Photo Credit: Shena Tschofen via CC License
This post was originally featured on the FCR blog on April 8, 2016. Click here to read the original. On that post, Jeff Toister commented that six weeks without pots and pans would be unbearable and thus require a lot of customer effort. From my perspective, these pans had been fairly useless for a while so we had other, second rate pans to get by but I see his point. As you read this, could Calphalon have done more to make this more effortless?
Nearly 15 years ago my sister gave us a set of Calphalon pots and pans as a wedding gift. They were fantastic to cook with but definitely lost much of their “non-stick” ability somewhere along the way. For whatever reason, it came up in conversation and my sister said “You know those pans have a lifetime warranty, right?” She then proceeded to rattle off a few stories about how they had replaced pans with no questions asked.
Not having a receipt or any other proof of purchase, I contacted Calphalon and held my breath.
They got back to me fairly quickly and asked me to send them a picture. I sent them a picture and again held my breath.
They wrote back and said they thought the pans were probably qualified to be replaced under warranty but wanted me to ship them to their office. They said I would hear back within about six weeks. I shipped them off and continued to hold my breath.
Yesterday, about a month later, I came home to a Calphalon box on my front doorstep. I was hopeful but continued to hold my breath as I half expected to be greeted by my dirty old pots and pans.
Upon opening the box, I exhaled as I was met with a brand new set of pots and pans.
As I read back through this sequence, I’m realizing that I have some serious trust issues. While I remained hopeful throughout, I half expected Calphalon to do what was in THEIR best interest and recite some reason why my situation didn’t qualify for their warranty and why I would have to go buy a new set of pots and pans. That’s pretty much the norm, right? It’s up to us customers to fight tooth and nail for our rights. To fight companies to keep their brand promises. Calphalon proved to be the exception to the rule.
Based on personal experience, the companies that win my trust and allow me to breathe deeply are the ones I most readily do business with and tell others about. Contrast that with companies where you have to fight to get what you want and you quickly begin to see why Customer Effort Score is a great predictor of customer loyalty and repeat business.
On a semi-related note, is your company currently using Customer Effort Score to measure how effortless their customer experience is? Leave me a comment or a note and share who’s using it and how it’s helping them improve their customer experience.
