Why is it acceptable for companies to send refurbished equipment as justifiable replacements when they are exchanging items that were classified as manufacturing defects and are only six months into their one year warranty? I don’t get this. They accepted responsibility for the flaws. Don’t we deserve brand new equipment when malfunctions occur through no fault of our own?

This happened to us recently with a printer and a phone. The replacement printer had a shiny silver plate on the back engraved “certified refurbished model”. The ‘new phone’ box was armed with stickers stating, “refurbished – reused serial card”. They actually spent much more effort providing detailed instructions on proper repacking of the machines going back, outlining how to reuse each piece of tape and styrophome etc. back into the boxes that the ‘sort of’ new devices came in. Chances are those returns were refurbished and some family in Kansas has them now.

As I say in the book, we all need to speak up and demand better. In both cases, they were expecting me to only have the remaining months warranty on the refurbished models from the dates of my original purchases. Up the ladder I rose until I finally got to a manager that had the authority to approve a one year warranty from the day the refurbished replacements landed on my door step. Can that be considered a small victory?

One of my esteemed endorsers recommended WHY? to a business consultant.  Below is an email I recently received from her, minus the photo she sent! Best of luck, Kirsty, with your new contract.

Hi Martha,

Your book was really inspiring and had me smiling the whole way through. I felt like you were describing the exact same scenarios I have been in many times!

For the past ten years I have been working in training and development, as a specialist in communications and public speaking. I’d never previously considered expanding my training into the field of customer service. However, reading your book sparked an idea! I started to consider customer service training and ways that this could be delivered, taking staff on a journey to a whole new level of professionalism and exceed the customer’s expectations. You highlighted so clearly in your book how this can be done badly and inspired me to be part of the solution. Since finishing your book, I have started working with a significant international corporation to redevelop their staff and management teams for a new improved approach to customer service. I’m so grateful that your book gave insights and encouraged me to look at a different avenue to develop businesses.

On a side note: I have attached a photo of my experience from a hotel in Wellington, New Zealand in April last year. I arrived and found someone else’s underpants in my room. When I read chapter 24, I laughed to myself! If only they cleaned the rooms properly in that hotel!

Many thanks,

Kirsty Steel

Training and Development Specialist

M 021 120 8423   E  kirsty@develophq.com   W www.develophq.com   F www.facebook.com/develophq

The utmost compliment on Amazon from a highly regarded author and speaker on the topic of customer service.  Thank you, Micah!

Will enjoyably and permanently change the way you think about customer service, February 14, 2017 By Moi

This review is from: Why? (Paperback)

I write customer service books for a living, but I’ve never written one like this. Humorous, heartfelt, bite-sized chunks with the author’s unique (and I mean that as a compliment) viewpoint throughout. This book is a quick read, but don’t let that fool you. The lessons within will have a long, useful life in the way you think about customer service from that point onward. –Micah Solomon

One of the thoughts I pose in “WHY?” is not only that we speak up when service is subpar, but also that we only frequent the establishments that do a great job. I stopped using a dry cleaner because they lost items on two separate occasions, and I don’t mean for just a few days. I mean they were never found again. That was eight years ago! Don’t ask me why, but I decided to try them again with a simple steaming of a new wool poncho that arrived scrunched up in the shipping box. The careless shipping packaging manner from the retailer could be a second story. The gentleman at the cleaner says he can have it ironed and turned around by the next morning. “You can’t iron wool,” I remind him. “You have to steam it.” I left already regretting my decision to give them a second chance.

‘Next morning’ is a bit vague, so I showed up around 10:30 a.m.. The poncho was nowhere to be found. I remind this gentleman that it is brand new. Probably my voice took a turn for stern. I see small beads of sweat forming on his brow. He franticly started calling all the other employees that worked the day before for clues. He finally found it mixed in with the items waiting for alterations. I guess I am lucky that the seamstress didn’t think she was to sew up the sides of the poncho. Oh, and it was still all crumpled. He said to give him one hour.

I gave him four and intended to tell him that my lapse in patronizing them for eight years was going to have a relapse but he didn’t charge me so I decided not to ruin his day. I don’t like to strike out, so I won’t be going back for a third attempt at bat.

Who doesn’t have wings as part of their Super Bowl fare? I ordered mine from the same chain location my family has ordered wings from for the last seven years. Contrary to their regular practice, for busy Super Bowl Sunday, you have to order days ahead, pay ahead and schedule a specific pickup time. I requested 4 p.m. They said 1 – 6 p.m. was all booked. I said noon. They said 11:40 a.m. Okay then, 11:40 a.m. it is! Why even ask me? Just tell me what time to show up in the first place!

Hubby is there on time. How do I know? I noticed the time on the phone when I saw he was calling me. I was assuming he was calling to tell me he had a flat tire and would miss our pick up time. I wish. He said, “They have no order for us. They said you must have called the other location and they are too busy to call over there to check for me. They also said they can’t make up the order now.” Maybe I did order from a different location. I wasn’t aware there was another location in that town.

I quickly looked up the other location, texted my husband the address, and suggested he get moving while I try to call them. Dean answered the phone. “No order for Humler.” I pressed him, “You have no order for 60 wings to be picked up at 11:40 a.m. because you were too busy from 1 p.m. through 6 p.m.?” “Oh no,” Dean stated, “we don’t have pickup restrictions like that at this location.” I knew it. Incompetency at the other location obviously lost my order. What to do? There will be serious meltdowns here if there are no wings for the big game. While I mull this disastrous situation over in my head, Dean was patiently waiting through this awkward phone silence. Suddenly, Dean made a suggestion. “Since your husband is on his way here, I can make up an order for you now, if you like.” If I like? Dean saved my Super Bowl!

My assessment? Good leadership and training is the difference between these two locations. It CAN be done.

I am going Hollywood … sort of.

My publishing house makes an author’s video for their website and mine.  Have you ever viewed any?  Most of them that I’ve watched had the author, sitting in front of a wall of books of course, discussing what inspired them to write the book.  That can be pretty dry material.  How to do a video about a customer service satire in less than two minutes?  Videographer Tyler W. Davis made it easy. Please check it out here.

How do you define customer service?

I describe it simply: –pleasantly and efficiently assisting the consumers one serves.  I am hard pressed to think of any situation where that doesn’t apply, including the college search process which I am now embarking on with my eldest.  I am already judging the numerous institutions based on their websites and their varying approaches to offering information sessions, tours and such so that you can make an knowledgeable decision.  Why don’t they just post the tuition front and center on the main page and get it over with?

Here is the bottom line.  It doesn’t matter where you go to school in the long run.  What does matter is what you make of yourself after schooling.  That means, in large part, success will likely come when you chose a profession that you enjoy so much that it doesn’t feel like work.  With the exception of those future Picassos and Hemingways out there, chances are, those jobs that you happily bound out of bed for, will require being pleasant and efficient.