Companies should keep loyal clients happy

WE all like to hide things safely away. Why, even squirrels hide their nuts in places that they can unearth when food is scarce in winter. One of the many things that I like to hide is chocolate. This habit could have stemmed from when I was a young mother and I did not want to let my children eat too many chocolates at one go. So I would hide them, (especially after birthdays when well-meaning guests give loads of chocolates), and then "produce" them from their hideouts as occasional treats.

Recently, a chocolate company announced that it was recalling a chunky bar because some bits of plastic were found in it. So I checked my chocolate stash. Sure enough I had six bars of the affected brand sitting smugly in the hidey hole. The company promised a full refund and free postage for the return of the affected bars.

I debated whether to post the chocolates back to the United Kingdom. I argued that there would be very little chance of finding plastic bits in my collection and even if they were there, I would be careful enough to spit them out. But then again if I were to choke on one and have to be rushed to the emergency room, I can visualise the company personnel admonishing me, "I told you so" and washing their hands off any law suit. So, I dutifully posted them as instructed and waited, convincing myself that this was an example of good customer service.

I think I can actually count on my fingers the number of times I was served well in Malaysia. Cashiers sat with dour faces at supermarket counters. Inconsiderate people with their trolleys filled to the brim used the express lanes and no supermarket personnel was doing anything about it. Restaurants that conveniently forgot which customers came earlier and served those who came in later, first.

With so many brands in the market, many companies' present obsession appears to be to gain customers, but not to service loyal customers well. When I call about a complaint more often than not I would be left on hold as the music plays on the other side of the phone. Even if I am attended to, it is no surprise if I am passed on from person A to person B until hopefully I get to speak to the right person. More often than not, I will be speaking to a recorded message, telling me to press A if I am a new customer and B if I am a current customer.

After waiting for endless minutes to trickle while the phone bill is escalating, I have managed to fool the recording machine. Even if I am a current customer and I am supposed to press B, I press A for new customer instead. The speed at which I am attended to is not rocket science.

Some days ago, we decided to change the service provider for the telephone and the broadband. We were immediately inundated with phone calls and email asking us why we decided to change and they counter offered with "better" packages to try to lure us back.

The question is, if these packages were on, why did they not try to convince us while we were still their customers? A similar example was when I decided to change my credit card after having paid the service fees for years. Immediately the credit card company called me and said if I remained as their customer they would hitherto waive the service fees for as long as I lived.

Unless there is not much choice, I prefer to go to the little shop around the corner. It is like the sitcom Cheers of yesteryear where when you enter the shop, everyone knows your name.

There will be a short exchange of greetings and then even if you have lost the receipt you can still bring the item back to exchange since the storekeeper remembers that you bought the item from him not too long ago.

But then again, there are some big concerns that do take care of their customers.

There is this story about Sainsbury's Tiger bread. A three and a half year-old girl wrote to the company in May 2011, saying the bread looked more like a giraffe and suggested that it should be called giraffe bread.

Chris King from Sainsbury's customer services team replied: "I think renaming tiger bread giraffe bread is a brilliant idea -- it looks much more like the blotches on a giraffe than the stripes on a tiger, doesn't it?" With the letter was a STG3 (RM12.90) gift card, and it was signed "Chris King (age 27 & 1/3)".

Tiger bread has since been renamed giraffe bread.

So as for the return of the tainted chocolate bars, I received two postal orders from the UK, a full refund for the affected chocolate bars, with a little extra on the side. I will be their grateful customer for life.

Source: Companies should keep loyal clients happy - Columnist - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/companies-should-keep-loyal-clients-happy-1.318818?cache=03d163d03edding-pred-1.1176%252F%253Fpfpentwage63dp%253A%252Fhe3d03dn63frea-rti3d19.3d163d03edding-pred-1.1176%252F%253Fpfpentwage63dp%253A%252Fhe3d03dn63frea-rti3d19.111w5ii%252Fed-%252F7.174045%253Fkey%253Dmalaysia%253Fpage%253D0%253Fkey%253Dmalaysia%2F7.358894%2F7.454177%2F7.454177#ixzz2Z1uEXo9z