Client Service or Client Disservice?

 

It was the best of times it was the worst of times.

With sincere apologies to Mr. Dickens, the following is not so much a tale of two cities, but rather a tale of two companies and how they each approached customer/client service.

Few would argue that 2020 has been about the worst of times. I won’t rehash the free-fall that the pandemic has wrought, as that would take far more space than I’m allotted twice weekly in this column, but suffice to say there isn’t one person who hasn’t been affected in some way, whether through their business, or via the remote learning mandate for their children forcing working parents to remain home.

To wit.

My fitness center, which incidentally refers to its members as “clients, “officially reopened on August 24, after having been closed since St. Patrick’s Day - albeit at 33 percent capacity. In a letter to members, err… clients, they offered the final week in August as a “test,” so members could determine whether they wanted to either restart or freeze their membership,

Far be it from me to refuse a free anything.

So you can imagine my surprise when I opened my credit card statement and saw that not only had they billed me for the month, but also charged me for the week that was supposed to be complimentary. So, I called their customer service department, and the conversation went something like this:

 

Me: “I’m calling to find out why you folks charged me for the week that was supposed to be free.”

Rep: “It was not free sir; it was a trial to see if you wanted to restart your membership.”

Me: “So, let me understand this, if I froze my membership then I would not have gotten charged?”

Rep: “That’s correct.”

Me: “But it was specifically represented as a trial period. In what universe is a trial period not free?”

Rep: (Silence, crickets, take your pick).

Me: “Hello?”

Rep: “I can let you speak to our regional manager if you like.”

Me: “No thanks. I will call my credit card company and have them dispute the charge.”

 

Now contrast that experience to one I had recently with my local supermarket.

It’s a rapidly expanding family owned business that I like to call the Nordstrom of grocery customer service. They go out of their way to help the customers to the point of ordering a requested item not in stock and delivering it to their house in person.

Last weekend we were having company and the Mrs. decided that short ribs would serve as the main offering. One problem, they were out of short ribs. I was about to settle for brisket when the owner himself overheard my plight, made one phone call to their central commissary, and told me that the order would be ready in less than an hour.

And not stopping there, he offered to have someone deliver it in the company van.

I thanked him but told him I would return to pick it up. Truth be told, the store is more expensive than the big box chain grocers in the area, but customer service vignettes like that are why I do not think twice about paying more for some things.

Examples like that are truly the best of times in sadly the worst of times.