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How far do you take customer service? Do you work with customers a year after their purchase?

Kids today August 2008 Retail Question and Answer

-- Kids Today, 8/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Phil Wrzesinski
Toy House

Each situation must be evaluated before we can come up with a plan of how to help them. The ultimate goal, of course, is a happy customer. But even that must be evaluated. What can I do to make this customer happy? Is it worth it for me to do so? Will the customer truly be happy if I do this?

First we get to the bottom of the problem by asking lots of questions. If it isn’t a problem that can be explained over the phone and the item cannot be easily brought back to the store we often have our delivery/repair team inspect the item when they’re in that neighborhood. If the item was damaged through misuse we ask the customer to contact the company directly, otherwise we contact the (manufacturing) company and ask them what they would like us to do. That way we know whether they will cover any costs incurred.

If they are willing to do what it takes to solve the problem then we solve the problem. If they won’t, then we are back to whether it is worth our expense to take care of this customer. Part of that evaluation is done with a simple question: Will she be happy if we do this? If yes, we proceed. If no, we refer the customer directly to the company and let them tell her no.

By involving the company directly we accomplish two things — one, the company knows about the problem and can collect data as they see fit; two, the customer knows we went directly to the source and even if we didn’t solve it, they know we tried.

I believe it is this openness that helps show our customers (even the tough ones) that we care enough to listen and to attempt to solve their problems. In this way we have very few problems with even our highest maintenance customers.

Michael J. Schaul
Lone Star Baby & Kids Inc

Customer service is what sets the specialty stores apart. If the issue is due to a product defect we will of course take care of the issue the best we can, even if the product was delivered in excess of one year. That’s good customer service and enhances the reputation of the store in the marketplace.

However, there are customers that will try to take advantage at every possible turn. At some point the store manager must draw the line, as there are customer demands that do become cost prohibitive. There have been a few occasions where we got into a situation that no matter what we did the customer wasn’t satisfied. In these rare occurrences, we apologize for not fully satisfying the customer and offer to pick up the product and reimburse the customer in full. Of course this depends on how long they have had it in their home; at this point, most will back off their demands. To close the issue on a positive note we send them a $50 gift card. The key is the store manager must try to keep these “special” customers satisfied with our overall service.

Ali Wing giggle

Without a doubt, some customers will push any specialty business on the boundaries of what’s fair. Because they are the minority, and in the end, challenging them takes a lot of time and resources, our general philosophy is to solve the issue to the best of our ability and as quickly as possible. Yes, that sometimes means a cost to our business. But we believe the cost of challenging the reasonableness of a customer if they will push you until they get what they want will in the end outweigh the actual cost of solving it. This approach requires believing that great customer experiences are key to your success and bad ones multiply by word of mouth in a way that creates irreparable harm.

Sandy Buttrill
Kidspace

I think we go above and beyond in most all situations to make customer service an absolute priority. However, we only offer manufacturer’s warranties. Our POS system allows us to determine the exact date of purchase and perhaps any prior notes of problems. We explain to the customers that we will be their advocate in contacting the manufacturer. We have the customer email photos to us showing the exact problem so we can forward it to our sales rep or the factory. Our suppliers normally provide acceptable solutions for our customers, many times even after their official warranty expired. I think this is because we buy from reputable vendors with quality products who also value the consumer’s loyalty and expectations. We try to diffuse the customer’s anger if the factory refuses to help or if they are out of business. After years and years of retail experience, we normally have a graveyard of parts or something in our bag of tricks to fall back on to salvage their goodwill and friendship. That, of course, is our ultimate goal. However, if we encounter an absolutely unfair, unreasonably demanding customer who becomes abusive verbally and/or physically threatening, we have resorted to explaining that we feel we did everything in our power to help them, but can do nothing further. In a few extreme cases we have asked such customers to please leave our store and shop elsewhere in the future.

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