We recently returned home from a two-week trip to find that, once again, our LA Times subscription had failed to restart from the vacation hold I set before we left. Because the message on the Times’ toll-free line urges you to handle your account online, I went to its Web site to report the missing papers.

But the site wouldn’t let me. Because I was trying reporting the missing papers after the Times’ “cut off” time for providing replacements, the online system wouldn’t even accept my complaint.

I didn’t necessarily need to get a paper that day–I could read it online. So by refusing to allow me to submit my problem, the Times managed to do three things: waste my time, tick me off, and remind me that I’m getting less and less attached to its product (at least in its paper version). In these days of shrinking circulation and upheaval, that’s probably not the message the Times wants to give its remaining loyal subscribers.

I’m guilty, too. It was only in the last few weeks that I added a search function to my own Web site. Folks who didn’t know how to make a site-specific Google search (using site:sitename.com, plus a space and the topic word, thus: site:asklizweston.com credit scores) often couldn’t find what they were looking for. Now (hopefully), it’s easier.

So, how are you irritating your customers (or your vendors, or your bosses)? What complaints have you heard more than once that have yet to be fixed…and more importantly, what can you do today to start to fix them?

TAGS: Customer service, fixing mistakes, loyalty

Constantly ask yourself the question, “How can I better serve this customer or client?” 

TAGS: Customer service

Do you really want to know the truth about what it takes to get and keep the job you want?  Can you handle the truth?  It’s not that hard — yet most people miss the mark entirely.  It’s not about doing your job.  Those are just table stakes.  It’s not even about you.  It’s about serving others — putting yourself in the shoes of others and treating them better than you’d want to be treated.  Or as a colleague of mine says, “The Golden Rule is not do unto others as you would have them do unto you, it’s about treating people as they want to be treated.”

What made me want to write about this today is my disgust with the state of customer service in America today.  One thing you can count on, is that most people can’t be counted on to do as they say.  My three year old Maytag dishwasher has been out of commission since Halloween.  I’ve had four different people in to look at it — and none them of have followed through with what they said they were going to do to fix it.  I even wrote to Maytag — and I got a response that included the line, “We apologize that you are experiencing a concern with XXX.”  Yes, XXX was in the e-mail. 

I constantly tell clients and readers that if you really want to distinguish yourself from your colleagues, just do what you say you’re going to do.  Do it with their needs in mind.  The late Robert Greenleaf coined the term “servant leadership.”  He believed that serving others is the most noble action you can take.  I agree.  Not only is it noble, it’s smart.  Serving others isn’t demeaning or only for people lower on the food chain than you think you are.  Doing as you promise and doing it in a way that serves others will distinguish you wherever you go… not to mention making you a pretty darn nice human being to boot.   

TAGS: Customer service, personal brand building, servant leadership