over the last year I’ve had the good fortune to have several British made things that needed fixing, and I’ve been genuinely delighted with the companies’ responses. They have won my heart and I can’t see myself buying from their competitors any time soon.
Isle of Wight eco & surf brand Rapanui, win for straight out speed and charm. I used their excellent ‘design your own t-shirt’ app, for two t-shirts — one was perfect, but on the second the design was marginally but noticeably off-centre. Most companies would probably have fixed this without question too, but because I was the ‘designer’ they probably could have blamed my erratic graphic skills. But they gave me a full refund to use for another, which was re-designed, printed and shipped to my door in 48 hours. With a hand written and personal note.
I am theirs.
The good people at Hiut Denim encourage you to wear their jeans all the time and to never wash them (not just for ecological reasons, but because they fade and discolour slowly but beautifully). As a result they can take a hammering and pockets and cuffs wear and rip.
So they offer free repairs for life. No questions and no quibbles. Send them back in the bag they came in (with a freepost sticker) and they come boomeranging back stronger and better than ever.
I shall buy no other jeans.
NB: Nudie jeans do this too, but they are from foreign and Hiut make and repair them in Cardigan, Wales so they win.
I was given a pair of classic Loake brogue boots by someone very special to mark a special occasion and I hardly wore anything else for two years. Alas, I’m a big man and I am heavy on my shoes and the heels and soles wore out badly, so they went back to the Northampton factory where they’ve been perfecting their craft since the 1880’s. It took over a month, and there was a relatively chunky charge for their repair service, but boy was it worth every penny.
I got back a brand new pair of boots, but with my original precious leather. The irreplaceable patina of two years’ stomping, travelling and kicking up a storm had been buffed and polished to perfection, and the whole sole from heel tip to tiptoe, had been carefully removed, replaced, re-stitched and re-welted.
For the price of a cheap pair of shoes that I’d kill in a year, I have a ‘new’ pair of British-made boots that will last my lifetime. Like a Land Rover Defender, there’s no reason why, with a good service every couple of years, these brogues won’t keep rolling with me to the grave.
The waterproof zip on my Musto jacket tore between the seam and the zippy bit after only a couple of weeks wear. A lovely lady sounded concerned and contrite on the phone and gave me simple return instructions.
Two weeks later it was returned, invisibly mended along with a hand-written compliment slip apologising for the fault and an un-requested cheque more than covering my return shipping costs.
I was so impressed, I never cashed the cheque. It’s on the pin-board in my office as a reminder of how great customer service excellence wins. If you’re out on the British water, my advice is go Musto. Damn good when you’re out in the squalls and really damn good when things break.
I am theirs.
The motto of ‘buy well, buy once’ is absolutely true. With the exception of Rapanui, who are pretty cheap, all three are expensive bits of apparel, but if you divide the cost by decades — rather than seasons, you have true value.
But what made all four instances exceptional was the human element. Good people helped me and fixed my broken things with style and grace, and I will always be theirs.
Every one of those great brands are built on quality products, and they stay great by having good people sorting problems brilliantly.
If you make sure that you put ‘good people fixing your customers’ problems’ at the heart of what you do, you’ll not only keep them, but they’ll tell their friends too.
More than once I’ve written that your brand is a promise that you make to your customers. And great brands keep their promises.
