(Substituting for Seth & Amy this week are Glenn & Arlene)
Are there times, in your maddening sleeplessness, that any of you insomniac’s out there catch the Saturday Night Live segment “Weekend Update?” They often run a segment entitled REALLY!?! to express their disbelief and incredulity about the behavior and actions of select celebrities and politicians.
This week’s blog is our take on this skit.
Oftentimes a potential customer will ask “so what makes your company better than your competitor’s?” The answer typically given is “better customer service.” REALLY!?!
What exactly makes it “better?” Are the people answering their telephones friendlier, more courteous? Are they more knowledgeable about the business and the needs of its customers? More helpful?
Every courier business in the world will claim that they and they alone have the best customer service. Now really, is that possible? REALLY?
Of course not, but there is exemplary service, the type of service practiced by American Expediting. We, herewith, offer you two REAL WORLD examples of that exemplary customer outreach.
The first: one of our large warehousing customers arranged to have nine pallets of toys delivered via a local trucking company to our New Jersey site for our later distribution. The delivery arrived late in the day, later than scheduled. It also arrived in a 53-foot trailer rather than a truck! The hat trick came when the unloading began: the nine pallets destined for our warehouse were buried deep behind 40 other pallets!
What this meant was extra hours of labor for Jenn Dillon, the Operations Manager, who was also pulled away from her usual day’s work. For Dillon and staff, it turned into a very late night, but when asked, “what is the billable surcharge for your additional time?” Dillon answered, “nothing. It wasn’t the customer’s fault.”
REALLY!?!
Another example of American Expediting exemplarity involves a key customer with an urgent request called in at 10 p.m. His retail display had to be delivered to a shopping mall that night…two nights before the year’s busiest shopping day of the year. It required loading a 10-foot long, 6-foot wide and 5-foot high skid loaded onto our truck and then unpacking it at its destination, piece by numerous piece and hand-trucking each into the store.
The challenge was finding a driver who had not exceeded working the maximum hours allowed for the day, and also one who was available late at night and able to deliver out of state. Philadelphia Operations Manager, Michael Murphy, quickly developed and activated a plan to have a fresh driver pick up a truck from a driver who’d met the maximum work hours. The new driver then drove to our NJ-based warehouse for the display, which he subsequently delivered to a Delaware store. When most competing courier companies were deep in sleep, American Expediting was on the road tending to our customer’s needs.
REALLY!?!
This is true customer service exemplified, not just verbalized. This is why for over 27 years American Expediting has expanded from a single location in Philadelphia to a national organization serving customers from Coast to Coast.
It is why we receive emails from customers like John Paiva at Fast Trac Transportation, who wrote:
“Mike pulled out a last minute miracle on the mall job last night that really
impressed my customer. Please thank him for me as I know you were short-
handed and he really had to put some extra effort in to get it done. I really
appreciate it!”
But that IS what American Expediting does…makes the extra effort on a daily basis to help our customers complete their deliveries and keep their businesses as profitable as possible.
REALLY!!!
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