Customers of different industries were asked: "Why did you stop trading with a company?"

Source: Boardroom report, as published in Mortgage Banking magazine (June, 1987). From my collections

Story Line: The above survey was done over 20 years ago, but the underlying key message about customer orientation holds true 20 years later. Here are a few real life experiences from two industries:

1. Just a month ago, there was a conference in a five star hotel, attended by people from many companies around the globe. During the lunch break, I joined visitors from another company on their dining table. Noticing that there was no napkin in my dining spot, I requested the waiter to bring me one. The waiter replied, “Sir, there is a napkin on another table (pointing at that table). Why don’t you move there?” Everyone on our table was stunned. I even got a guilty feeling that it must be me until the visitors shared their similar encounter at the breakfast time.

2. In 1985, the company I was working for made a change in the process (called marking) that printed our company name and product identification on the top side of our plastic packages. We had moved from white ink marking (printing) to laser marking (etching) process.

On one summer Saturday morning, some members of our Laser Mark team (Engineering and Quality Managers.) received phone calls from none other than the CEO of the company. During his visit to a major customer on the previous day, he had witnessed first the legibility problem on the laser marked plastic packages supplied by our company.

After informing his managers about the problem, the CEO patiently listened to their explanation about the merits of the laser mark process and how it had resulted in substantial increase in the output; in our quest to be "The World Class Manufacturer". The managers emphasized that the manufacturing group had bought magnifying glasses to read laser marks and the benefits of output increase had far outweighed the cost of magnifying glasses. One of the managers even offered to call the customer and assist him in procuring magnifying glasses.

The CEO, in his normal soft voice, told his managers, "Effective solutions do not create problems for customers. The previous process of Ink Mark created perfectly legible prints and it was OK with the customer. Our process change had slowed the customer's manufacturing line and he should not have to buy magnifying glasses to compensate for poor quality of our laser marking." The awakened team spent next few months to improve laser mark legibility.

Reflection: So many times, people make decisions based on what is good for them and fail to understand the impact on the customer. My collection book is full of many such real life experiences. In most cases, customers had made a choice to stay with or choose a supplier that was easy to work with. This was particularly important in industries which were pushing the envelope every day to create breakthroughs and innovation.

Comments

[Anonymous]

This story reminds me about customer service lines run by many companies in the world today.

This is the "Front Line" between the company and the customer, but it seems like the priority is to reduce costs and get the customer off the phone as quickly as possible!

Here is a sadly common (and real) example: Consumerist: Click here

And also this funny comedy version: Youtube: Click here

[Brian]

Rings true. Indeed the human element --good customer service (and other soft-stuff) can be as important if not more important than the product itself. Here in Japan, my family occasionally visits McDonalds, not because we believe in the nutional value or even taste of their food, but because we can depend upon predictable food, good price, kind service, excellent atmosphere complete with play area for kids, newspapers to read, relaxing jazz music, wifi access, clean bathrooms, etc. Well no wonder they have been number one around the world for decades! Same holds true for hotels...you literally remember the service more than the product.

On the flip side, I bought a Hitachi computer last year. (reason: product specs were good for the price). I have had occasion to call their customer service several times. Here's the rub: you call in and while you are waiting to speak to a technician, a recorded voice explains in Japanese, "While we realize that you may find this unfair, your call will be automatically cut off if your waiting time exceeds 10 minutes." Then, sure enough, if the call is kept waiting for more than 10 minutes, your call is uncerimoniously cut off. Who is at fault, and who is forced to suffer? You can bet that my next computer will not be a Hitachi, period.

[Jim]

America: I had a HP laptop break down just after purchase under warranty. In their offshore call center I got a very rude man who was very unhelpful and spoke to me like a child. Two months later, I still have a broken laptop. My next computer won't be HP.

Japan: Years ago I had a Toshiba laptop that broke down in Japan under international warranty. Even though the problem was with the LCD display, they wouldn't fix it at their local service centre because I had a 'non-Japanese keyboard'. Instead they wanted me to pay to send the whole laptop (I had no packing carton) at my expense to Tokyo 2,000 km away and wait for two weeks, after which they'd mail it back. They said they wouldn't mail it back home: I'd have to wait in Japan. Useless. In the end I kept using the laptop with the faulty LCD. The International Warranty was worthless.

It used to be good buying from big companies because you'd always be backed up by excellent service. In their efforts to cut costs, that's been long since forgotten.

[dimitrios mistriotis]

Greece: Although irrelevant when I read your post it struck my mind: Some years ago some friends and I were on the last year of Informatics for AUEB-University in Athens, Greece. We had been in some events around and decided to go to a local Expo. There we got to Microsoft's kiosks, although we thought Microsoft was somehow... "boring" there was always a person with a smile explaining everything to us and proposed to show us one of my now favorites, XboX.
Then we spotted a kiosk of Sun. Sun Micro systems just had that wow effect you know. We got there and since we did not look or dressed like multi dollar (OK euro), buyers but just lazy were thrown away!
"These things are not for you kids..."
Me: "But we want to see what moves around the market" ("move around " is a directly translated Greek idiom)
"These things can not move, they are just too heavy hahah"

Up to now, whatever happens (Open Source solaris, open office etc) a part of me believes that Sun just stinks... I know it is not true, but that's what I feel.