There is alot of buzz this week about Best Buy and its not about what they sold, it’s about what they gave away. Evidently a customer was sent four EXTRA Ipads in a shipment. The customer was honest enough to let Best Buy know and they said in so many words ‘Just Keep ‘Em!’
It’s safe to assume that had Best Buy given the customer an RMA number, we would not be reading about this event. Nothing is as powerful for media or staff motivation than a great positive story about doing the unexpected for a customer. In my keynotes and training, I like to use stories from my Common Sense Service book for this very reason. A story is memorable and marketable. What stories do you have in your company that you can share? How about offering a reward for the best service story… make a rule that it can’t be ‘about me, by me’, it has to be about a co-worker who went the extra mile for the customer. This will do more to boost your service than any five bullet points in a customer service policy manual!
Worthy of note is another comment I saw in a blog post about the Best Buy situation. Someone shared how they had a similar situation with Amazon, and Amazon wanted them to ship the items back at their expense and insure them. When the customer balked, Amazon threatened to charge the customer’s credit card for the items. Lesson learned – what you do or DON’T do to make it right will make the news. Here’s hoping you are like Best Buy and taking advantage of opportunities to send out good news to customers and media alike!
(To read article in Huffington Post about this event, click HERE)
