thoughts on customer service...

This isn't photography related but I've had a number of memorable contacts with companies lately, some good, some not so good and they keep making me think about the way we run Image Factory and what influences how we do business.


We used to be big fans of Southwest Airlines...they were inexpensive, the employees were always friendly and fun on the flights. When we took our recent trip to Disney, they were a natural choice for our airline shopping. As it turns out, they had a competitive price and even better, they were flexible with allowing us to make a change to our flight times without any charge.

Unfortunately when we arrived at the airport, that fun, enthusiastic and empowered attitude we'd run into in years past was nowhere to be found. The employees were no different than any other airline you'd fly -- they seemed stressed, burned out and uninterested. Worse yet, the 'choose your own seat' policy that had worked so well for us as a couple of newlyweds turned out to be a nightmare with 2 children in tow -- we had to sit apart from one another so our 9 year old was all by herself sitting next to strangers. The flight attendants had no sympathy nor offer to help get a family with children to seat earlier so what is billed as 'everyone sits in first class' turned out to be a very disappointing experience. Bottom line, we learned that Southwest Airlines is probably not the best choice for a family flying and wanting to stay together.


The second experience I had was a positive one all the way around and it inspired me to write this post. We have a Moen faucet in our kitchen sink and it recently started spraying water everywhere. After disassembling it, I took it in to Home Depot for some advice and they were fantastic - spending time with me to examine the issue, find a probable replacement part and even install it for me right there!






Unfortunately when I got home, the faucet was still leaking water -- we hadn't fully fixed the issue. DeAnna picked up the phone and called Moen while I scoffed -- why on earth would a manufacturer care about us at this point...it's 2 years old! As it turns out, we reached a helpful and informed customer service representative on a Saturday afternoon who walked us through a temporary fix and offered to FedEx replacement parts out to us first thing on Monday -- all under warranty!


I had to laugh -- I just assumed that this company wouldn't have anyone on the phone who could help us with our problem, much less be there on a Saturday and offer to overnight parts to us. But in the end, it's the same thing that I give our own customers a hard time about -- if you have any questions, issues, complaints, etc. about your prints or albums, please call us -- we'll take care of you!

I think this is part of the reason smaller businesses like ours are so successful -- people are tired of dealing with uninterested, unempowered employees of large corporations where they get the feeling that they are not valued. I think it's also the reason you see larger companies (like Moen) trying to act like small businesses and increasing their level of customer service. Sure, they aren't the least expensive faucet on the shelf but you can bet I'm going to look their way every time I need a faucet in the future because of how they run their business and care for their customers.

We work hard every day to instill that same thought in our customers -- it's how we want to be known and how we want to run our business -- one that everyone is happy to recommend and eager to do business with again.