Bad Customer Service #1 Product Killer

Product development is important, but customer service is the true measure of a company.

During the product development stage, a lot of attention is paid to “customer input, market needs, translating them into requirements, and features that the engineering team can act upon.” However, all the product development prowess in the world, is unimportant if a company fails to offer world class customer service.

Geoff Anderson, Senior Product Manager and Marketing War Vet, presents two real-life customer service experiences in a recent blog.

These experiences shaped Anderson’s opinion of the products and companies:

• Dell: Anderson’s company pays a premium for next day, on-site service. When he had technical issues with his laptop, he called Dell expecting a fix the next day. Instead, “10 days later, 4 visits, replacement of: Logic board, Memory, CPU, display panel, and finally, just swapping the laptop for a new unit altogether,” he was back up and running.

• Apple: When Anderson’s Mac had issues, he called Apple tech support. They decided he required service. DHL arrived the next morning with a prepaid shipping box to send the Apple in for repair. Three days later, he had it back.

Consumers are more loyal to companies that offer great customer service.  Anderson warns that even in B2B, great products can flounder due to poor customer service.