I am intrigued by the impact of attitude and perception. In this example, I will use two contrasting attitudes or perspectives that I have witnessed during the last 24 hrs. Such a contrast!
As product and service providers we/KSI not only have a satisfaction guarantee, we state quiet clearly that if you are less than excited about doing business with us, we will give you a refund and help you move on to greener pastures.
http://www.kingsports.net/ksiandyou.htm#Your_Guarantee
100% Unconditional Money Back Guarantee!
Our goal is to have totally excited clients! We want every person who invests in our products and services to obtain the benefit that we believe we put into them. We would rather have one totally excited client than a hundred neutral clients.
If for whatever reason, that doesn't describe you.
Upon receiving your products, if you are not satisfied with them, we offer a 100% money back guarantee...
If we messed up, we fix it. If the client has pain in life we can't resolve, we happily move on. If you have pain in life and what to share it with us through abusive emails, we chose not to do busienss with you. LIfe is to short to spend time with unhappy people, and we are very happy to say we can't solve everyone's problems or make everyone happy. (that's what prozac was designed for...)
Now here's the tale of two people.
Person A received his products and found some of them to be faulty.
"Hello Ian, I am sad to say the Get Buffed DVD workout I bought from you is faulty because I can't watch Stage 1 Workout D and it frozen several times in on my laptop and PC. I even tried on Window Media Player as well as Power DVD software.
I am wonder if I can get a replacement? What do I have to do? Is it viable to send a faulty DVDs to you for a replacement? Thank you."
We responded to Person A with:
"No problems to replace. Before we do, to make sure we are not going to get the same result with the replacement, can you try it on 1 or 2 other machines? Let us know the outcome. And what about the 2nd disc – was that oK?"
The outcome was they needed to be replaced, we replaced them including international shipping, our cost - and we received this response:
"Again, thank you very much for look after your customer well. I am thoroughly enjoyed it, and I know I have a way lotta more to learn, about 99% of it to go!"
Isn't it great to do business with happy, grateful people!
Now in the same day we received the final response from person A we had the following exchange with Person B. Person B also had a challenge - their Fed Ex order was apparently delayed 1 day by Fed Ex at this end, for reason unknown to us.
Person B wrote:
"They are telling me that there was a 'Delivery Exception' b/c it arrived after the dispatch left. That really sucks. I am so excited about this book and I was under the impression that I paid $35 extra to expedite this delivery. What exactly did the extra money for shipping get me. I don't want to sound like a prick, but $35 is a lot of extra money to me."
To which we did what we promise to do - offer a refund to any customer who is less than excited about doing business with us. A summary of our response:
"If you not happy with our service/products, this is what I suggest you do -When you get the package - don't open it - send it directly to the US address below. As soon as this book arrives at this address, we will refund you your money. We don't want unhappy customers.... Look forward to refunding your money and allowing you to move on to other service providers."
To which Person B responded with (en extract!):
"...Here is some FREE advice - Maybe if you tire so easily of people complaining about your shipping costs, you might consider articulating the cost in more detail. For example, during the checkout process (on the e-commerce portion of your Web site), instead of just putting $35 you could enumerate comparable shipping costs for your CUSTOMER to recognize its benefit. I train about 15 people down here in xxx, xxx at a fairly large facility. I look forward to recommending your great customer service and then allowing them to move on to other service providers."
[you mean something like the info provided:
..at the bottom of this page http://www.kingsports.net/products.htm
...at the top of this page http://www.kingsports.net/productsgb.htm
...at the top of this page http://www.kingsports.net/productsksi.htm
....at this page http://www.kingsports.net/FAQspostage.htm]
We asked for confirmation that a refund would be sought to which we received (an extract!):
"Recently a great deal of attention has been paid to another class of stupidity: stupid actions by those that are very educated and worldly - like yourself. It is an important subject as it is increasingly evident that powerful, and generally very intelligent, people sometimes do stupid things.
...I like this one - YOU should pay particular attention here:
"Otherwise intelligent individuals may also become stupid when their rational thought is derailed by strong opinions or rigid beliefs." In this case the victim falls into confirmation bias and begins selecting data: becoming intentionally blind and deaf to contrary evidence, while at the same time collecting evidence which supports the beliefs. Rather than being based on low intelligence or missing knowledge, this is the stupidity of closed-mindedness and willful ignorance. Note that modern science specifically evolved to combat this form of stupidity. During scientific thought we should constantly criticize our OWN beliefs and assumptions (attempt to disprove hypotheses), while also using HUMILITY and extreme self-honesty to reduce our ego-based biases.
I am not sure where you should start looking for your humility, but the sooner the better. In conclusion, I never f$%^ing asked for a refund. Once again, I simply asked for more details regarding the premium shipping cost of $35 - which I still have yet to receive.
Thank you very much for your time. Now piss off, wankers."
Mmm. Abuse, threats, insults, rants. Person A, Person B. Person B, Person A - tough choice - who would we want to do business with?
I have vivid memories of hearing the late internet marketing guur Corey Rudl live in seminar say the email phenomenon (in the early days at least) brought out the rude gene in people. Except he was more colourful. Irrespective, I don't allow my team to be the wiping post for the worlds unhappy . As a team we work hard and that is not acceptable in our world.
Ok - so we have person A who received a large percentage of his order faulty and politely asked for remedy - which was happily and swiftly provided. And we have person B who received his order 24 hrs later via independent shipping issues over which we don't control.
Person A shared their gratitude with us and is a happy KSI client. Person B shared their 'interesting' thoughts with us and is not a KSI client.
Isn't that a interesting contrast of perception and attitude!
PS. And did we tell you - person A is deaf and can't understand what is being said on the DVDs. He has to rely on his mother, who makes a transcript of what is being said. Mum presses pause and rewinds often to make the transcript. Isn't that interesting - half full or half empty?
its interesting to see someone (person B)who appreciates academic study [the author referred to is a colleague] but lacks the capacity to look in the mirror regarding its information and message!
Yes - the question remains "How Can Smart People Be So Stupid"!!!
Posted by: Mike Pimentel | June 11, 2007 at 09:52 AM