Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Try Getting Customer Service These Days

Recently I went to lunch at Subway, which is right across the street from our office. As I pulled in the parking lot, I cringed because I could already see the line forming, out the door. As I made it in the door, I could see there were about 10 people ahead of me. Everyone looked irritated. After I stood there for a few minutes, I could see this line wasn't moving at all. I was starting to get irritated myself. More and more people started piling in. The line kept getting longer, with no movement.

Yet, this whole time, the three people working at the counter were furiously making sandwiches. So it's not like they weren't doing anything. I couldnt' figure out the problem. Finally, as one angry customer started telling another, there was a big order at the drive thru for about a dozen sandwiches. So the staff there was making all 12 or so of the drive-thru sandwiches while the rest of us just stood there and the line extended out the door.

As I pondered just leaving, I thought how this situation could have been fixed with a little common sense. Instead of all 3 people giving all of their attention to the lazy person sitting in the drive thru (who drives thru Subway anyway), while the rest of us are standing on our feets....some people even standing out the door in the hot sun.....I think they should have delegated. Put one person in charge of making the drive-thru orders, put another serving the in-house clients, and put the third person at the register to keep things moving. (Need I say I've beat every level - including expert level - of the Yahoo game Diner Dash ha ha)

This whole incident got me thinking about customer service, and how important it is at RHD. For the past 11 years we have made customer service our #1 priority. We discuss it constantly here in our staff meetings and try to think of ways we can make our service even better. Here are a few things we think give us an advantage over others.....

-You can always call here and talk to a REAL PERSON. We have 2 phone lines and 8 people here, all ready to help you over the phone. Many times, some of us are even talking on our cell phones with clients. Sure, e-mail is great, but lots of times you just want to talk to a REAL PERSON. Or you want to call and get someone to answer the phone, not get someone's voice mail because you know they are screening your call on their cell phone....because they don't even have an office. Our hours are 9-5 but usually you can always catch someone anytime from 8 to 6 here, even during lunch.

-Every single person at RHD is experienced and can help you. No matter who you talk to, they can help you. Anyone here can help you book a project, give you information on search engines, talk to you about updates, etc. So you're guaranteed that when you call, your question can be answered right away, by someone who knows the answer and can make decisions.

-Most of us have Blackberry's and write back to e-mails instantly, even on weekends. I have several customers who will email in stuff over the weekends and actually write in their emails..."you don't have to answer this til Monday" because they know I have my phone glued to me at all times and I can't resist writing back, even on weekends, when people need something. Usually it's very typical to get an email response within just a few minutes from the RHD staff.

-We even do updates on the weekends. Our office hours are M-F, 9-5, but it's not suprising to find that our staff is working, even on Saturdays and Sundays. Now don't hold us to that every weekend, but lots of times our web updates staff is so dedicated that they check the updates email even on weekends, just in case someone has something urgent that needs to be done.

-We seriously have to have the fastest updates in the business. Now we have no hard proof of this, but  we do know that for the last 2 years, we've averaged almost a half-day turnaround on web site update requests. And this isn't just handling like 1 or 2 updates, this is handling usually 300 or more updates per month. People always ask how we do it, with this many web site clients, and the answer is DEDICATION. As we get more web sites, we expand our updates staff. During busy times of year, everyone in the office does updates. We know this is the #1 priority for clients, and we make the effort to do the updates as fast as possible!!!

-We know the business better than anyone else. RHD is the original livestock advertising agency, and we're rooted in solid marketing and design principles backed by creativity that soars. I challenge you to find a place (okay other than my friends Christy Collins or Julie French) who consistently come up with as many original, creative, out-of-the box ideas as we do. Plus, we do it with a friendly attitude and fast service. You just can't beat that.

No comments:

Post a Comment