Service recovery from Heitz Cellars

Earlier this week, I wrote a post about three wineries that all handled a missing or delayed wine shipment in different ways. (See Good, Bad, and Ugly ways to handle the same problem.) Since then, Heitz Cellars has made a bit of recovery.

Heitz Cellars was my "ugly" example in the post because I had called three times to check the status of some missing wine and they had short shipped my order twice. Yesterday, the last two missing bottles finally arrived. The modest recovery came from the refund they issued to my credit card. This means the end result was I finally had my delicious wine ('07 Zinfandel) and I didn't have to pay for it. Heitz Cellars makes some terrific wine and this gesture was enough to keep me as a customer.

This also serves as another installment in my collection of stories that prove the longer you take to solve a customer service problem, the more expensive recovery will be.

Related posts on expensive service recovery:

• The rising cost of recovery at the Sir Francis Drake
• Cox vs. Brinks: The cost of incompetence
• Avis service recovery

Good, bad, and ugly ways to handle the same problem

My wife, Sally, and I recently returned from a tour of several of California's wine regions. We are huge wine enthusiasts (check out our wine blog!) and used the trip as an excuse to stock up on wine.

Most of our wine was delivered without a hitch but we did experience a problem with orders from three wineries. Each winery chose to handle the problem in a different way. Only one succeeded.

The experience proves that mistakes can and will happen, but it's how you solve them that counts.

The Good - Van Ruiten Family Vineyards
I called the winery to check on our order after a shipment didn't arrive as expected. The person I spoke with explained that the order was delayed because it took extra time to locate two bottles that were in limited supply. She was very apologetic for not contacting us about the delay and promised to get our shipment out immediately. Just as promised, our wine arrived a few days later. The winery included an extra bottle of their delicious Chardonnay along with a handwritten note thanking us for our patience. Just like that, disappointment was turned into delight.

The Bad - Anglim Winery
Like Van Ruiten, I called the winery to check on a shipment that hadn't arrived. I was told that the wine hadn't been shipped yet because it had been hot and there was concern that the heat would hurt the wine. The definition of poor service is failing to meet expectations. I would have been grateful if I had received a call or email asking if it was okay to delay shipment so the wine wouldn't get too hot. Instead, I was disappointed that I had to wait and then had to call. No apology was offered which disappointed me even more. Fortunately, the wine was finally delivered about a week overdue.

The Ugly - Heitz Cellars
I called Heitz after I received a shipment with only one of the four bottles I had ordered. The person agreed to send the missing bottles but a week went by and they hadn't arrived. I called a second time and was told the missing wine had been shipped a couple of days before and would be delivered the next day. A delivery was made the following day, but the package contained only one of the three missing bottles. I called a third time and calmly explained the situation to someone who clearly seemed annoyed. Finally, she agreed to overnight the missing bottles to me. (We'll see if I actually receive them.)

Anyone can make a mistake, but here are all the errors that Heitz made after the initial problem.

• They waited five days to ship the missing wine. It should have been shipped the same day.
• I had to call a second time when the wine still hadn't arrived a week after my first call.
• The second shipment didn't contain all of the missing bottles.
• I had to call a third time to check the status of my missing wine.
• The person I spoke with on the third call was rude.

Van Ruiten provided a great example of how to strengthen customer loyalty by handling a problem with grace and style. Anglim exhibited a lack of caring that hurt their chances of a repeat order. Heitz demonstrated a mind boggling level of incompetency that is almost certainly driving up costs and losing future business.

Is there such thing as the "United Airlines Effect"?

Just over a year ago, United Airlines and Continental Airlines announced they were merging. At the time, I predicted that the combined company would get bigger, ruder, and less efficient. 

The American Customer Satisfaction Index has just released their latest airline passenger satisfaction index and it appears my ruder prediction is coming true. The index is still tracking United and Continental as individual airlines, so you can see an interesting trend. I call it the "United Airlines Effect" where you take something bad (United Airlines customer service) and merge it with something mediocre (Continental Airlines customer service) and end up with something bad.

I've thrown in industry service leader Southwest Airlines for the sake of comparison.

Source: The American Customer Satisfaction Index

You can see that United Airlines hit rock bottom in 2009. Service at both United and Continental went up in the 2010 index, which was released just after the merger was announced. Since the merger, service at United Airlines has risen slightly while the service rating for Continental Airlines has tanked. The "United Airlines Effect" appears to be real.

Some of my friends and colleagues regularly fly both United and Continental. Some have even reported a few instances of unusually good service when flying United. Is there a newly discovered service spirit within United? Are they motivated by a desire to prove themselves during the merger? Or, is service at both airlines simply heading towards a mid-point that reflects their newly combined operations?

Whatever it is, I'll stick with Southwest Airlines whenever I can.

Frequent software updates = poor customer experience

It's getting harder and harder to imagine a world without all the cool apps and software programs that help run our daily lives. At the same time, I wonder if software companies are paying attention to the frustrating consumer experience of the app update?

Here's an example.

I sat down for a quick lunch the other day and fired up my iPad to read the Wall Street Journal. The current edition didn't open. Apparently, I needed to update the Wall Street Journal app on my iPad before I could read the paper. Didn't I just do that a few weeks ago?

Apple's App Store required me to login and then acknowledge an updated user agreement before continuing. I like to read what I sign so I know what I'm getting into, but I noticed the agreement on the screen said "Page 1 of 41".

Sheesh - 41 pages? Really? Call off the lawyers, Apple. It's not like I'm buying a house or setting up ponzi scheme. I just want to download an update for an app.

I just clicked "Agree". Hopefully, there wasn't a murder confession or a promise to pay Apple $1 million buried in that voluminous user agreement. 

Finally, the Wall Street Journal app started to update. Slowly. It finished up just as I ate the last bite of my lunch.

Here's what I wish software companies like Apple would consider.

• It's aggravating when you can't use your software immediately because of a required update.
• The amount of legalese in these user agreements is ridiculous. Seriously, do your lawyers get paid by the word? Trim it down and make them simple.
• The annoyance factor has exponentially multiplied as more and more companies launch frequent updates with horrendously long user agreements. 

Ignoring little red flags is a big red flag

Someone who is passionate about customer service should always be on the lookout for red flags in their organization. Here’s a red flag from a hotel that I recently stayed in:

This room service basket sat in the hall for two days.

Specifically, this is a room service basket that sat in the hallway for two days. It was a little surprising that it sat there for that long, but it didn’t do a lot to diminish the quality of my stay. 

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was one of many small signs of poor service. A front desk agent breached etiquette by verbally announcing my room number when she checked me in. The bellman passed me in the hall several times without making eye contact or saying hello. The housekeeper made up my bed with a duvet that had a stain on it.

In the big picture, all of these red flags combined told me the hotel's staff wasn't passionate about service. And to think, I probably wouldn't have thought about all of this if I didn't have to pass by that basket everytime I left my hotel room.