Lee Valley Customer Service

  Quoted Text Here  
Here's a LV example. A few weeks back we replaced all the knobs in our kitchen. I bought several different ones to take home and choose from.
When I returned them and bought the 24 of our choice, the LV employee at the till forgot to credit the returns (about $10).
When I got home from work the next day, there was voice mail from her describing the error and asking me to call her back and let her know how I wanted the refund dealt with.
Customer service, customer satisfaction.

  Quoted Text Here  
I visited a farm once. The farmer had the bull service the cow. After seeing what the bull did to the cow, I was wary of any salesman saying their company gives good customer service.

wrote in message
  Quoted Text Here  
Aw, you're just afraid it would be a lot of bull!
:)
Vic

  Quoted Text Here  
I this it's how you look at it. Shipping (with the assistance of a few other departments) is what gets the delivery to the door. I guess some would consider the whole process to be a form of customer service but to me, customer service is how fast and how well the company responds when the customer has a question or a problem.
Recently, I tried out a new ISP service that promised great service. They got me set up and operating within hours of my request. It was fast and efficient. That fulfills your idea above of customer service. Over the next two days, I left four emails to them and three phone calls with questions. Not one reply. I dumped them on the third day for lousy customer service and went contritely back to my previous ISP. I realized that customer service (problem solving) was/is more important to me than anything else, within reason of course.

wrote in message
  Quoted Text Here  
Yes shipping is a part of customer service and IMO an out side shipping company is an intergral part of customer service. If you choose a shipping company with a poor service to deliver your goods to your customer you are not providing great customer service. Yes, this is a tough call because you do not dictate how a shipping company conducts its business however you are the one that the customer should responsable. If the shipping company delivers sub par performance in delivering your product it is your responsibility to find one that meets your and your customers expectations. A good example is the shipping company that Grizzley uses or used some years back. Many Grizzley customers complained about their machinery being delivered damaged, and or misshing parts because the carton was no longer covering the product. There were even reports of tools being delivered and found upside down when it reached the customers address. You seldom heard complaints about a specific shipping company, you heard complaints about the shape that Grizzly products arrived in. That was a Grizzley customer problem. Today you do not hear about as many problems in this respect. Grizzly has probably made changes to improve their image. That is working towards better customer service.
A company responding to correct a problem is simply the least you should expect from a company. It is but a small part of working towards delivering good customer service.
Would you rather buy from a company that delivers all of your expectations and gets its goods to you as expected or one that makes mistakes with your order and quickly corrects the problem? I'll go with the one that works harder in the first place to insure that my order is as expected rather than one that MORE often depends on YOU to help correct its mistakes.
  Quoted Text Here  

"Leon" wrote in message
  Quoted Text Here  
delivering
I agree ... here is an excellent source that backs up your contention/definition to a "t":
http://tinyurl.com/ju49u
In short:
“Excellent customer service is the process by which your organization delivers its services or products in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible.”
I would say that just about covers it, and Lee Valley.

  Quoted Text Here  
I too have been the recipient of great service from LV. The thing here that stands out in my mind is the "mea culpa". Although it not said explicitly, I sense a tone of "yup, you're right we made an error".
<Rant-on>
Doesn't it just suck that so infrequently people can't just say "sorry, we goofed"? I was in to local pharmacy the other day and was over changed for an item. After the transaction was completed I checked the shelf tag to make sure, then brought it to the cashier's attention. Instead of "I'm sorry, we'll get you a refund sir" she just took an annoyed tone and told me to fill out a refund form.
Is it unreasonable to expect a simple aknowledgement for being inconvenienced?
I choose not to provide personal information for a simple cash purchase so I signed with a big prominent 'X'
-Steve a.k.a. X