Good And Bad Customer Service
Posted by Jacob Harris Tue, 10 Jan 2006 02:41:00 GMT
This is just a short note to express my appreciation of Booq Bags for their astoundingly good customer service experience. My current laptop bag from them has developed a few rips in the outer nylon from general wear and tear, but they offer a trusting lifetime warranty program for their bags. And so, they’re sending me a new bag – a process made all easier that I was able to look up my original order on their site and submit a replacement claim electronically. I still had to send them a photo of the damage – they’re not naively trusting – but once they received that, I was cleared for a replacement. Furthermore, when my original bag was not available in the color I wanted, they shipped me a free upgrade, with all the decisions made by the person on the phone.
In contrast, my Canon S400 is unable to read any memory cards now (hence the lack of new photos). After reading over some boards, it seems the problem is related to a design defect within the camera itself, apparently fixable by replacing a cheap internal battery. Canon’s response has been customers out of warranty are out of luck and they should shell out $150 for a simple battery replacement procedure. It’s not the customer’s fault the camera has this specific defect, but Canon blames them anyway. What an excellent way to make money off existing customers without ever having to worry about keeping them… and of course, none of those customers will ever complain in online stores and forums. Right…
So, I’m violently annoyed at Canon, but passionately overjoyed with Booq. If anything, this experience illustrates the truly delightful thing about purchasing from small companies; they care intensely about the customer service experience and are willing to put their money where their mouths are. And they empower their employees to make the decisions to make that happen. Why do big companies get it so wrong?
