I was surprised because Sean is very loyal to the local business community. He makes a point of shopping in town, even if going to the city or buying online will save him a few bucks. So I asked him to explain.

It goes back to his career. You see, Sean sells cell phones. He’s an independent sales person and works out of his home, rather than a retail location.

His main focus is larger companies that need multiple phones for their employees. However, he also sells to small businesses that only need one or two phones.

Sean gives great customer service

What makes buying a phone from him different is the level of customer service. Sean goes above and beyond for his customers. He helps you decide which phone and which plan is best for you. He’ll deliver the phone to you personally. And if you run into problems, he cuts through the red tape of the corporation and solves it for you.

But there is much more to being a customer of Sean’s. Sean is extremely loyal to his customers. If you buy a cell phone from him, he works hard to help your business succeed. He’ll recommend you to his vast network of contacts. He’ll frequent your business himself. In fact, even if he can save money by going to your competitor, if you’re his customer and they’re not, he’ll buy from you. Every time.

So why was he so mad at this local business?

You see, this local business used to be a customer of his.  When his cell phone contract came up, he decided to shop around. This retailer found a cell phone that was a better deal than Sean’s cell phones so he switched.

Seems reasonable; get a better deal, switch suppliers.

So why was Sean so mad?

The guy saved peanuts

First of all, this new phone plan is $3 per month cheaper than Sean’s cell phones. That means this guy is only saving $36 a year.

Compare that to the $150 Sean recently spent in this man’s store. And he probably spent three times that amount annually. That’s a lot of money compared to $36 per year.

He didn’t shop locally

Second, the cell phone provider this guy switched to was selling to him out of head office in Toronto, not even a local competitor. If it had been someone local, Sean could have lived with that. But not shopping locally is a big sin in Sean’s book.

No loyalty to customers

Finally, there’s fair play. By shopping around himself, Sean could buy products much cheaper than from this local retailer. In fact, this guy’s not even the cheapest place in town, never mind compared to the city or online. But Sean purchased from him because he got good customer service from the staff. But mainly, he shopped there because he’s loyal to his customers. But this guy didn’t show the same level of loyalty.

So, the upshot is, this guy has saved himself $36 per year. But he’s lost $500 per year in sales. And I expect I’m not the first person Sean’s told this story to, and I won’t be the last. I know for myself, I feel slightly less inclined to shop at this retailer’s store. I just don’t quite have the same warm fuzzy feeling that I used to.

So, at the end of the day, was it worth it for this guy to switch suppliers? I suspect not.

Andrea J. Stenberg

When the reminder popped up last week I couldn’t even remember the URL of the site – that’s how little I used it. After digging around I found it and located the “help desk”. After much digging in the FAQs I located a webpage with instructions on how to cancel my membership. How simple is that?

Turns out, not so simple. You have to enter your login and password info in order to cancel. If I couldn’t easily find the URL for this site, how easy do you think it was for me to find that info? But, not to worry. I entered my email address in the “lost your password” field.

Now most password retrieval systems send a new temporary password to your email address. Not this site. I was asked the name of my favorite pet. Now I’m fairly certain I never gave them this info, but I dutifully tried every pet I’ve ever had. Big surprise, none worked.

At this point we’re at about 30 minutes of trying to cancel my subscription and I’m no further ahead. But wait, there’s a phone number for customer service. I’ll call that. I dial the long distance number and get a recorded message telling me to go to the website help desk. No way to reach a real person.

Next I sign into the help desk site and send an email “ticket” requesting help. This was late in the day on the 23^rd, two days before Christmas. I checked my email at noon on the 24^th. No news from the membership site “help” desk. Seeing as Christmas was on a Thursday, I took an extended long weekend and didn’t check my email until today.

This morning I found a message from the nohelp desk saying because I hadn’t responded within 72 hours they’ve closed my ticket. There was no earlier email from them. When I logged into the nohelp site and located my original message there was no reply there as well.

It is now seven days since I first started trying to cancel my membership and I’m no further ahead. I’ve sent another message through the nohelp desk. I’m going to spend some time today working my social media networks to contact Mr. Big Internet Marketer directly. If I don’t get a response by the 31^st, I’m going public. It shouldn’t take this long to cancel a membership. Not to mention, if I wasn’t trying to cancel my membership but log in, this wouldn’t be any better.

Mr. Big Internet Marketer has done some real damage with this fiasco. On the 23^rd when I first started the Herculean task of cancelling my membership, I wasn’t a disgruntled customer; just someone who didn’t have time to put this service to good use. I might have even considered purchasing from him again in the future.

A week later, I’m really annoyed and working my way up to angry customer from hell. Not only will I never purchase from him again, I’ll tell anyone who asks not to either.

The lesson here is to make your help desk or customer service easy to use – customer friendly if you will. By all means have an FAQ and automated system for simple and frequent requests. But you really need to make it possible for a customer to get help from a real live person. Even a direct email address works. But leaving someone as frustrated as I am is not worth the savings.

Andrea J. Stenberg

My son has been taking an asthma medication for about a year – it’s been very effective in controlling his asthma and allergies. Just recently – and by accident – we discovered that the American Food and Drug Administration had issued an alert about a possible connection between this drug and “behavior/mood changes, suicidality (suicidal thinking and behavior) and suicide.”

Well, it so happens we’ve been dealing with a dramatic mood change in my son – explosive anger, depression and yes “suicidality”. Upon hearing of the alert, we immediately discontinued use of this medication.

The change in my son’s mood and behavior is dramatic. He is noticeably happier – it’s like I have my old son back.

Today I went into the pharmacy where we got our prescription to complain that we didn’t hear about this warning from them. I was told that because Health Canada hasn’t issued a warning, they hadn’t heard about this. And until Health Canada does issue a warning they won’t be talking to people about this alert.

This is the part that makes this story relevant in a blog about marketing and running a business. The response from the pharmacist is completely unacceptable. This particular pharmacy is not the cheapest in town – we go to it because we felt they gave better advice than other pharmacies in town.

Well, I no longer feel this way and will certainly be considering switching my business. And since my son is on daily asthma medication and my husband also has a daily prescription, this is not an insignificant amount of business.

True, as a Canadian business, the pharmacy is only legally obligated to follow alerts from Health Canada. But a business that provides a service as well as a product, the minimum legal requirements are not good enough. In a competitive marketplace you must go beyond the minimum.

When looking after your customers, are you only providing the minimum required? Probably not. In fact, the most successful businesses try to give their customers a little extra. You don’t need to “give away the farm” but giving a little extra will go a long way to create loyalty.

And when you mess up – as this pharmacy most surely did in my opinion – don’t just quote government regulations. Apologize!

If this pharmacist had been apologetic and sympathetic to my situation, I wouldn’t be as furious as I am. And had he been apologetic, I wouldn’t be switching my business. And I wouldn’t tell everyone I know about the horrific experience – as I intend to do now.

Take a look at your business from the customer’s point of view. Are you giving exemplary service? And when a customer has a complaint or concern, are you addressing it in a way that leaves them feeling satisfied?

We’re only human and can’t be perfect. But when a customer comes to you with a concern about your service, don’t get defensive. Listen and do you best to respond in a way that you would want to be treated if the situation were reversed.

Andrea J. Stenberg