Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Fishing for Customer Service

Being in the customer service industry really installs in me the need for good customer service. My view point is from both the customer being serviced and the supplier providing the service. I have to give good service in order to get referrals and provide my customers with the best possible experience that they will want to come back to me time and time again. With the advent of the Internet , Bloggers and Social Networks good customer service is a must. Word of mouth quickly spreads.

I'm in the middle of writing a blog about some fishing equipment you don't normally get in the USA, This style of fishing is very popular in the UK and in Europe so please bare with me in this little rant.

There is only one company in the USA that stocks this equipment ( without naming names) i have been very disappointed in the company service , missing items, items broken all because the product i had bought had not been shipped properly. The response from the company was pretty much we don't care attitude that further infuriated me.

So i went on a quest to find a UK supplier that was willing to ship to the USA. Out of 10 fishing tackle supply shops in the UK, only 1 bothered even to respond to my requests and questions.

The response so far has been so good that the supplier even refunded all the UK Tax applied at there online store. Due to the time difference emails have been responded to with 12-24hrs which to me is perfectly acceptable. They have also been very help in suggesting product. Further more I wanted to take an old model carbon fiber 13m pole and re purpose it for fishing here. This meant modifying the pole. The pole comes in sections that slot together. There is no real but a piece of elastic inside the top 2 or 3 sections. The very tip uses a PTFE bush and one of the questions was how to get one that fit the top no2 section. (I'll right more on this pole at a later date)

Ted Carter Fishing Outfitters advised me to get two of the connectors that i needed as well as some other items. The had an out of stock item that was shipped a few days later at no additional cost to myself and all the items arrived within 2 weeks ( normal post times between the USA and UK). I know who i will be placing my next order with.

No comments: