Business 101

I am really really really mad right now!!!!

Since I am in the process of moving to Chicago from Farmington Hills, MI, I have been working with this company called Chicago Apartment Finders. First and foremost, I felt like the agent I was working with, just wouldn't listen. I sent her an email telling her everything that I definitely needed in my apartment. I told her what I was willing to pay a month in rent including utilities and also that I will need parking. And then she comes up with a bunch of apartments which are at best a distant match to what I had asked for. Now after looking at a few lousy apartments, we look at one which I like. She told me Internet and Basic Cable was included in the rent. I asked her again, she told me the same thing again.

So anyway in the end, I decided to take the apartment. I had her write down about internet, cable and other utilities. I also asked her about how fast the internet was, she said she will check with the owner and get back to me. All this was yesterday.

Today, She told me again that she had checked and internet was included and it was high speed although she didn't know about the bandwidth. We were supposed to do all this over fax, where I would give her my credit card number, she would charge it and fax me the receipt which I would sign and fax it back to her. Somehow this morning I had a bad feeling about this, so I went to the office, spoke to the manager, who again assured me that utilities, cable and internet was included in the rent and so reluctantly I signed all the paperwork and got a copy of all the receipts. (that was the main reason behind going to the office, so I could have a copy of all the paperwork).

Suddenly, 2 hours later I get a phone call from this girl (new one, never spoken to before) saying, "sir, you had a few questions about the utilities, we just checked with the owner, Basic cable is included, Internet is NOT included". And there all of a sudden my Blood pressure shot upto 250/120!! There are few things that piss me off and make me feel mad and lousy more than the feeling of getting screwed. I was cursing myself since somehow instinctively I knew this was going to happen, yet I let it happen. The funny thing is if they had told me upfront internet was not included, I still would have probably taken the apartment because I really liked it. Even if it was a genuine mistake on the part of the company (after all people do make mistakes), what aggravates me is the fact that the manager nor agent who I worked with, called me to apologize. I am yet to hear from the agent whom I called promptly and left a message for, asking her what the hell was happening.

Compare that to this other experience couple of days back...

Every morning I drive up to a nearby Starbucks to get my morning coffee. Couple of days back my coffee happened to be from the very bottom, so had a few coffee grains. Truth be told it didn't bother me a whole lot. (or may be I feel this way now considering what happened later...read on and you will understand what I am talking about) I let it sit for a couple of minutes till the grains settled and then drank the coffee. So I walked in to the same store next day, got my coffee, paid for it and just casually mentioned to the barista about my experience the previous day. She instantly apologized and handed me a "free any size any drink on us" coupon and said she will check into it and make sure that doesn't happen again. I walked out of the store with a sheepish grin and almost even feeling bad that I had brought it up since the barista looked like she was truly sorry that this had happened.

How likely am I to visit and recommend Starbucks to others compared to using Chicago Apartment finders's services? Sure, may be I am wrong, may be Chicago Apartment finders intentions were all right and their service is exceptional. May be starbucks screwed up really really badly and in reality their free drink is too insignificant to correct what they did. But does that really matter? After all I am the customer and what is right is what I think is right, what is good is what I think is good and what is bad is what I think is bad. Its all my perception of the company that determines, if I will go back or recommend other from going there.

It always beats me why companies can never get this? I mean look at any list of top performing companies in the last century or whenever and if somebody could point me to a company that was in the list, yet had lousy customer service, I'd give them my next paycheck. I agree you may not be able to give all that the customers ask for, but one thing you can give them (at no or minimal cost to you) is respect and good service. Mistakes cannot be eliminated, but in my opinion every mistake is an opportunity to connect to the customer and let them know how important they are to you. You never never never ever let customers go unhappy and/or with a feeling of being screwed. You are really just shooting yourself in the foot. This to me is Business 101. Its the foundation upon which supply meets demand or in some cases better yet, supply creates Demand.

I couldn't think of a better way to start my business blog than write about this topic. It is an issue I feel very very very strongly about.