It never ceases to amaze me that people’s opinions can vary so much over similar things. I recently left a comment in response to a blog posted about poor customer service at the Apple store on Regent Street.
Apple has, in general terms, a good reputation and having known a few apple users the impression that they give is one of high levels of customer satisfaction. My own experience has been good as well. I visited the Apple store in the Trafford Centre armed with my iPod, a rather well worn mono LCD model that is now well over 3 years old but occasionally it does play up, so to speak.
I took my ticket in the queue, and when I was seen some 30 minutes later I was dealt with efficiently and effectively. The problem was solved and I left a happy customer. Now take two other views and read the first story and you see there is a very unhappy customer, but read the second story and it is a totally different. As it happens both were dealt with in the Regent Street store as well.
Customer expectation is hard to manage and even harder to understand sometimes. Here at Customer Street we have had our fair share of critics who will make sweeping statements and generalisations and miss out facts which may put things back in perspective. As a business we have to move on, respond if needs be but more often than not I do try to get to the bottom of their issues so that we can learn and try to make the “customer experience” better in the future.
In the last 6-8 months we have come across far more positive feedback from very satisfied customers and will regularly update these on our customer testimony page on the CustomerStreet.com site. Speak to any of our support team and they will all say that they get a real buzz from their job and genuinely enjoy the satisfaction of fixing things for customers.
Whilst there are always two sides to every story in business you cant be complacent and I think that any responsible business must take to heart the comments, good, bad, accurate or fictional and deal with them accordingly. After all without customers there is no business.
