Now that we’re in our new home, a lot of little things came to our attention that weren’t on our radar before.
Like trash service. We live in the county area now, not the city. There is no “automatic” trash pick up service. So you have to choose your own trash pick up company and pay for it yourself.
No problem. I called our city to inquire about trash pick up service. They gave me five different companies and their phone numbers to choose from.
When I called them, one thing I looked for was how long I had to wait on hold. One large nationally known company had me wait over 5 minutes before anyone answered. They had a very nicely produce message talking about how green they were and to visit their green web site, etc., which was nice.
But I figure that if that’s how they treat their customers when there isn’t a problem, what’s it going to look like when there is a problem and I need some prompt service NOW? I also checked online for reviews and they were very bad. I guess they were just too big to care. “Next!”
As I made calls to other companies I also noticed how eager they were to please me (the customer). That would tend to indicate how they would handle possible problems in the future. If I didn’t get a good feeling when speaking to the representative (warm fuzzies) — “NEXT!”
I’m just like you. I don’t want to be bothered with poor or shoddy service or long hold times on the phone or automated phone systems from hell. I just want to be able to call and get a human who can speak English and solve my problem ASAP.
The last company I called was a locally owned company. One of the co-owners actually answered the phone on the second ring!
He said they pick up on Tuesday mornings and offered to make a trip to pick up my trash on Thursday if I needed it and give me one of their cans at the same time. Warm and fuzzy indicator going up!
They happened to be the cheapest of the five companies, but I would gladly pay a little more money to have service that will contribute to my increased productivity over time and reduce the frustration factor having to deal with poor service.
He told me I will never have to call him again once the service begins, because their service is excellent. He repeated this twice. Time will tell, but this increased the warm fuzzies factor and confidence that they will indeed provide great service.