When Big Business is Bad News
In my last article, I said that being a small business is not a weakness, it’s a weapon. Actually Seth Godin said it first, but you hopefully get the point. Well, my point was proven yesterday. I dropped my laptop a couple of weeks ago and my entire life flashed before my eyes along with the instant thought… “why haven’t I backed up in the last six months???” So I had to fix the situation, and in doing so, I experienced a scenario in which big business has a weakness.
I contacted the company that produced my computer (to remain nameless for now…) and ordered what I thought was the right part, but it was wrong. I needed a casing for my LCD, I got an LCD. So yesterday I called to make a shipping exchange and spent exactly 37 minutes and 1 second on the phone (I’m not crazy, I just have a timer). I was routed from sales to service, from personal business to business business. I was helped with my return by one individual, then routed to an entirely different company to order the new part, which is apparently not produced by the company that sold me my laptop.
I’m sure everything will turn out fine in the end - I’ll have a new hinge on my monitor and I’ll be good to go, but imagine if I’d called Bob at Bob’s Computer Repair and had spoken with a human being immediately who got me the right part the first time and offered to install it within a day or two. Small business can be big!
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Filed Under: Advice For Businesses, Marketing Strategy