In late July, 1997 my husband, Stephen and I parted with $250.00 of
hard-earned cash to get our home air ducts cleaned. Our house was fifteen
years old and the heating and ventilating ducts had never been serviced. It
had been on the "to-do" list since we purchased the house. When we
stumbled across a $50.00 off coupon in Clipper Magazine for a local
cleaning service, "Pro Clean Environmental Services," we scheduled the
work.
Jeff Lynn, the General manager, was in our home for two hours with all his
pipes, hoses and machinery. When he announced that he was done, I wrote
him a check for $250.00 and thanked him for his time. Later that evening,
my husband, Stephen came storming down the stairs. Stephen is normally a
very even-tempered man. One of the few things that really riles him is
feeling that he has been ripped off by a service or repair person. Stephen
fumed: "What did that guy actually do today?" I replied - "I have no
idea. I didn't follow him around the house. He said he cleaned all the
ducts."
Well, my detail-oriented and frugal husband had inspected each duct with a
flashlight to be sure he was getting good value for his money. Good thing
he did! Stephen was furious to discover that the ducts hardly looked any
cleaner than before the Pro Clean visit. And, several of the ducts hadn't
been touched at all, although we had paid to have all of the ducts in our
house cleaned. Since we had paid by check, not credit card, we were
vulnerable to being ripped off by an unscrupulous company we knew nothing
about.
I called the company the next morning and spoke to Jeff, the man who had
done the work. Jeff expressed great surprise and concern, and scheduled a
return trip to our home the following day. Jeff could have said, "Too bad.
That's the best we can do," since he already had our check. But as we
came to learn, Pro Clean knows how to treat a customer.
The afternoon Jeff was scheduled to return to our house, a tractor-trailer
overturned, spilling 1000 gallons of liquid asphalt on the highway and
grinding traffic to a halt. Jeff called me an hour before he was supposed
to arrive at my home to warn me that the accident would slow him down and
delay his arrival. He had a reasonable excuse to postpone until the
following day, but he didn't suggest changing the schedule.
Two and one half hours later, he finally arrived at our house. He had
spent most of that time sitting in stopped traffic. My husband had
carefully prepared a list of all of the ducts that were in question, but
after glancing at the first one, Jeff replied: "We tried a new way of
cleaning ducts at the beginning of this week. Obviously it didn't work. I
should have caught that before I left and I didn't. I'm sorry. I will
reclean every duct in your house."
He continued: "And to make up for the inconvenience, you can call me every
year for the rest of the time you are living in this house. As long as I'm
still in business, I'll clean your ducts again for free."
Jeff's offer was generous and more than we would have asked for, or
expected. He proceeded to reclean all the ducts in the house. After the
job was done, he thanked me for calling him and telling him of the problem.
He then stated: "You are the only customer who called to complain since
we started using the new system at the beginning of this week. I'm going
to call all of the other customers and alert them to the problem. If they
aren't satisfied, I'll go back to their homes and reclean their ducts as
well."
Jeff understands how to create a lifetime customer and a book of referrals
out of a lost customer. Since ducts are usually cleaned only every two or
three years, he could have said to himself: "Why should I go out of my
way to make this customer satisfied? They won't be a repeat customer
anyway for years, if ever." But Jeff understands the power of both
positive, and negative word of mouth. He understands that as a
dissatisfied customer, I would have spread the word to my circle of
influence to stay far and wide away from his company. I might have even
been angry enough to report the incident to the Better Business Bureau.
As a delighted customer, I will likely continue to tell this story about a
"duct cleaning business that offered superior customer service." You
can't pay for that kind of advertising. The original mistake is largely
forgotten and entirely forgiven, replaced by admiration for their approach
to remedying the problem.
When you are servicing customers, mistakes will always happen. It's how
you respond to them that matters. When treated well, a dissatisfied
customer will become your best ambassador.
Azriela Jaffe - az@azriela.com
Author, Speaker, Columnist, Business Coach
Azriela Jaffe is the nation's leading expert on entrepreneurial couples, and highly sought after by the media for her expertise on the emotional, interpersonal, marital and family concerns of self-employed professionals, entrepreneurial couples, and business partners. She is one of the country's foremost spokespersons on work/family concerns. Azriela is also a recognized expert in reconciling differing levels of Jewish observance in marriage and extended family.
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