Good customer service can happen in many different places, even in those moments that totally take you by surprise. I was thinking about an experience that my husband and I encountered many years ago when we were moving from our apartment to our first home. We had contracted with a moving company for assistance. These guys showed up and worked extremely hard getting everything taken down from our second floor apartment, and loaded onto the truck.
As we were getting ready to head over to the house to start unloading, an altercation took place between one of our neighbors and another tenant from down the street. We were all standing there watching this case of parking-lot rage unfold right in front of us. At this moment, one of our movers told the two gentlemen that they shouldn’t be speaking that way in front of their customers, especially a female. He politely asked them stop acting this way and apologize to us for the display. Our neighbor quickly apologized for the scene, and seemed embarrassed by the altercation. However, the other gentleman immediately began a barrage of four-letter words hurled in our direction, explaining that he had nothing to apologize for and the “$%^@#” movers needed to mind their own business.
As you can imagine, this did not go over well with our movers – most of whom I would not want to cross! My husband and I are standing there trying to make peace, all the while wondering what would happen to our stuff on the truck if our movers got arrested for kicking the crap out of this idiot. Then, as if this situation was not crazy enough, the guy’s wife comes out of the apartment yelling that she was calling the police, and then would be calling the moving company to ensure the movers were fired.
I will never forget the next thing one of our movers said – “You call XYZ Movers (and he gave the phone number), and you tell them that Jesse, J-E-S-S-E said F*#@ You!” The other guy went into his apartment, our movers immediately apologized for the scene, climbed into the truck and away we all went.
We were shocked by the level of caring the movers took when they felt their customers should not have to witness such vulgarities. I personally called the moving company and explained the situation, praised the movers for their hard work and concern. While they provided excellent service, the method in which they provided this service was a little unconventional! This is a prime example of doing the right thing for a customer, but maybe not in the most acceptable manner by society.
This was a very colorful example of great customer service – and I don’t believe I have ever experienced anything like it since! To this day, I still get a kick out of Jesse’s response to this crazy situation. Of course I have never come close to ever saying something like that to a customer. However, let’s be honest – on those occasions when we are dealing with rude, unreasonable people, don’t we wish we had Jesse’s courage? Customer service to the “F” degree – do extreme situations require extreme measures?