By Tom Grandy
Two years ago our van was broken into while we were at Myrtle Beach. The thief entered the van by smashing the back passenger window. Obviously we needed to have the window replaced as soon as possible. I called our insurance company and they put me in touch with the local Safelite Auto Glass replacement company. They were amazing. They were so amazing that I wrote a full length lead article on their service a couple years ago.
However, today I want to focus on my memory of the service experience nearly two years ago. I was thinking about the experience last night and tried to recall what “really stuck” with me after all this time. Three things came to mind:
• Quality of the Work – We all want quality work but at this point in America we have come to expect outstanding quality work. We may not always get it but we do expect it. In terms of my experience with Safelite, my expectations were not just met they were exceeded. However, that is not what really stuck with me two years later.
• Communication – What comes to mind about my experience is communication. Once the insurance company put me in contact with the glass company the communication was amazing! They called to see when “I” wanted to schedule the window replacement. We set a day and time and he told me they would call before arriving.
The day of the planned service they called to confirm what time the technician would be arriving. To my amazement I got a second call later in the morning, from the tech himself telling me he was about 5 minutes from our condo. The repair necessitated a follow up visit a few days later. Same communication, I received a call first thing in the morning to confirm the time and another call from the tech when he was about 5 minutes from the condo.
Two calls, two different days, with the tech arriving at the scheduled time. I was impressed! As you can tell this kind of communication is what I remembered two years later.
• The Tech Was Friendly –When a tech comes to perform work at my home, or in this case on my van, I like to watch the tech. He worked on the van for nearly an hour during which he answered all my questions … patiently. He shared about his family, having run his own business at one time, and how he coached his son’s baseball team. After two visits from the same tech I felt like we were friends even though the probability of ever seeing him again was remote at best.
So what did I remember about the visit roughly two years later? I remembered the outstanding communication and how friendly the tech was. Could that be some of what impresses other customers? Who knows but it begs the question “What kind of impression do you or your team leave with the customer?”
