Economy aside, my small business pretty much succeeds or fails based on customer service (cleanliness is a close second….).
Recently, I have had some dealings with large companies and came away feeling great from one interaction, and not so great from the other *cough* AT&T *cough*.
Everyone likes to complain and have a “voice” when things don’t go right, but for once I thought it was important to recognize a good experience.
Today I want to focus on the experience that went well.
For the past couple of months my DELL Latitude D430 has been freezing up and locking at the worst 
possible time(s) with unsaved work, during the middle of drafting an important email, etc.
One day while I was having a view of “tweets” on Twitter I noticed Chris Brogan had mentioned a @Rich_at_Dell (aka Richard Bernier). Richard is responsible for DELL Communities & Conversations and I thought it was time I sent him a message seeking a solution to my laptop’s problem.
In all seriousness, depending on how the interaction went (with whomever I dealt with), would determine whether I ever purchased anything from this company again.
Well, I “tweeted” to Richard and got a response almost immediately. Eventually we just ‘followed’ each other and a volley of DM’s ensued.
I won’t bore you with the details, but after a few weeks of going back and forth Richard has put a new hard drive in the mail to me at no cost. The whole process would have gone quicker but because it’s our busy season I was a bit slow responding to his emails on occasion.
Needless to say, and this is the important part; there were NO hassles in dealing with him. It was very straightforward. My laptop has (soon to be had) a serious problem and he provided a solution.
Richard provided, what’s that word again, oh yeah, CUSTOMER SERVICE.
If for some reason Richard’s boss reads this post, I would like her (or him) to know that his customer service, via social media and in this case Twitter, is absolutely a measurable metric.
Had he been anything less than stellar, DELL would have lost a customer. Perhaps not a huge or important one, but a customer just the same.
However, even though my hard drive is on the brink, because of Richard’s actions my trust and hard earned dollars have been regained. And I don’t think you can ask for anything more than that.
Thank you, Richard (@Rich_at_Dell)
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Richard Bernier 02.05.09 at 6:09 pm
It was a pleasure assisting you Mark. Thanks for mentioning me in this blog!
Best regards!
Sonny Gill 02.05.09 at 7:07 pm
Nice story Mark.
One thing to point out as you said you may or may not have been a ‘huge or important customer’, I think in Dell’s eyes you are. With any great customer service, the company knows that one person could make or break (or at least cause a PR crisis) the view that people have on their company’s customer service. Richard and Dell seemingly know this.
kathy 02.06.09 at 1:46 am
I had a similar experience with @comcastcares very early in my Twitter life just a few months ago. He saved my business for his company because of his response.
I’ve worked to do the same with my customers on Twitter, FB, etc. Mostly fixing things they didn’t think were “fixable” and a time or two fixing what wasn’t handled quite right. No question it’s made a difference.
Rob Chant 02.06.09 at 4:00 pm
Great stuff. Everyone loves to pick on Dell due to that very public customer support fiasco a few years ago… what people don’t seem to realise (or choose to ignore) is that they really, really learnt their lesson from that!
Jarkko Laine 02.07.09 at 5:48 am
What an amazing example of how good, personal customer service can work miracles!
Great job, @Rich_at_Dell!
Ricardo Bueno 02.08.09 at 9:04 pm
Hey Mark,
Just another great example of “responsiveness” at work! I’m sure that now you’ll recommend Dell to others which works well in their favor. But all in all, I’m glad you got your problem resolved and had a great experience.
Martin Meyer-Gossner 02.13.09 at 11:46 am
Excellent read, Mark. Sometimes I wish companies would wake up and face reality. Customer service always was a little risk for them. In times of social media this will be an even more important topic. What Dell (and some others) in social media does well, seems to be a nightmare topic for the majority of companies. Most of the time it is a lack of resources and wrong customer appreciation.