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March 10, 2008
Small Company, Great Service
Posted by Hannah Clark Steiman at 12:46 PM
In the last couple weeks, I've had a terrible customer service experience and a great one. The terrible one, not surprisingly, came from a big, established firm (PayPal), while the great one came from a relative newcomer, a company called Blurb. If you have had any good or bad customer service experiences lately, please share them in the comments section below.
I'll start with Blurb, and address the Paypal issue in a separate entry. Blurb makes software that allows you to design your own book and then publish it, for as little as $12.95 a copy. I used it for my wedding photos -- I just downloaded the software, chose a layout, then dragged and dropped my photos onto the pages. The 8x11 book was about 80 pages long, and I ordered several of them for less than $40 each. But the books were shipped to my house, and I'm never around to sign for packages, so they ended up back at Blurb.
That's when I got an email from Michael Yuen. That's right, a real person with a name and everything. The email didn't come from orders198725347494@noreply.blurb.com. It came from Michael.
Michael told me the books had been shipped back to Blurb, and asked me what I wanted to do about it. I told him to send them to my work address. Then, a few weeks later, I ordered a few more copies, and mistakenly had them shipped to my home address again. No problem -- I just emailed Michael, and he had them sent to my office instead. It was convenient for me, since I didn't have to make a phone call, and it probably saved Blurb a little money as well, since answering customer inquiries over email is generally cheaper than doing it with a call center.
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I hear you--I have drummed my fingers on my desk multiple times while waiting to reach a live human at the big phone and credit card companies. I have learned the magic word is "representative." But you have to state it over and over, and don't even think about adding additional choice words...
I work for a small company called Glance Networks (http://glance.net) that has built its reputation on excellent customer service. Not only does a human being answer, but we answer on the first ring! I know, it's unheard of.
We sell a web demo and presentation service that lets you share what you're looking at on your computer with anyone else who has access to the internet. It's a versatile tool and extremely easy to use. Best of all--you're going to get some fantastic customer service--if you need it.
Feel free to test us...
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