A Customer for Life

It is the goal of every organization – that once you get a customer, to retain that customer for life. They will not consider going anywhere else but to you for your product or services. I recently became a customer for life with Dell and my experience made me think about what we need to do to get a customer for life.

The crash
I noticed that my Dell laptop was acting “funny” all day. I’d let my virus protection software lapse, it was still working, just not receiving automatic updates, probably like most of you reading this post. Also like most of you, I have external hard drives where I back up my data but I’m not regimented about it. Late in the afternoon, I decided to update my virus protection so I could get rid of whatever was causing the trouble. I download, I restart and then it happened - the blue screen and the even more horrible “fatal error” message. I stay calm. I reboot. It happens again. A twinge of panic races through me. After several attempts, nothing.

A call for help
4:37 pm. I immediately call Dell Support and after a brief time on hold, Ron, a support rep, gets on the line with me. After two hours of trying everything possible, we still cannot bring the machine back to life. I must admit, as time passed and the chances of rescuing my computer slipped further and further away, on the surface, I remained calm. On the inside I was curled up into the fetal position and crying like a baby. Ron was extremely helpful. He gave me a clear assessment of the problem and options on how to deal with it, giving me a plan to follow. There were still some unknowns, like if I’d ever see my data again, but I had clear steps to take. Ron said he’d call me the following day.

9:30 am. My phone rings, its Ron checking on my status. (Wow – I’m not alone!) I update him on my progress (still dead in the water), we weigh our latest options and decide on next steps. I head over to BestBuy to ask the Geek Squad if they can retrieve my data. With the data safe, I’ll be able to wipe the laptop clean, reinstall and reload my salvaged data. The big question was, can the data be retrieved.

The Geek Squad experience was just average. They were able to get my data, however, I felt like just another customer to them. My Geek was indifferent and nonchalant and barely explained my options - getting access to my data in 7 days (omg) or paying more than double to get it in a few hours! After handing over the king’s ransom to get the data the same day, my laptop disappeared into a backroom - I wasn’t given an approximate time when it would be ready – I don’t even remember my Geeks name.

11:00 am. Ron calls again for an update – he outlines the process we’ll follow once we get my data, gives me information, recommendations and a website to look up that will guide me on the process as well. He tells me he’ll call back in two hours. My cell rang a few hours later while I’m on another call – I notice it’s a local call and must be the Geek Squad but they don’t leave a message. I call back and a “random Geek” tells me my data is ready.

1:00 pm. I’m walking in the door from BestBuy and Ron calls. He tells me he’ll call back in ten minutes while I get myself situated for the reinstall. When he calls, we check and the data is there. (Whew – I uncurl from the fetal position). The Geeks just gave me the files, they didn’t bother to show me anything, so we didn’t know what we had till Ron and I checked them. Then Ron patiently walks me through the more than four hour process of bringing my laptop back to life.

During this time, Ron guides me through a very thorough, step by step process. He tells me what should happen next and it does. He tells me what to look for to ensure things are going the way they should. While we’re waiting for the machine to load, we talk. He explains different system back up options, even what products he uses personally, to avoid this in the future. He’s never condescending but constructive. We start to make conversation. He asks what I do and what my business is and upon learning I'm a trainer/coach, shares interesting information on adult learning techniques that he’s read about. I find out from Ron that he likes to travel and that he learns the languages (so far French, Portuguese and Spanish) of the countries he visits to heighten the experience of his trip. Ron’s an interesting guy.

5:30 pm. Finally, we’re close to being done and then it happens, the point where I become a customer for life. Ron now goes way above and beyond. While we were talking he was researching how to connect my Outlook email to my internet email and guides me through that as well. When I originally set this up it was a process that took me hours on my own and required the help of a friend and the ISP’s support line. By Ron doing this, he not only saved me more time on the phone but he saved me from more anxiety and worry about getting my system back up and running.

The steps
Ron demonstrated 100% full ownership of my problem and didn’t care whether it was in the scope of his support or not – he took it all on. He was reliable, knowledgeable, interesting, insightful and confident. He listened to me and he cared – he was just as happy as I was when the data was there and loaded properly. He ended up staying on the phone with me for about 35 minutes passed when his shift ended and wrapped up the process with a promise to call in two days to check and see if everything was working properly, demonstrating superhuman follow up qualities. He added value by making suggestions from his personal experience on what steps to take to avoid this issue in the future.

The payoff
What does this mean for Dell? Well, I’m a customer for life. If I buy a new laptop every three years for my business, at about $2,000 each, that’s roughly $20,000 in revenue for Dell. Add in the equipment I’ll be buying for personal use and for the kids in the future and that is easily another $15,000, conservatively – bringing my estimated future spend to $35,000. Now, multiply that by the number of customers that Ron touches in a year and Dell has quite a nice revenue stream coming from Ron.

We all have something to learn here to better support our customers and in turn, grow our business. Take some cues from Ron and think about your customers and how you can make them yours for life.

As for Ron, let me just say, THANK YOU.