A big part of any business is Customer Service. When I look for vendors to supply me with photographic products one of the things I check into is their customer service. If you are in business or are just thinking about starting one you have to think about customer service.
I received an early lesson in Customer Service and one I will never forget. It came when I was working for Jim Raubach at
Forensic-Computers.com. Jim's small firm produces computers used by law-enforcement agencies and investigative units all over the world. I remember Jim coming in the office and asking me to package a unit for shipment, the shipment was going strait to two agents in the field. I quickly threw all the components together and pulled a station off the burn-in-rack. The whole thing was wrapped and shipped in a matter of an hour. The next day Jim asked me if I had left something out of the box. I went back to our checklists and confirmed that it was all there. He smiled and handed me one of the kits we included in the set-up.
These little kits were small tackle-boxes, like you would take fishing, and contained a variety of connectors and adapters. They also contained the keys that unlocked the drive trays on the side of the machine. The kit that Jim had given me did not have any keys in it! I remembered then that we had made a bunch of kits up in bulk one day. However we had made more kits than we had keys on hand at the time. I had made two stacks one with keys and one with-out. The intent was to add the keys later. However I had grabbed a kit from the wrong stack. The up shot of this was that we, I, had shipped a machine into the field with no keys!
The keys on these drive bays was a barrel key, similar to the kind that most vending machines use. Jim explained that the agents had called during the night, he asked me to amend our production lists so that this did not happen again. He then grabbed his coat and headed out of the building saying he would see me when he got back he was off to deliver the keys.
This did not surprise me, we figured it must be a close delivery and we would see him in the morning. Later the office secretary grabbed me, it was a small operation in those days, just five of use and only three in our location. She handed me the shipping invoice from Fed-Ex. My jaw hit the floor. The unit had been shipped to the US Virgin Islands.
I will never forget it. Jim, without a thought had jumped a plane and hand delivered the keys to the two agents. He invited them to dinner, showed them how to work the machine and then flew back to our offices. He never lost his cool, never lost his composure and we never shipped another unit with out keys.
Jim showed me what customer service was. To this day when it comes to customer service I try to emulate his example. Now I just wish I could forget to ship someones pictures and have to catch up with them in the islands for a hand deliver! No, seriously I always think of how I would want to be treated as a customer and then go one step beyond that. It's important how they feel, particularly if you are building a company based on word of mouth advertising.
