Rules vs Common Sense
Today I was reading a post from Seth Godin’s blog titled “The bitter taste of nickels and dimes” where he went to a Whole Foods store to get his favorite Rooibos tea and requested a cup of ice from the server. Since there was a company policy to charge $0.50 extra for ice, and Seth didn’t want to pay $0.50 extra for the ice, he ended up getting hot tea instead of iced tea.
I think the essence of running a business is often lost when companies began to apply rules about what a customer service person can or cannot do. In my opinion, the essence of any business is customer satisfaction. The employee at Whole Foods was just following the rules that has been created by the company, however, her rule-abiding actions has triggered one of the greatest marketing gurus to write about his bad experience at the Whole Foods store. It really didn’t matter how great the Rooibos tea was…
I think a very important aspect of running a business is to ensure that customers feel like they have been listened to and appreciated. I had an interesting experience when we first started our online accounting software project. At some point along the way when we began to move in to beta, I realized it was time to get a CRM solution organized. Since we provide a Web 2.0 accounting solution, I thought it would be a great idea to try out other web hosted CRM solutions. Naturally, I searched around Google and found Salesforce — who is undoubtedly the largest online CRM solution on the web today. I saw a link on the website that said, “sign up for a free trial today and get a free copy of the book Salesforce for Dummies“. I thought, what a great deal! I am a dummy user and I get a free book just by signing up for a free trial. So, I click on the banner that said free trial Salesforce for 30 days and began the sign up process. I must say that Salesforce has a great follow up system. I get an email and a call almost immediately after my sign up, offering to support me in any way possible. I was delighted. After a week or so, I realized that I haven’t received my free book Salesforce for Dummies so I decided to mention it in one of the phone conversations with a customer service rep. I was told that I had “clicked on the wrong link” and therefore, I am not eligible to get a free book. But I signed up for a free trial! I thought to myself. So I very politely asked the sales rep if I could get a free book anyways since this is one of their offers for people who have signed up for a free trial. This was what I was told: since I didn’t click on the right link, I was not on the list to get a free book. If I really wanted to get a free book, I would have to go back and click on the right link and sign up all over again. I could feel the sense of annoyance and betrayal stirring inside of me and feeling cheated by Salesforce. Then I was even more annoyed when I was told that I had to pay annually up front when the marketing message on the website said, “Full Featured CRM starting at $65/month/user“. I thought I was going to be able to pay $65/month to ensure I have better cashflow and I was told that I had to pay $780 / year / user at the end of my 30 day trial. So I asked, “I thought it said on your website that you charge $65/month?” The sales rep told me that $780/ year works out to be $65/ month. Now I really feel cheated. Why can’t they just do what they say they would do on their website? Is it that much trouble to ensure that I get a free book? Maybe even change their marketing message on their website to $780/ year / user. Now they have got me ranting on them months after my bad experience with them. I told the sales rep not to contact me anymore because I have had a bad experience. I was asked to explain myself and I felt so betrayed I didn’t even bother. Now I am ranting on the world wide web instead.
Just like the server at the Whole Foods store could have made an exception for Seth as a valued customer who loved his Rooibos tea with ice, the Salesforce team could have understood my desire to learn more about Salesforce by ensuring that I get a free book. To think that they have now over 43,600 clients paying at least $780/month/user which translates to a minimum revenue of 34 million dollars per year, the least they could have done was send me a free book like their website said they would.
I can assure people that when it comes to serving customers, I always do what I say I will do and I try my best to understand their needs. I am really hoping that when our online accounts software gets to serve millions of happy customers and making more than 30 million dollars in revenue, I will ensure that people at all levels of my company remember that while there may be rules, the common sense will always be doing the little things that create happy customers.
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Tags: Clarity Accounting, Customer service, online accounting software, online accounts software, Salesforce, seth godin
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