Customer Service: the not so secret weapon of every startup
Customer Service
Business, like life, is all about how you make people feel. It’s that simple, and it’s that hard. — Danny Meyer
If there is one thing that is certain about running a company, is that you are going to make many mistakes. And how you deal with them will determine your success.
When me and Morgan started working at YourGrocer, we read Setting the Table, by Danny Meyer. The book points out that hospitality is business on steroids. It has emotional purchases, needs quick and high quality service, and gets you immediate feedback when things go wrong.
In one of those executive decisions made when starting a company, we decided that being on the customer side would be our culture. And that was one of the best decisions we ever made.
There have been a lot of mistakes. Pretty much of any type that can be imagined. But in all situations we tried to be fair and did our best to solve their problems. It was the paper over the cracks that any business needs.
And the culture persisted. Until today everyone in the company does shifts in customer support and we all see the feedback of every delivery. Our happiness officers have full autonomy and no scripts, just the intention to solve each situation in the best way they can.
Does it cost? Yes, it does. Much more than outsourcing or reducing quality of support. But it pays off.