When my wife and I recently purchased a TV stand for our new house we did what most couples first do.  We took a trip to the local department store (Sears, in our case) and walked around, tested out and looked at furniture.  After we got our TV credenza home and I had spent the better part of an evening putting it together I realized that some of the parts were missing from the box.  Talk about frustrating!

Naturally, it bothered me because I wanted to finish putting it together that evening.  I later went back to Sears, who told me that contacting the manufacturer would save me time and would take 3 days if I contacted the manufacturer, Sauder, directly compared to 3 weeks if I went through Sears.  I was being given me the “run-around” because Sears wasn’t willing to support a product that they sold to me.  That was the bad part of the customer service experience that I received now let me get to the exceptional customer service experience that I received in the most unlikely of places… online!

I typed in “Sauder.com” and hit enter. After navigating to the “Repair Part Ordering” page I entered the model number of the piece of furniture and my postal code and clicked “Next”.

They then asked for the parts that I needed to replace, the quantity and the reason for replacing them which lastly took me to a page to fill out my order information including address, name and the rest of my details.

Now by this point in the process I was thinking that it would take a while before what I’ve done online would translate over to their “bricks and mortar” business that Sauder has in place.  I was wrong.  Maybe that’s just me being skeptical but I always assume the worst with online business processes like this simply because they don’t always work and when they do most times it’s not that optimal.  So was I surprised when I received an email that they received an email saying that it was being shipped out and literally two days later a package showed up at my front door from Sauder.com including the missing parts that I needed to complete my TV credenza.

I want to add that I never talked to a physical, real live person at Sauder but it didn’t matter because they gave me the best customer experience I’ve received in the next little while.

This should be a lesson to all business owners and entrepreneurs out their wondering what makes a good business, great.  Let me break down what made my customer experience a success using Sauder.com and why I would buy from this company again…

• They delivered what they promised – Online businesses and online business channels of companies take note.  Customers that come to your website expect to be served, they expect to find the information that they are looking for and they also expect to find a way to contact you should they need it so as a business you need to make this a simple process.  All too often, companies get caught up with the latest and hottest looking website only to realize that their customers hate it and don’t use it.  Talk about a waste of money, resources and of course lost profits!
• They support what they make – Sauder.com didn’t make me jump through unnecessary hoops or buy an extended warranty to anything like that.  This is how it should be when you go online and you are dealing with a company.  It added to my experience as a customer and not my frustrations.  If your company makes or sells something you need to support it.  I wouldn’t go back to Sears because even though they sold me a TV credenza, when I had problems with it they pointed me to the manufacturer and turned their back on me.  In other word, they didn’t support my problems when I had them and didn’t provide any service past selling me the product.  In the future I will deal directly with Sauder because they know how to treat me as a customer; they value me and my business.  They even sent a letter with the replacement parts apologizing for any inconveniences and that I thought was a great touch.
• They had the business systems in place to support my request – Again, another fundamental that companies don’t always get right.  In order for my request to get from the website where I placed it to the person who picked the order and shipped it took a great deal of business systems working together in unison, people trained to understand their role and the systems and the parts needed for the shipment.  Sure, it needed more than this but I am just making the point that they (Sauder.com) have optimized their online business process to work more efficiently and effectively with their physical business.  It’s not an easy task but they made it look flawless.

I know that I normally don’t take an approach to talking about business but I think that it is worth talking about how the web and various web technologies can help standard brick and mortar businesses become more efficient and help businesses deliver more effectively on their goals and it turn keep their customers whether direct or indirect happy and coming back for more!

My experience dealing with Sauder was great, especially in terms of the customer experience that I had online (I didn’t talk to a physical person at Sauder) and my experience dealing with Sears left me feeling that they didn’t care about me past the sale of the product (This was a “face to face” customer service experience where I was pretty much “shown the door” even though I wasn’t threatening; just the average consumer looking for some help with a product I bought).

I had both extremes of customer service but I am sure that I am not the only person that this has ever happened to and unfortunately I am sure I also won’t be the last.  Feel like sharing your experience as a customer that involved the use of a company’s online tools?  Tell us what you liked or didn’t like about the experience, I am sure we could all learn something about business and successful or unsuccessful online business systems and website.  How did it leave you feeling at it was all said and done? And, what would you do different next time or improve?

Luc Arnold

“Have you had any good or bad customer experiences online?  Tell me more…”