Bad vs Average vs Good vs Outstanding Customer Service

Several weeks ago I met my friend Rob’s sisters for the first time.

We met at their marvelous little boutique in Queens and both of the sisters were warm and funny and charming and showered me with attention, resulting in me trying on at least ten different ensembles – all so incredibly flattering – in the course of an hour or so.

What can I say? Since getting divorced and losing my job over a year ago (with no prospects in sight), trying to establish a business and mother my kids and pay the rent … well it was downright glorious to try on such gorgeous clothes and feel pretty and carefree for a change!

So I wanted to say thank you in a special way and decided to send the sisters a small floral arrangement later in the week.

At this point I do just about everything online, so I went to Teleflora.com, selected a lovely arrangement from their “Zen” selection, filled out a card and my credit card info and clicked send.

I got an immediate confirmation that my order would be delivered on the Thursday of the same week.

When Monday rolled around and I hadn’t heard anything – either from Teleflora.com or from Rob’s sisters, I called Teleflora’s customer service number. There were plenty of apologies all around – yet no real reason given for why my order had never reached its destination – and arrangements were made to deliver the flowers on Tuesday.

Tuesday came and went. Wednesday came and went. I emailed and called. Still no explanation, although I did receive a number of truly lovely apologies. Finally I was assured that the flowers would be delivered by the following Monday – and was also credited with a 20% refund. By now the whole thing seemed awkward and I asked, instead, for a full refund. Of course now it’s Friday, I was promised the refund by Tuesday and it is still not showing in my account. Neither is the originally promised 20% refund.

I’ve ordered flowers online many times before and never ever experienced a problem.

Then I thought about it – and realized that, in the past, when I needed flowers I always ordered from 1800flowers.com.

The flowers invariably arrived promptly, were as promised and service was pleasantly satisfactory. I had never had any room for complaints. 1800flowers.com did their business and they did it seamlessly and without any fanfare.

I don’t know why I didn’t use 1800flowers.com this time.

I do recall thinking “oh one is probably as good as another” and Teleflora.com probably came up first in the search.

But I was wrong. So wrong.

And then I got to thinking about this inequity in the business world. How we rarely reward basic, adequate service with our repeat business, yet will sometimes go to the ends of the earth to rectify or expose bad service.

I know that I will be telling everyone that I know about my terrible experience with Teleflora.

I’ll also post about it on my blog, on my Face book account and on Twitter.

And I wonder why I didn’t go with 1800flowers in the first place since they had always performed well for me in the past.

Could it be because they did it in such an unobtrusive way?

I mean, I never got an idea that 1800flowers had outstanding customer service – they merely did their job.

So what is the difference between average service and good service? How about outstanding service?

Clearly there is nothing that Teleflora could do now to entice me to ever do business with them. But what could 1800flowers have done differently in the past to ensure that I would never have even entertained a thought of switching?

What do you think?

4 Responses to “Bad vs Average vs Good vs Outstanding Customer Service”

1. Ken Bolt says:

   August 16, 2009 at 6:54 am

   Why does anyone order from a flower broker /
   order gatherer?? Neither Telefl or 1800 actually fill any orders themselves. They keep 30% of the order amount and get a real local florist to actually make it and deliver it. The real local florist gets paid 70%. Why not just Google… Florist, City, State? Choose a real local florist and deal direct. One of them will fill the order anyways. You will get better value and better service. The order brokers are JUST web sites. (Unless maybe you are schilling for 1800 and getting paid too?) Ken
2. Bad vs Average vs Good vs Outstanding Customer Service | The Life … | Money Blog : 10 Dollars : Money Articles. says:

   August 16, 2009 at 7:22 am

   [...] Read more here: Bad vs Average vs Good vs Outstanding Customer Service | The Life … [...]
3. Pambie says:

   August 16, 2009 at 5:27 pm

   Thank you! I actually didn’t know that – and I appreciate knowing it (even though the article is really not meant to be ABOUT flower brokers, but rather about what a business can do to make their customer service outstanding). No, I am not “shilling” for 1800 – I actually didn’t even say anything that great about them, just that they delivered my flowers.

   Next time I need to send flowers, I will definitely take your suggestion. Thanks again!
4. Brian Morris says:

   August 16, 2009 at 7:42 pm

   The little guy or woman almost always delivers a better service than the big corporation. I teach writing to students all over the world. There are five of us running the office. We get it right 99.99% of the time because we take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for what we do. Even to running after the postman with a letter we didn’t want to wait an extra 24 hours.
   Our competitors are universities. Their people clock in and clock out. No one will fire them if they goof up. “Take it or leave it” is their mantra. “I’ve got tenure!”
   Long may the little operation florish around the free world.
   Vote with your feet. Vote with your click. http://www.nzibs.co.nz and ebookofknowledge dot com