One of the printers in our office is a Xerox Phaser - a laser printer that spits out pages faster than you can say "Spit out pages."
We've had it for 15 months. The printer came with a 3 year warranty - basically if it misbehaves, we'll get a replacement if it can't be easily fixed.
The printer started jamming about 3 weeks ago. Just every now and then initially, but before too long it was every 2nd page being jammed.
A call to the Xerox centre fixed all - they'd sent us a replacement printer on the Monday (we rang, I think, on a Thursday). Excellent! No fuss, no hassle. Just great service and a wonderful solution.
And then they stuffed it up completely!
Monday became Tuesday. And then Wednesday. And then Thursday. When we rang today to see how far away the new printer would be (knowing that the new one was on its way made us more and more intolerant of the malfunctioning one).
"It's in Brisbane (100 km away). It will take 3 days to get it to you."
Jo and I went to see a client in Brisbane today. We then drove (we arranged this with the guy on the phone) an out-of-our-way 50 km to pick up the new printer from the Xerox place.
That is, in my view, hopeless. How do these companies actually make any money? Do companies have a documented policy of "Let's give the custoimer crap service and hope they never bother us again."?
All I wanted was a printer fixed. Instead I got a week of broken promises.
Seeing inept companies on an almost daily basis makes me think it is easy for any businessperson to succeed. Provide outlandishly fantastic service and you simply cannot fail.
* Will I ever buy a Xerox product again? Nope.
And that old saying that an unhappy customer will tell 10 people. In this day and age of the web, it's more. I just told over 1,000!
Give great service. Every bit of research I've ever read says that better service = better profits. It ain't rocket science. Even if it costs you a few bucks here and there, the benefits are substantial.
Cheers.
Brendon
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