I'm not your secretary! I'm not! Why do I feel like I'm an outsourced secretary for other companies? Today I get an automated phone call from Wells Fargo at my office. (this has happened with at least 5 other companies in the past two months) "We are looking for (insert name). Please call 1-800-xxx-xxxx." So, I hang up. The next day, same phone call. and so on, and so on, until it drives me crazy enough to waste MY time to call the stupid 800 number to inform them that they have the wrong number. I have to wait on hold. Then I have to answer a bunch of questions because if I don't they will just keep calling incessantly. Can anyone tell me why I should have to do this for them? They can set up these stupid automatic calls to annoy me and waste my time at work, saying how important this call is, but they cannot pay a live person to call and find out if it's actually the right number! It drives me absolutely crazy. So in essence, I am their outsourced secretary or collection agent, informing them that they've got a bad number for Mr. So and So. It just infuriates me.
Do I have the only decent company left on the planet? Guess what happens when you call our office? Try it out! Tel. 801-765-4617. Monday through Friday 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM mountain standard time, you get a live person answering the phone. Yep. An actual person says "Hello, Professional Cable, how can I help you?" How about that? Novel idea eh? It's called good customer service. I don't have an automatic message dialing out to my customers saying "Your payment is past due". I don't have an automatic phone system saying, "For Customer Service please press 1." I just have people helping people. I know, it's crazy. If you don't get a live person, guess what you get? A real voice mail. And then guess what? Someone calls you back! What if you click on the "contact us" form on the website? Someone responds QUICKLY! Yeah, I said it. We respond quickly. Unheard of I know.
I recently had a customer in Texas email me and said, "I screwed up. I bought 50 SVGA cables that were Male to Female, but I actually need Male to Male. So I need to order the right ones and I need to know how much are you going to charge me to return them?" I responded by saying, "No charge. Just return them and I'll credit your account." He couldn't believe it. I know I hate restocking fees, so I don't charge them unless I have to. Now sometimes you have to. If it were a small order, and they didn't buy from my very often, I would lose money by not charging a restocking fee because originally I paid for a box, labor, etc. to process the order. But when they are placing another order, and it is a decent order, why penalize them and create ill-will, even though he was expecting to pay? I really like being my customers' favorite vendor. And you know what? They repay me with loyalty, and referrals. Take today for example, one of my regular customers referred another business to me. They told this business "You need to buy your cables from Professional Cable. They're the best." And so this new company is on board. By creating a fan from one customer, I now have two. Multi-level marketing companies know the power in this. Then they tell two friends, then they tell two friends, until it snowballs into a powerful force. I get a lot of referrals. I wonder how many referrals Wells Fargo is getting. "Hey Bob, I just got this real great automated phone call from Wells Fargo asking for some name I've never heard of. They've been calling me for like three months now every single day. So I was thinking, maybe you'd like to go deposit all your millions from the power ball lottery in their bank, because they really seem like great folks... you know... from what I can tell from that lady's voice on the other end of the automated phone call. I can't wait for her to call again tomorrow.
I guess I've ranted on enough. Wells Fargo, LEAVE ME ALONE!
Until next time
The Cable Guy
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