Ugh! Customer Dis-Service

I’m just going to tell you this one straight up.  No names, of course, but you’ll get the gist.

I went into a local office supply store which also has a copy/print center.  I only needed 25 copies of something, and figured it would take a few minutes at most.  I walked in, up to the copy/print center and removed my originals from the folder I’d brought along.  And waited.

There were three employees (well, three people all wearing the same color shirt with the same logo on it… one assumes that they were employed there) in the copy/print center.  One of the employees was talking with another, quite probably something that had nothing to do with me.  In fact, I was never even acknowledged.  I stood for at least 30 seconds (think that’s short?  Stand up, check your watch, wait 30 seconds) waiting until the employee finally said “I’ll be with you in a moment,” only to continue a non-work-related discussion with another employee; for about another 1-2 minutes.  I was seconds away from walking out when she finally asked how she could help me.

Nobody should have to wait that long for service when there are THREE employees doing virtually nothing else.  What happened to customer first?

This is less a complaint (although you wouldn’t know it from what I wrote above) than an observation in how important customer service truly is to our business.  Many of you could just as easily drop by the mall portrait center and get your photos taken… and you’d like be happy with your purchases.  It’s great fun to have portraits done, and you might even get a good bargain in the process.

But here’s my point.

At EVERY step of the way, we are going to give you the best customer service possible.  When you call, we are going to answer the phone promptly, respond to all your questions, and make sure you understand everything about how we work.  If you have to leave a voice message, we’re going to call you back as soon as possible.  When you come in for your session, we are going to spend some time before we break out the camera to get to know you.  If you have small children, we’re going to let them get acclimated to us, and maybe even have some fun (See “How to Play Monster“) in the process.  We’re going to listen to you, give you our opinion, help you decide on the best course of action, and take pictures until you are satisfied.  When you come in to view the portraits, you are the ONLY person we care about right then.  We will greet you, show you into our projection room, and make sure you are comfortable.  During the order process, we will not SELL you anything… we don’t believe in high-pressure tactics.  We will work with your expectations, your needs and your budget to get the best possible results from the images we captured.

Our finished products will last for many generations.  We don’t print our products on-site, because the images from many quick print systems fade after only a few years.  Ours are guaranteed (YES, GUARANTEED) for a lifetime (and more) not to fade.  And if there’s something wrong with your order, we’ll fix it.  Period.  No qualms or arguments.  Just bring your order back to us within 48 hours (two business days) and we’ll be happy to fix whatever is wrong.

We like people… it shows in how people like us.  We’re fun-loving people so we’re going to have fun with you.  But you’ll always get great customer service, because I cannot stand customer DIS-service!