Is Good Customer Service So Hard?

I am a very frustrated camper because I worry about the future viability of the needlepoint store. I know this concerns other people as well.

Even though there are plenty of reasons for concern (retiring owners, rising costs, lack of new customers) my biggest worry is how those existing customers are treated. Poor customer service won’t win you loyalty. And without loyal customers, stores can’t exist.

In retail stores can be classified into two groups. Stores that carry items for niche markets I call”destination stores.” These stores don’t rely on walk-in traffic, although they may get plenty. Instead they rely on customers who will go out of their way to shop at a particular store. A shoe store is not likely to be a destination store but your needlepoint store is.

That’s one reason why so many shops do well with phone and internet orders. They can serve their customers well from a distance because the customers already expect they will need to do something different to shop there. But it also means that the shops in my area don’t just compete with each other, but they are also competing with stores in other areas.

If you have to drive to a store, the shop that is closer may get more of your business because it takes less time to get there. But if two stores are equally distant you’ll go to the one with a better selection or better service.

If I have to call or email to buy, stores all over the place are equally distant.

So customer service becomes critical to success. And that’s why I’m mad. If a shop is poorly organized, can’t keep orders straight, or is unpleasant, why should I spend my money there? Wouldn’t I want to buy from a company that treats me well and works efficiently?

Of course I would.

This was startlingly apparent late last week. I had several needlepoint orders and packages that came to me. The difference between the good and the bad was very clear and could have been prevented so easily.

Here are examples (without naming the shops) of good and bad:

Good

• I needed a skein of thread in a particular dyelot and put out an Internet call for it. A shop with the dyelot had it, emailed me, and sent it out that day with an invoice.
• I wanted some canvases that were on clearance. I called the shop. They knew what was available, packaged it, and sent it to me, with tracking, the same day.
• threads were backordered from a large order, All the threads were sent to me, without a shipping charge, once they came in.
• I wanted some custom items. Once the shop found out I had a deadline for them, I had the urgent ones within a week.
• there is another woman in the needlepoint world with my name. I got a call from a shop where I buy regularly, just to make sure an order from the other woman wasn’t mine before they charged anyone’s card.

None of this was hard. None of these things should be unusual. This shows businesses that are both customer centric and organized.

Bad

Contrast this with the bad stuff I’ve put up with of late:

• a shopowner mistook me for someone else who did not pay for a phone order several years ago. After taking me to task for it when I ordered from her again, she is barely polite to me if I call to order something.
• I joined a needlepoint club. I sent them the list of canvases I wanted and the schedule not once but twice. The items do not come on the correct schedule. In my most recent shipment they told me my list was complete (even though they had sent only half of what they had gotten a list of twice) and that I needed to call to order the other half. This for something I paid to be a part of!
• A question about the price on some sale items didn’t get answered for six weeks. It was on in-stock canvases and it had taken so long to answer that several of the items were no longer available.
• I bought some items that were wrapped, needlessly, in so much plastic wrap it took me 5 minutes to liberate the stuff. The item that was so excessively wrapped was in a plastic bag as well. And they were sent in a waterproof envelope so the wrapping was completely unnecessary.

I can understand occasional mistakes, everyone makes them. It seems to me though that there are some common themes here. Good shops put the customer first, they follow the Golden Rule and treat you they way they want to be treated. Bad shops don’t value their customers’ time or business. They are disorganized. They hold unwarranted grudges against their customers. They put their own convenience before their customers.

If I care enough about what you are selling to place an order with you, don’t I deserve better than the bad experiences I’ve had? If you are competing with other shops all over the place for phone and email orders shouldn’t you want to give great customer service?

I’m tired of this. In the world of big crises, these are pretty small potatoes but when I look at the difference between the shops I just wonder. If your customer service and your organization are bad, why should I, or anyone else, spend my money with you? I know where I’m spending my money and it’s at stores that have shown me they want my business.