Six Fantastic Customer Service Experiences
Nawal Al-Mashouq

Six Fantastic Customer Service Experiences

This blog is a little longer than usual, but I think the topic justifies the length. The majority of the Global 1000 companies with whom I work are actively engaged in redesigning and improving their customer’s experience. While this usually involves the customer service team, many companies have discovered that they need to look at the overall customer journey which is the sum of all the experiences across the entire customer lifecycle. That journey usually begins long before the customer becomes a customer.

There are many examples of companies creating a compelling customer experience at varying points along the customer journey from which we can learn. In this blog, I have collected together half a dozen such stories that demonstrate how to create brand advocates, whether you run an airline, hotel chain, supermarket, or restaurant.

I hope you like these examples. Please share the following examples of great customer experience and if you have other examples that you think are even better then just leave a comment here or tweet me on @mbowmanmba.

1: The renaming of ‘tiger’ bread.

Sainsbury’s, is a national British grocery store. Their customer service team must have smiled when they received a letter from a three-year-old girl named Lily. “Why is tiger bread called tiger bread?” she asked, referring to one of their bakery items. “It should be called giraffe bread.”

Most people would agree with Lily. The bread does look more like a giraffe than a tiger, but it had always been known as tiger bread. To the surprise of Lily’s mother, Chris King, a customer service manager at the chain, responded. “I think renaming tiger bread giraffe bread is a brilliant idea – it looks much more like the blotches on a giraffe than the stripes on a tiger, doesn’t it? It is called tiger bread because the first baker who made it a looong time ago thought it looked stripey like a tiger. Maybe they were a bit silly.” He enclosed a gift card, and the bread was renamed.

Lily’s mother blogged the response and the Internet went viral sharing not only the decision of the supermarket to change the product name, but also the tone used in their reaction. The customer service team adopted a voice that would resonate with the three-year-old and treated her question as if it was the most important problem they had to deal with that day.

2: Zappos send flowers

This really is one of my favorites. The mother of a Zappos customer had recently had surgery that affected her feet. They became numb and very sensitive to pressure.

She ordered her mother six pairs of shoes from Zappos assuming that at least one pair would work out and the rest could be returned. Her mother then called Zappos to explain the situation and to find out how to return all these spare shoes.

Two days later, she received a large bouquet of flowers from Zappos, wishing her well and hoping that she recovered from her treatments soon. Two days later, the customer, her mother and her sister were all upgraded to “Zappos VIP Members,” which gives them all free expedited shipping on all orders.

I’m sure many companies could send flowers to a customer - and many do - but these stories keep coming from Zappos. Their agents are granted enough autonomy to not only do their job, but to also take additional actions that will help to create customers for life.

3: Trader Joe’s delivers to your door

A user of Reddit posted this story about their 89-year-old grandfather who got snowed in a couple of years ago and didn’t have much food left in the house.

His daughter called several markets and stores to see if they could deliver, but the only one that responded positively was Trader Joe’s. Actually they don’t deliver, but when they heard about a World War Two vet of almost 90 stuck at home without food they agreed to help out.

The Trader Joe’s team even advised on extra products that would work well for a low-sodium diet. A grocery store recommending that you buy extra products could usually be accused of cross-selling extra items, but in this case they delivered the food and didn’t charge a cent for the food or delivery!

This is one of those great stories about a retailer recognizing that it exists only because of the community it serves. This one act of kindness during the winter will have earned them many loyal customers – not just from the grandfather’s family.

4: Southwest adjusts the schedule

This is a sad one, but it’s yet another great example of how empowered front line employees can make a huge difference in the lives of their customers.

A man was travelling from a business trip in L.A. to his daughter’s home in Denver to see his three-year-old grandson for the last time. The boy, beaten into a coma by his mother’s live-in boyfriend, was being taken off life support at 9 p.m. that evening so his organs could be used to save other lives.

The man’s wife called Southwest to arrange the last-minute flight and explained the emergency situation. Unfortunately, he was held up in L.A. traffic and didn’t get to the gate on time. He only managed to get to the gate 12 minutes after the plane should have departed.

But the pilot was waiting there at the gate. The pilot said “They can’t go anywhere without me, and I wasn’t going anywhere without you. Now relax. We’ll get you there. And again, I’m so sorry.”

Whether this one was a Southwest corporate decision or just an individual act of kindness by the pilot doesn’t matter. Sometimes a small action can make all the difference to the customer.

5: Lego turns to a Ninja master for advice

Seven-year-old Lego fan Luka Apps got the Ninjago Lego set for Christmas and carried one of the characters in his pocket when out shopping with his father. The figure was lost and Luka wrote an email to Lego asking if there was any way to replace the character without having to buy an entirely new Lego set.

The Lego customer service team sent a response saying that they had talked to Sensei Wu (one of the Ninjago characters) about the problem:

He told me to tell you, “Luka, your father seems like a very wise man. You must always protect your Ninjago minifigures like the dragons protect the Weapons of Spinjitzu!”

Sensei Wu also told me it was okay if I sent you a new Jay and told me it would be okay if I included something extra for you because anyone that saves their Christmas money to buy the Ultrasonic Raider must be a really big Ninjago fan.

So, I hope you enjoy your Jay minifigure with all his weapons. You will actually have the only Jay minifigure that combines 3 different Jays into one! I am also going to send you a bad guy for him to fight!

Just remember, what Sensei Wu said: keep your minifigures protected like the Weapons of Spinjitzu! And of course, always listen to your dad.

This is another great example of a brand speaking to their client in a way that resonates with the actual user of the product. Naturally the delighted father made the response public so friends could see just how well Lego treats their customers.

6: Ritz-Carlton entertains a toy giraffe

Last but certainly not least, as hotel chains go, Ritz-Carlton has quite a reputation for customer service. They enable their front line employees in a way that just makes life easier for guests, but this example takes service to a new level.

When Chris Hurn’s family checked out of the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island in Florida, after a weekend away, they made the mistake of leaving behind ‘Joshie’, his son’s cuddly giraffe toy.

His son was distraught when they realized that the toy was lost. Chris managed to placate him by saying that the giraffe was staying on for a few more days of vacation. This worked and while his son slept that evening Ritz-Carlton called to say that they had the toy.

Because of the story he had told to his son, Chris asked the hotel team if they could just send a photo of the toy relaxing by the pool before sending it back. They immediately sent a photo of Joshie on a sun lounger by the pool, but then the hotel team went further.

Photos of Joshie having a massage at the spa, meeting other toys, hanging out with local wildlife, and driving a golf cart on the beach soon arrived. Then a photo ID card was sent showing that Joshie had been adopted by the Ritz-Carlton team, the next photo showed him working on security, manning a bank of monitors with views across the hotel complex.

The great thing about this story is not just that the Ritz-Carlton team played along with the initial request from the father, but that the employees clearly felt empowered to go further and to have fun with this idea of a lost giraffe. You can’t treat customers well if your employees don’t enjoy what they are doing – it sounds like the team working on loss prevention at Ritz-Carlton really enjoys helping customers find their lost items and that enthusiasm creates customers who want to return again.

Cover photo by Nawal Al-Mashouq licensed under Creative Commons. All other cc images credited through links to the original.

Brenda Rick Smith

Director of Enterprise Social Media Strategy, Elevance Health

8y

#4 -- whew, that's rough. How powerful, and how human. Great example.

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David Jimenez Maireles

Building and scaling up digital banks and FinTech 🌍 🌏 | Embedding banking into lifestyle experiences | Financial inclusion promoter | Fractional CXO | Advisor | NED

8y

Amazing stories. Sad not to hear of them more frequently. We need to empower employees to provide a true and sincere customer service. It's a matter of creating a honest relationship between customers and brands

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love #6 that's world class!

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Priyanka Babyloni Choudhuri

Instructional Designer and Facilitator

8y

Very Interesting! Start from the customer a value that is changing the face of customer service

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No one ever forgets the way they have been treated. Authentic treatment lays the groundwork to develop a personal relationship, so to speak. It does not hurt to keep short profiles on your clients such as hobbies, interests, kids, etc. There is nothing that makes a client smile bigger than inquiring about their "hobbies and stuff," so to speak.

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