An electrician with customer service skills is not an oxymoron.
Posted by Carol Hart on Mon, Jun 07, 2010 @ 02:06 PM
Customer service is my passion. I consider it to be my business--not electrical contracting. (Especially since I'm not a licensed electrician!) As a result, I search far and wide for ideas that can help me in my business. I came across an interesting one the other day in a book by Tom Connellan called Inside the Magic Kingdom. (After all, Disney is the undisputed customer service champion) Connellan presented the idea that a company's competitor is any company with whom their customers do business, be it Amazon.com, or L.L. Bean or Disney World. A person's experience with those companies--some of the flat out best customer service companies around--is going to color their perceptions of their experience with my company.
At first I was startled by this observation, but quickly realized its truth. My expectation for internet shopping is that it will be as convenient as shopping at Amazon.com. If a site doesn't quickly meet that expectation, I quickly leave. After shopping and returning items at L.L. Bean, any store that doesn't provide that same generous return policy suffers by comparison. (I once watched an older gentlemen successfully return 20 year old duck boots on the grounds that they didn't meet his expectations for product quality!) And I am always astonished to hear of the lengths a Disney employee will go to ensure a magical experience for its guests.
These thoughts were running through my mind as I sat on hold for 15 minutes with my phone company. A storm had run through town, and we lost telephone service. The very polite representative ascertained that the problem was not with the line, and assured me that a repair person would be at my home at 8:00 the next morning (a Saturday, no less) to find the problem. Predictably, no repair person showed up at 8. Or 10. Or noon. Or ever.
And so I asked myself: Is this how Disney would run a phone company? I don't think so. The Disney phone company would have smiling technicians that showed up on time, in a snazzy uniform (with a Mickey logo on the pocket, no less), ID, and a repair truck with nifty futuristic gadgets to solve my problem and leave me amazed at their attention to detail. The L.L. Bean phone company would provide me with a quality product and a 100% satisfaction guarantee or my money back. And the Amazon phone company would provide all kinds of online options for scheduling and reviewing my experience with the service technician.
Savvy readers can see where I'm heading with this. My company does provide many of these things--high quality electricians with nifty tools to get the job done with a minimum of damage and fuss. Employees who pay attention to details like cleaning up after themselves. 
A 100% satisfaction guarantee that's real, not just a catchphrase. (I once refunded money to a customer because he was upset we didn't do the plumbing during his washing machine's electrical installation!) And I can't wait to provide options like online reviews for my customers to talk about their experience with my company.
So this is the question I'll be pondering: what would a Disney electrical contracting company look like?