The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

How hard do you try to solve issues?

Anything related to matters of the mind

biophase

Legendary Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
474%
Jul 25, 2007
9,120
43,260
Scottsdale, AZ
I have a couple of customer service stories. But what I want to stress in these examples is doing some outside of the box thinking, grinding through work, and what it does for your business.

Example 1: Customer leaves a very bad review on my product. Clearly very pissed. The reviewer's name is Jenn XXX.

I respond to the review saying I'm sorry that our product broke and would be happy to send a replacement. 2 weeks go by, no reply. (Could have stopped here, perfectly reasonable to stop here)

Ok, so now what?

Well, I look at the review date. Customer said they've had it for only 1 week and it broke. So, I got through all my orders searching for Jenn XXX.

I search for orders from 1-3 weeks before the review. Finally found her order. Send her a personal email stating the same thing. Again, no reply.

F*ck it, a week later, I ship her a replacement anyway.

Few days ago, her review disappeared. Yay!

Example 2: Customer sends inquiry through website's contact us page asking if we have XXX in a certain size in stock.

I reply to her answer and the email bounced as not a valid email address. Oh well, it's her fault she put in a bad email address right? (Could have stopped here, perfectly reasonable to stop here)

Well, not really. In her mind she asked my company a question and my company just never bothered to respond. That doesn't look good.

So I look at her email it's hername954@comcast.net. The only people I know that use a comcast.net email address are old people who get their emails through their internet provider. So I deduce that this is probably an older lady and that 954 should actually be 1954. It's also very common that people use their birth year in their email.

So I write back to hername1954@comcast.net, a few hours later she responds, and places an order! Success!

This actually happens alot with contact forms. People misspell their emails all the time. I always try to figure out where they could have fat fingered it. I'm successful about 75% of the time.

I write these examples because solving problems in business takes active thinking. We run into problems all the time and you can solve them if you think and actually try to solve them. These 2 examples weren't big critical problems, but doing these little things will train you to solve bigger problems when they come up.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Nicoknowsbest

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
395%
Mar 31, 2014
460
1,818
Austria
I have a couple of customer service stories. But what I want to stress in these examples is doing some outside of the box thinking, grinding through work, and what it does for your business.

Example 1: Customer leaves a very bad review on my product. Clearly very pissed. The reviewer's name is Jenn XXX.

I respond to the review saying I'm sorry that our product broke and would be happy to send a replacement. 2 weeks go by, no reply. (Could have stopped here, perfectly reasonable to stop here)

Ok, so now what?

Well, I look at the review date. Customer said they've had it for only 1 week and it broke. So, I got through all my orders searching for Jenn XXX.

I search for orders from 1-3 weeks before the review. Finally found her order. Send her a personal email stating the same thing. Again, no reply.

F*ck it, a week later, I ship her a replacement anyway.

Few days ago, her review disappeared. Yay!

Example 2: Customer sends inquiry through website's contact us page asking if we have XXX in a certain size in stock.

I reply to her answer and the email bounced as not a valid email address. Oh well, it's her fault she put in a bad email address right? (Could have stopped here, perfectly reasonable to stop here)

Well, not really. In her mind she asked my company a question and my company just never bothered to respond. That doesn't look good.

So I look at her email it's hername954@comcast.net. The only people I know that use a comcast.net email address are old people who get their emails through their internet provider. So I deduce that this is probably an older lady and that 954 should actually be 1954. It's also very common that people use their birth year in their email.

So I write back to hername1954@comcast.net, a few hours later she responds, and places an order! Success!

This actually happens alot with contact forms. People misspell their emails all the time. I always try to figure out where they could have fat fingered it. I'm successful about 75% of the time.

I write these examples because solving problems in business takes active thinking. We run into problems all the time and you can solve them if you think and actually try to solve them. These 2 examples weren't big critical problems, but doing these little things will train you to solve bigger problems when they come up.

And this makes all the difference.

Guys, picking up the phone and being friendly is not "going the extra mile".

This is.

Thanks for sharing @biophase - very inspiring.

Action beats excuses, no matter what.

Key is to keep this attitude as you grow "big" and not to forget about the small things - something I try to remind myself of every day.

Question:

So I write back to hername1954@comcast.net, a few hours later she responds, and places an order! Success!

Have you ever mentioned these initial mistakes to customers?

If you have done so, do they appreciate your service even more?

If you haven't, why not?
 

biophase

Legendary Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
474%
Jul 25, 2007
9,120
43,260
Scottsdale, AZ
Bumping this because my Mclaren sales manager in Philly a few days ago, asked me if I was the owner of XXX business. I said yes, he said, "I had a problem with your product about 3 years ago and you sent me a personal email to resolve it. I thought I had recognized your name. What a coincidence that I buy something from you on Amazon and 3 years later you buying something from me."

I went through my email and saw that we had interacted in March 2016.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top