GrowthANSWERS » Don’t follow rules just to follow rules. Solve the customer’s problem.

April 7, 2009

Don’t follow rules just to follow rules. Solve the customer’s problem.

Filed under: customer experience, customer service —

My wife’s birthday was last week so we decided to go out for dinner as a family. I have two young boys and as any parent of young boys will tell you, they don’t sit still for long. Anyway, she wanted to go to a particular restaurant in Roswell that was known for their friend chicken. Problem was, it takes 30 minutes to cook and they do not take order over the phone. So over my best judgment we went anyway. Want to guess what happened?

By the time the food came, the kids were bouncing off the walls. My wife and I left the restaurant exasperated and certainly not in a celebrating mood. Now, it is not the restaurant’s fault we didn’t have a good experience, it was our kids. However, I have no desire to ever go back to that restaurant because of the overall experience was so bad.

How could they have helped make the experience better? Well, when my wife explained about the kids, the restaurant could have taken our credit card information (in case we didn’t show up at all) and started cooking the chicken. Is that against their rules? Certainly. But it would have solved our problem and created an overall better experience.

What are you doing in your business today that hinders your customer’s experience with your company? What can you do differently to ensure that you’re solving customer issues, not following internal rules?