Customer Support is about LOVE

Yes, customer support is about love! It's about caring and doing something because you care. Here are some relevant definitions from Dictionary.com:

Love --
1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person
9. affectionate concern for the well-being of others: the love of one's neighbor
10. strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything: her love of books
11. the object or thing so liked: The theater was her great love

And that's not it, there are other relevant definitions, but the above are sufficient to make my point:

Customer support and business to customer relations should be about love.

I've recently had a few customer support experiences that I'd like to recount:

Pulsar Watches

The battery in my wife's Pulsar watch died years ago. Sometime after taking the battery out to get it replaced I lost the battery. Nothing on the watch helped us identify the correct battery. My wife, as organized as ever, knew exactly where the receipt was and I was able to look up the model number, but no online searches revealed the correct battery, so I e-mailed pulsar customer support.

Even though the watch was over 10 years old, completely out of warranty, and I doubt they had many electronic records about the watch, they e-mailed me back and provided me with the exact battery type.

To be honest, I wouldn't have minded at all if they had said they had no idea where they could find that information, but they answered my question when they could have easily disregarded it. I could say they showed a predilection for their customer referring back to definition 10. Pulsar watches loved their customer enough to go the extra mile.

The Unnamed Tech Company

The Unnamed Tech Company has a great product that many people love. In addition to their main product they have another product that's quite esoteric but that happens to fill an exact need that I have at the time. I e-mailed them, and then I waited... and waited... and waited. Nothing. I decided to e-mail them again, this time at a different e-mail address, explaining my previous e-mail, and clarifying my intention to purchase. And then I waited... and waited.

I did finally receive an e-mail back, but now I'm waiting for a response. Support has been lackluster, perhaps almost dismal. In the spirit of full disclosure they admitted my first e-mail went into junk mail, but still. I'm a potential customer, or could have been an existing customer, and my e-mail was lost. They didn't answer all my questions and still haven't reached a satisfactory conclusion.

Netflix on Proactive Love

Netflix constantly amazes me. Even their company culture is amazing. But, it goes far beyond that. They are passionate about their customers. Yes, that's right. They love their customers, or at least I think so... and I doubt they'd say otherwise.

A few days ago, after having streamed a movie the night before, I received an e-mail asking me how the quality was. I was impressed. Not only were they proactive, but they really wanted to know. And, I'm happy to say that the quality was superb. For a 10-15 year old movie, I can't imagine the picture being any better had it been on Blu-ray.

But... it doesn't stop there. Monday I sent back a DVD which they received early Tuesday morning. Nice and quick. I was impressed. But, it gets better. They then asked me when I mailed it. They actually wanted to know how well their service was doing. Was it taking too long? Would they consider building a distribution center closer to me? I don't know, but I knew they cared. I knew they loved their customer.

Love Your Customer

If you and your business doesn't care about your customers, change jobs, or something. As Gary Vaynerchuk would say, follow your passion. Show your customers you care. Make a difference in their lives. When you do, they'll become your earlyvangelists, your marketers, your best and most devoted customers. And, perhaps most importantly, they'll love you back, and forgive you when you make mistakes.

[Image Courtesy: dolphinsdock on flickr]