A TALE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE- or “When good enough isn’t, good enough!

Posted by Neal Bocian on Oct 5, 2010 in Articles | 0 comments

What does one have to do to get good customer service these days? As a matter of fact, “good” isn’t good enough anymore, is it? Customer service should be great, not good! When we do receive good customer service, we’re surprised and elated because instead of it being the rule, it’s become the exception to the rule. How sad that we as consumers and businesses alike, use this as our bar of acceptance.

Raise the bar people, and you’ll create “Raving Fans”; customers and clients across the board. You’ll create a buzz in the marketplace. Whether it’s on social media sites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook fan pages, or simple talk around the water cooler in the office-in short, it’s all about “great customer service and experience”- isn’t it? It’s what makes you want to do business with that establishment; tell your friends and share your stories. Well, here’s my story about raising that bar to excellent customer service, and it should be a benchmark for all of us. Good is just not good enough anymore. It goes with synonyms like ok, mediocrity, and complacency, and has no room in our vocabulary, our businesses, or for that matter, in our lives.

We had a cable spot that was to run on Comcast’s Monday night football (ESPN). Well, for those of you who know our agency, you know we handle a lot of auto dealership advertising and marketing. We didn’t find out about the new automotive programs on our client’s models until Friday, October 1st. Which, as you know makes it difficult to produce a 30 second commercial the same day, and DG (digital upload) it to Comcast on Friday morning for airing on ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Although we did produce the commercial and even supplied them with the proper codes, it was to no avail, and our spot wasn’t going to run. To compound matters even more, Monday night’s game was the Pats vs. the Dolphins! It wasn’t just any game. We needed to be on.

I found out about this on Monday around 5pm- I called Steve Flaim, VP and General Manager of Comcast. Little did I know he was vacationing in Capri Italy at the time. He took my call, and had Keith Festa, his right hand man helping him resolve the problem, and my problem as well. After a few hours of recoding spots, our spot ran without a hitch.

How good is that for customer service? Not good at all… It’s great customer service and that’s what it’s all about!

I’m a firm believer that great customer service starts from the top down. Leadership sets the tone and the example, the rest of the organization follows suit. And that’s exactly what transpired.

This is a great example that all of us should follow in providing our customers and clients with extraordinary and exemplary service. To say Comcast’s’, Steve Flaim, Keith Festa and their staff went the extra 9 yards to accomplish this (no pun intended) is to me, raising the bar all of us should follow.

Thanks guys for that effort! It was greatly appreciated by me and my staff as well-