One of our indulgences is drinking bottled water – the kind in 3 or 5 gallons bottles we put on the water cooler. About three months ago, our supplier, Diamond Springs, put a new driver and our route. Since then, problem after problem with delivery. He never had enough of the 3 gallon bottles by the time he got to my house. He’d take all of the empties and leave less than a full order – and a note saying he would drop of the bottles he shorted us the next day. Sounds ok, right? Trouble is, he never came back the next day. Instead of having 7 bottles for the 2 weeks, I had 5 bottles (and that's after a special delivery of 2 bottles after an earlier complaint) … and we ran out completely over Thanksgiving weekend.
Long story short (phone calls, messages, etc). I got 7 bottles delivered on Monday and then the next problem occurred – since the driver only picked up 5 empties, he charged me a $7 deposit for each of the other two bottles. I had never gotten a credit when the guy picked up the empties before.
Resolution … the general manager I talked to was good. He defused my frustration, said all the right things, listened, gave me an immediate credit, asked for my continued business and told me what he was going to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I hung up happy. Later, I realized that all I got was a friendly, understanding voice and a refund on the incorrect charges. I expected to get some extra free stuff, but ended up not even thinking to request it because the general manager was that good.
See people, we know mistakes are made. Just fix them! Listening, taking action, saying the right things and being fair and timely – and you get customer satisfaction and retention and it doesn’t cost you anything.
Now I have to lie down. Bad body pain, dizziness and headache. A strong weather front pushed through today and my body doesn’t like that. Another front with strong storms is due tonight. (Or is this a reaction to day 2 of my new anti-depressant medicine?) I’ll know by tomorrow or Thursday.
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