At Your Service

Occasionally I blog about customer service, usually from the perspective of the experience of a lack of it. However, I want to share my experience this morning. UPS stopped in bringing a couple of packages. One of them had a "thank you" gift for the work we did getting the Numana project worked out. Frankly, we're all so jazzed about the success of the project that we should be thanking Numana. But they sent three of us these nice jars of peanuts. Honestly, I did very little beyond blessing this project, but as you can see I've managed to put a dent in the peanuts anyway.

Later this morning I had a voicemail. Let me set this up a bit. We have a website service we pay each month for hosting our site. From the day we made our down payment we've been dissatisfied with them. Customer service is handled only through email. If you want to redesign anything it's a $500 commitment before someone will call you at a predetermined time to talk to you about what they are willing to do. I've regretted doing business with them, literally from the first day we paid the first payment. (As you might expect, their sales force is very good at closing the deal by promising much that they don't ever deliver on.)

Recently one of our members took the time to do the leg work to find a new company to deal with. Cloversites.com quickly surfaced as a very strong candidate. This member believed so much in what they had to offer that he and his wife popped for the $1000 initial investment. We won't be ready to go live with the site for another couple of months. Suffice to say, however, we are very pleased with what we've purchased. If you have a question, just call the number, they actually answer. The one time I called and left a message I got a return call while I was out for lunch. They persisted though and called back again until they got hold of me.

Today I get this phone message. "Hi David, this is Jen with Clover Sites. I know that you recently purchased a site with us and I see that you are well underway editing our template. I was just calling to see if you have any questions or how I might be of assistance. If you would like to chat with me my directly line is....." What customer service company do you know of that will do that for you? They called me. I didn't prompt it at all.

Recently, Guy Kawasaki wrote a book entitled "Enchantment: The art of changing hearts, minds and actions." Here's a description of Guy's book from his own website:

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions is Guy’s tenth book. In it, he explains how to influence what people will do while maintaining the highest standards of ethics.

The book explains when and why enchantment is necessary and then the pillars of enchantment: likability, trustworthiness, and a great cause.

The next topics are launching, overcoming resistance, making enchantment endure, and using technology. There are even special chapters dedicated to enchanting your employees and your boss.

Finally, because there are times you may want to resist enchantment, there’s even a chapter about how to do this too.

If you want to change the world — or even part of the world, this book is for you

I haven't read the book, but I think I've been enchanted by Numana and Cloversites. I'll probably get the book too.

OK, you knew I was going to get to scripture, right? Well I don't think that Jesus was talking customer service in Matthew 5 when he said these things, but I think he's teaching us something about enchanting others in a way that shares our desire to love them on behalf of God.

Questions:

1) How would you apply this passage from Matthew 5 to our everyday life?

⁴⁰ And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ⁴¹If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

2) How do you see your church applying this passage? How can we do a better job of it?