Today’s major companies, for both sides of the table, sometimes focus on cutting cost by eliminating people in their customer service department. This can be the difference between getting your product on time and made correctly or getting something all wrong and delivered late. A good quality customer service department is your lifeline to success. Like a good salesperson they know your product and needs as well as they know their own.

You can identify a quality customer service department by the way they answer or ask questions. If they have little to say I’d be concerned. I recently had that experience with a manufacturer who wanted to give me a “JIT” (Just in Time) order but provided me very little information. I passed on the order.

On the other hand I have numerous repeat customers requesting “JIT” and we go over their size, gauge, packaging, delivery times, any changes that the plant may have had since the last order (such as machines or pack changes), person to contact in case of a problem and cost. These are the critical points to look for in today’s fast paced order and delivery world.

I’m Jim Parker and next up is the new “JIT” replaced with “NIY”.

Jim Parker is a guest contributor with Pacific Rim Plastics. You can email him at dparker866@aol.com

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The world loves an early adopter, but it’s looking like early adopters of the new Google Nexus One phone aren’t feeling the love from Google. Google launched the Nexus One on January 5 of this year – it’s first real venture into selling hardware directly to customers on the retail side of the business world, where customer service is crucial. And the early results haven’t been great.

The New York Times posted a great piece about this called “Hey Google, Anybody Home?” that details some of the main issues customers are facing:

• They can’t call Google for help (there is no phone number for support – for a company selling a phone!)
• Emails can take up to 2 to 3 days to get a response
• Some customers have yet to hear from an actual person, just canned responses through email

The tough thing is for a lot of customers their cell phone is their only phone. So being down for a few days before you get support is really problematic. On top of that who do you turn to for support? T-Mobile currently handles the connectivity, HTC makes the phone and Google sells it – so who should be on the hook for support? It’s an ideal he said/she said finger pointing situation.

Now of course Google will get these problems resolved because they have the resources to do so – they are a large, extremely profitable company and they can make this issue go away. But in the short term the lesson is there – you have to be prepared to support it from day one. Google may have a little room for error here because their philosophy has always been more “launch early and iterate often” but while that works well for the software side of the business, the hardware side is a different story.

For a successful case study in that look no further than to Nexus One’s main competitor – the Apple iPhone – launched in June 2007. Apple was going out through a new channel – namely AT&T retail stores, and knew that their success hinged on a successful launch, roll out and customer experience. AT&T wasn’t exactly known for a stellar in-store experience at the time, so Apple and AT&T worked together to improve the AT&T retail experience for iPhone customers. They even put out a document to all AT&T retail stores on training just for the launch of the iPhone (see the 68 page PDF here). Granted, Apple’s main business is in selling hardware directly to consumers, but they knew that coming out of the gates they had to do everything they could to make sure the customer service experience was as good as the product. Google will get there, and the early technology adopters will pave the way for a better experience for the more mainstream consumers down the road.

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