SiteCrafting Blah Blah Blog
Feb. 16, 2007 at 11:02am
A little thought goes a long way
Why it's important to listen
Here at SiteCrafting, we are quite busy with new projects. As such, we have realized that additional staff is necessary to meet the demands for our services. With the addition of new staff members comes the need for more furniture. We also decided that this would be a great time to rearrange the office, and create 3-4 person "pods" for team collaborative purposes. So, we headed off to the furniture store that supplied us with our current desks and chairs, hoping to place an order for 14 new tables.
As we had suspected, the tables and legs were not in stock, and we were told that if we wanted them delivered we would need to call their business services line and place an order. So we acquired all the necessary stock numbers for the tables and legs (they come separate) and headed back to our office (note here that the salesperson did not offer to let us use their phone to place an order or go to some ordering desk). And here is where the breakdown in customer service reared its ugly head.
Calling the business services line and placing the order went smoothly enough. We explained to the representative that we needed 14 tables and listed the type of legs we wanted (there are multiple styles of legs that go with this particular table). The representative explained to us the final cost which included a shipping and handling fee (which was very reasonable) and we paid by credit card on the spot. We patiently waited for the 2-3 weeks to pass so we could begin rearranging our office.
The big day came on a Thursday. A large delivery truck pulled up to our office and brought in all of the tables and and legs. As they were leaving, we started taking inventory of the shipment. We counted the tables: 10 long tables, and 4 short tables. Great! However, the stack of legs looked a little sparse. So we counted ... and recounted. And sure enough: 14 legs! Unless this was going to be some new feng shui layout where each table is balanced on one leg, we had a bit of a problem. We checked the order sheet again to make sure we ordered correctly. The tables were listed as 1p. (meaning 1 per order). The legs were listed as 1pk. (meaning to us 1 pack per order).
So lets go back to the phone call. We told the representative we needed 14 tables and legs to go along with it. We did not know that legs were sold as individuals. Nonetheless, should not the representative have made the connection that 14 tables require 56 legs? A very little amount of thought on the representative's side would have saved us a lot of time and wasted resources in trying to acquire the extra legs.
Here's how the phone conversation could have gone that would have shown more exemplery customer service. "Sir, I see that those legs are sold individually. Do you require four legs per table, or would you like to simply order 14 legs?" That two-line sentence would have saved us the two extra weeks it is taking to get the additional legs to us, and the extra shipping fees incurred due to the double shipment (thankfully this furniture company agreed to cover that cost).
Posted in Critiques, Deep Thoughts by Mark Neidlinger
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