In ‘Idle Chatter. Does It Matter?’ I say good news travels slower than bad news.
Look at me. I’m a perfect example of that axiom. This chapter is about a so much better than expected service experience. But I don’t write about it first.
You see, those pleasure hormones kicked in so well, I didn’t feel the need to let off steam.
I write about my worst service experience first, because it’s the one that still gets the adrenalin flowing and the pressure valve rocking back and forth.
On the other hand, in my daily conversations with customers and friends, I do pass on my good experience.
When the opportunity arises.
Which is how most good news travels. When the opportunity arises.
In our house, the chores are divided. What I do, my partner, Victor Pleshev, never does. And what Victor does, I stay away from.
There’s no point in buying a dog and then wagging its tail when it will quite happily do so on its own, without help from either one of us.
Victor’s a floor man. He loves clean floors.
So the vacuum cleaner is his domain.
And he vacuums regularly, because we’re a home based business with neat and tidy as part of our register of standards.
We also have 3 rather large dogs that bounce around inside, so dog hair floating about at will, wreaking havoc with our electronic equipment, is a no! no!
Ditto for the car.
Victor baulks at sitting on car seats that have more in common with the fur coats of our dogs, rather than the manufacturers’ recommended covering.
In the last 30 years, Victor’s had less than a handful of vacuum cleaners.
A Miele that lasted for 27 years and was his best pal; and most recently, a Panasonic that blew up within 3 years.
Why not buy another Miele rather than replace it with a Panasonic?
At the time, he consulted Choice Magazine. It said that in their tests, the Panasonic performed better than the Miele. It was also less than half the price. Both very attractive to the man researching vacuum cleaners.
Unfortunately, no one predicted the motor would blow up within 3 years.
Or maybe a 27 year life span for vacuum cleaners has been drastically shortened by the manufacturers to ensure we buy more often.
I can muse about that forever and never know the answer.
When the Panasonic would no longer suck up or suck in, because it could no longer even whimper, we were faced with a dilemma.
What do we buy?
This being the royal ‘we’.
Although I don’t use the vacuum, I am included in the pre-buying stage if I can add something of value. But the final decision is always Victor’s.
He was adamant there would be no further consultation with Choice Magazine. Why? He’s not convinced longevity can be part of their testing criteria.
So ‘we’ went back to the old fashioned method of investigation.
Word of mouth.
I’ve always been fascinated by the number of women who happily blurt out to me how much they love their Dyson vacuum cleaners. At the post office, in my local IGA store, the hardware store. They seem to be everywhere in my rural community.
And it’s obvious rural men don’t discuss the pros and cons of vacuum cleaners.
This topic is strictly ‘women’s business.’
So where do men turn when they want to find out about a domestic appliance?
The internet, of course. Because it’s anonymous and ‘your secret is safe with me’ is guaranteed.
Victor likes what he reads about James Dyson himself. His story is part of their website.
He’s bonding already.
And he can’t fault anything about the benefits of the vacuum cleaner. It solves every cleaning situation he can think of. Home, car, the bloke’s shed, dog hair, copious and insidious dust from our dirt road.
What benefit does he like best?
It’s bagless!
Out here in rural Australia, retailers who stock vacuum cleaner replacement bags for anything but the latest vacuum models are difficult to find. He noticed it was getting harder to find bags for his 3 year old Panasonic.
He was sold!
Bagless with great sucking qualities. What more could he ask for?
An order is placed by telephone to our favourite retailer, David Jones in Sydney. We like them because they have great product knowledge and stand by the products they sell. If anything goes wrong, they’re helpful.
And they deliver pronto.
Two days later, the vacuum is waiting for us at our local post office in Kandos, NSW.
In great anticipation, the box is opened at 7pm and all the parts laid out on the floor. Ikea style. All that’s missing is the ubiquitous Allen key.
Then things start to fall apart when we look at the instruction manual.
No words. Only pictures and diagrams.
Between us, we have 4 university degrees and two lifetimes of problem solving skills.
Between us, we can’t fathom a thing the instruction manual is trying to show us.
4 hours later, we manage to assemble the Dyson and figure out some obscure, but necessary features, like how to convert the turbo head from carpets to hard floors.
A test run at 11pm that night confirms what everyone says.
It really sucks up and sucks in with gusto. We nickname it ‘The Dirt Decimator’.
Warranty cards are my responsibility. When sending Dyson’s back, I filled in the questionnaire and in the comments write this:
“Although the vacuum cleaner is truly better than most, I wouldn’t recommend it to any of my friends because no one I know reads hieroglyphics and therefore wouldn’t be able to assemble the vacuum without a struggle.”
I got that off my chest!
Victor blissfully vacuums for 3 weeks.
Then the turbo head stops turning.
Victor bypasses David Jones and goes directly to Dyson Australia.
Why?
Because Dyson’s website makes it easy to complain to them, 7 days a week.
Within Australia, there’s a Helpline 1800 number that operates 10 hours a day Monday to Friday and 7½ hours a day Saturday and Sunday. Outside of business hours you can contact them by email, stating your problem, and they’ll ring first thing next business day. All bases are covered.
What a plus. And how unusual is that? A company that goes out of its way to let you know how to contact them if something goes wrong.
But. The utterance on the other end of the phone call to customer service is the one you hate hearing.
“We’ve never had a Dyson come back under warranty!”
Why are we always the first, we ask each other?
To their credit, they take a different stance to Breville.
At their expense, they send a courier to our rural village to pick up the vacuum cleaner and all its accessories. And ask Victor to include a letter telling them what’s wrong.
Victor also adds a comment about the turbo head not cleaning wood floors as well as he expects. Is there another attachment he can purchase?
Their service is outstanding.
A courier picks the vacuum cleaner up within 48 hours.
After being looked at by their service department, we receive a phone call to tell us the turbo head is indeed faulty and a new head is now ours. They also tell us the date they will return the vacuum to us. At their expense.
During this phone call, I point out the difficulty we have in interpreting the instruction manual.
Customer service says they receive ongoing complaints about it. It’s not just me being fussy.
But, they explain, James Dyson is an engineer and inventor. And the manual is done in the UK, by him. They always send him the comments and hope that one day, he’ll realise his brainwave patterns are different to yours and mine.
Their empathy soothes me. I’ve had my say and they’ve given me an answer that’s not perfect, but I can live with because they agree with me.
Isn’t this the essence of personal bridge building? Two hands clasped together in unison.
The box arrives the next day.
Victor opens it and to his utter amazement and pleasant surprise, packed inside is a gift from Dyson Australia. A separate brush for cleaning wood floors.
They not only read his comments but acted upon them.
This bridge is becoming a steel structure.
The whole transaction takes less than a week. Their customer service is always about us, not about them.
Have we changed our opinion about recommending Dyson?
You bet.
But always with the qualifier. You have to get past the struggle with the instruction manual, we tell people. But it’s worth it, we reassure them.
I can hardly believe I say that!
When the discussion is about vacuum cleaners, we tell everyone how much Victor loves his Dyson.
Dyson Australia made sure our bad start had a great finish. And I’ve certainly changed my mind about their product purely because they have such wonderful customer service.
And that’s what you want. If nothing goes wrong, terrific. But if something does, you want to know you’ll be looked after promptly, listened to and treated with respect.
We love our Dyson!!
Or do we just love Dyson Australia? It’s hard to separate the two.
This Guerrilla From The Bush is no different to anyone else. Respect and empathy when dealing with me will get you everywhere.
What about you? Have you had similar good experiences?
I’d love you to post your comments and let’s see if we can help each other. Better yet, let’s have as many people as possible pitch in and share their experiences.
Take care,
CAROL
Carol Jones
Director
Interface Pty Ltd
The Fitz Like A Glove™ Ironing Board Cover, Roadworks Apron, Log Lugger, Travel Bug Shoe Bag, Mr Chin’s Laundry Bag and Sweet Shoo are all simple solutions for difficult problems. And every one is a joy to use.
We’ve developed markets for these 6 products without national or international retail distribution. To see what we’ve achieved, click on our website at www.interfaceaustralia.com.
Read the story of how our business began on The Ironing Board Cover Lady. No sales hype. Just a down home story about how we started our business on the dining room table of our rural property, driving on ‘L’ Plates, without an instructor.
A comment about LinkedIn. If you’re not a member of LinkedIn, when you click View Full Profile, you’ll be asked to join. It’s free and the option is yours. There are benefits to joining. Once you’re a member, you can key in the name of any person you do business with. If they’ve taken the trouble to complete a Profile, you’ll be able to assess their background, their capabilities and the calibre of person they are. You might be, as I am, often pleasantly surprised. So go have a look.
No comments:
Post a Comment