What is service?

[drcollie]

I pride myself at having excellent customer service at my store and really don't think too much about it - I just do it, its ingrained into the business ethic. I don't realize how bad some other stores are until I talk to the truckers that deliver to all of us. Oh ! - boy ! - do they have stories! Case in point...

This past Thursday morning my regular trucker for my upholstery from my North Carolina suppliers (Tommy at Murrows Transfer) calls and said he has (9) pieces for me, can he bring them by early Monday Morning? I say "Tommy - I have four orders on that load I'd like to deliver this Saturday so customers can have them for the NFL playoff games on Sunday, can you get them to me Friday?" Tommy said he would.

I close up at 5:30 p.m. every day and Tommy rolls up at 4:45 p.m. with the load. To unpack and inspect nine pieces then re-load for delivery takes at least two and a half hours, and it will be dark in 20 minutes. Well, I call my wife and tell her she's on her own for dinner - I won't be home until late. then I pull out two portable floodlights I have for working after dark and hook them up. Tommy is on his last stop so he helps me push things around a bit, and is surprised I'm going to strip these out of the boxes and delivery everything tomorrow. He says "No other store around here would do that - heck, they'd not even accept the freight this late in the day and tell me to take it back to North Carolina and bring it on another truck."

Well. that got him going on loading dock stories, and I was shocked at some of the stuff he told me happens right down the road from a competitor of mine who is a big dealer dealer for several premium brands. They spear the boxes with forklifts - leave stuff out in the rain on their back dock regularly - and take two weeks to get it to the customer once he delivers it to them. Their damage rates are through the roof, and yet folks buy from them regularly because they're big and they assume they have the lowest price.

I got the load all unpacked, inspected, re-loaded into the delivery truck for Saturday and called all the customers by 9 p.m., then headed home. It occurred to me that's equal to Fex Ed Overnight Service! My delivery guys came in early and scraped all the ice and snow off the truck in the morning, and we ran 300 miles on Saturday getting everyone their furniture and they got back 11 hours after they started in lousy, crummy weather.

I don't know if customers really appreciate all that hustle or not. Mostly I think they just want the lowest price and will buy from whomever can give that to them assuming that all product is handled the same in a timely manner and with the same care.