Back on June 18th I posted some of my thoughts about customer service.

While the focus on customer service was triggered by some really bad service I had recently recieved from Bavarian BMW, it really is an important topic, in and of it’s own, triggers aside.

PMCE

A positive memorable customer experience (PMCE) is the cornerstone of any organizations brand (for profit or not) and even more importantly , your personal brand.

The auto story continues

My search to cleanse myself of the bad BMW experience (both service and product quality) ended with a Subaru WRX STI.  This is a hot rally vehicle and has led some to ask how old I am (a story for another day).

My wife thinks the spoiler on the back of the car suits her spoiled husband but I digress , this post is about customer service.

My own PMCE

As I noted in my June 16th post, A positive experience is not created by a good price, a perfect quality product , gifts or  total agreement .

Rather, it is totally defined by open honest communication, empathy to the customer, and flexibility within the bounds of business constraints.

Rally Subaru / Bavarian BMW a comparison

Here are some highlights of my experiences against the  specific service attributesI noted:

Honesty

 Bavarian BMW delivered my brand new vehicle with a broken microphone ( even though they knew it was broken)

Subaru delivered the vehicle with defective speaker grills and no plate holder but they told me up front,  explained  what they were going to do about it and gave me options (i.e., empathy with how I might feel)

This was a positive experience, honesty wins the day by miles.

Flexibility

For both the BMW and Subaru purchase I needed the car delivered with all weather tires.  BMW told me no problem and then delivered it with summer tires. (there is that honesty card).

Subaru acknowledged this was tough, thought about it for a day and then propsed an innovative solution.  Not exactly but I wanted, but not what they wanted either. A win win soltion that could work for all parties, flexible and positive for me.

Keeping it short

I could go on with a bunch of examples comparing these two experiences,  but hopefully you get the point.  Customers do not require everthing to be exactly right, with perfect quality and it definately is not just about price.musings.

You can still create a PMCE just by being honest, empathetic and flexible.

Kudo’s to Justin Neufeld at Rally Subaru for really getting it.