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How to Create Successful Customer Service Stories: 13 Inspirations to do it Right

Customer Service Stories

Do you know that 52% of consumers make an additional purchase from a company after a positive customer service experience?

Trust me, they all come looking for a good customer service experience, which at times, many brands fail to offer. So, if you are a newbie and feel that you may not match up to the existing brands, think again!

You can learn a lot from someone’s failures and successes.

But you need to know that good customer service stories aren’t made in a day or two.

Understand this, big names of each sector have worked for years to build a loyal customer base.

And, how’s it done? By learning about every customer, their pain points, what they really expect and how they wish to see themselves when approaching a brand.

Except, to reach that point, a business needs to make sure that they have:

  • the right customer support team in place
  • the best technology to reach customers before they do
  • the right approach to understand what makes a service the best

Brands like Tesla, Disney, and Amazon are known for their great customer service stories. But before we discuss them at length, let me walk you through what customer service practices should you avoid retaining your customers.

Bad Customer Service Stories

“Make a customer, not a sale.”

– Katherine Barchetti, Entrepreneur

The quote reminds me of why a brand needs to focus on building a long-term relationship with its customers, rather than just treating them as a sales opportunity.

No doubt, sales are important. That’s how we’d expect a business to run. Regular, stable sales are much more important any day. However, they’d only be regular if the brand delivers good customer service every time.

There are a few brands that have become classic examples of bad customer service because of the mistakes they have made. And to make sure you don’t repeat them, we’ll discuss a few of the brands that were responsible for creating some of the worst customer service stories.

#1. McDonald’s

“I’m lovin’ it”.

A slogan that none of us can forget.

McDonald’s came up with this slogan in 2003 and partnered with Justin Timberlake to convert it into a marketing blitz. And, do you know that this is one of the longest-running slogans a brand has used to market itself?

Well, it is. That’s how many people started to relate to the brand in the first place.

However as time has passed by, many loyal customers started to give up on the brand. Reason? It’s deteriorating service.

Areas Where McDonald’s Service Failed Customers’ Expectations

There are exactly three areas where customers felt disappointed with the services provided by the brand. And, it’s these issues that are responsible for creating bad customer service experience stories. They are:

Control Issues

McDonald’s started with a single-family restaurant in San Bernardino, California. But as the brand grew in popularity, it started to sell its franchise across the world and became a company with a worth of more than $28 Billion. And, all this came at the expense of control.

who owns mcdonalds locations

Source: entrepreneur.com

The supervisor for every McDonald’s restaurant is hired by the franchise operator and not by the brand itself. That means the employees too are trained by the franchise operator. And, the customer service reputation department is very much dependent on those who own the franchise.

Although McDonald’s has a set of rules and regulations that every franchise owner should abide by, then employees working in the restaurant tend to change quite frequently. That means training isn’t taking place regularly. And, it further implies that customer service altogether is taking a back seat.

Menu Complexity Issues

The menu of the restaurant was never fixed. With an aim to introduce something new every time, they ended up building more complexities for their customers and even employees. There have been times when employees haven’t been sure of what’s on the menu.

In an article by Fortune Magazine, it gets a lot clear how the number of items in the menu increased to an all-new level since the 1980s.

McDonald’s Menu items

Source: fortune.com

Plus, the menus aren’t the same across all the franchises. Menu problems have to lead to issues like:

  • Drive through wait-time increased to three minutes and ten seconds
  • Orders had errors
  • Franchise operators faced troubles with the operation

Taste Issues

 McDonald’s Taste Issues

Source: consumerreports.org

In 2014, Consumer Reports claimed that burgers by McDonald’s taste dead in comparison to other chains. That means not only did they compromise on service, but also on the quality of the food. Due to deteriorating taste, the brand started facing issues like:

  • Customers getting price sensitive
  • Wait time becoming intolerable
  • Employees’ morale getting impacted due to incoming complaints

What McDonald’s Can Do?

Here’s what the brand can do to maintain itself in a market which is flooded by more innovative newbie companies.

  • The company needs to make sure that they do not come up with a new menu every time when a competitor enters the market. They need to work on creating something that is exclusive. This approach will prompt customers to reach out as they would relate a certain food item with the brand.
  • The company needs to ensure that quality never deteriorates. By that I mean, when expanding the business, a brand should always make sure that they do not give the rights of the franchise to just anyone. Understand this – The franchisee manages everything, right from employee training to the execution of every process. That’s why you need to ensure that the person planning to buy the franchise of your brand has relative experience at managing the staff and maintaining the quality during all operations.

Just by addressing the underlying causes, the brand can improve its image and retain its customers.

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

There are a few methods or practices to help you implement the takeaways to your business. Let’s take a look at them below.

  • Train Your Employees

    Use training maker software to help your employees understand every process at your workplace better. A good tool to create awesome training courses easily, for example, is

    ProProfs Training Maker. You can begin with courses such as:

     

    • Orientation Training Program
    • Onboarding Training Program
    • Technical Skill Development Training Program
    • Soft Skill Development Training Program
    • Product & Services Training Program
    • Niche Industry Training Program
  • Test Their Skills

    Test the skills of your employees. It will help you learn how much hands-on process knowledge do they hold. Ask simple questions in a quiz to assess the hidden training needs of your employees. It is pretty easy to create quizzes with ProProfs Quiz Maker.

>> Watch this quick video to learn how to create an online quiz in under 5 minutes

#2. Walmart

When Walmart, first arrived in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, it was known for its slogan “the lowest prices anytime, anywhere”. And guess what, the marketing campaign actually worked. In a matter of 5 years, its owner Samuel Walton built 24 stores and $12.7 Million in sales.

walmart customer service story

Source: bobdesautels.com

What’s more, the aim to start Walmart in the first place was to provide a convenient lifestyle to people by them spending less on their necessities. Walton said, “If we work together, we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone…we’ll give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life.”

Turns out that the aim to provide necessities at cheap rates got the brand into trouble.

What Went Wrong With Walmart’s Services?

What Went Wrong With Walmart’s Services

Source: walmart.com

In 2007, Walmart started its online store with the aim to help people choose their necessities online and pick them up from the store.

Clark Howard, a customer, went shopping with his son to their local Walmart store and decided to purchase a Lego set. Like any smart customer, he compared the store and online price before reaching the checkout line. Turns out that the Brand was providing the same Lego set at a higher price rate of 35% in the physical store.

Clark asked if the set could be purchased at the online rate then and there, to which the store clearly denied. He had no other option, but to order online and ask for an in-store pick-up.

What’s worse? Clark received no email confirmation from Walmart because of which he couldn’t get his son the same Lego set the same day. Instead, he had to visit the store the next day to pick the order. This is a classic example of poor customer service stories.

What Walmart Could Have Done?

Walmart Could Have Done

Source: businessinsider.com

To meet their company’s policies, Walmart failed to keep the needs of its customers first. Goes on to show how flexible they could get in times of need. However, Walmart could have tried to match their online and store price for the customer. This is a great way to retain and prompt customers to return every time.

By being more flexible they could have prevented a second trip to the store, thus creating more convenience for the customer. This approach could have helped the brand to create bad customer service stories in the first place.

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

You can only become flexible if you take the following steps into account.

  • Ensure You Communicate Actively

    Customers like if you communicate with them actively. They would also prefer if you figure out the areas of improvement before they reach you with the problem. But active communication is the key, and most of all a proactive one. Use live chat software to help your brand communicate solutions to every customer and website visitors hassle-free.
  • Get Detailed Feedback

    Your services can also become more flexible once you learn how to get detailed feedback and act upon them. I would recommend you to use a survey maker tool to help you collect customer feedback and learn whether they are satisfied with your services or not.
  • Monitor Brand Sentiment Online

    Make sure that you do social monitoring to understand brand sentiments online. So, wherever your customers mention the brand online, you’ll get a fair idea about how they perceive your services and what else do they expect. Plus, you will get to act fast and improve your services accordingly.
  • Realistic Sales Goals

    There are many in the market who think, “I want my sales to grow 50x in the next five years”. But, is it realistic? Probably not. You need to set short term goals and not long term ones to make sure you deliver quality at all times. What’s more, you can’t set sales goals for the long term because of customer ever-changing customer expectations.

Inspirational Customer Service Stories

When you come across bad customer service stories, you understand what you shouldn’t do to ensure that every customer returns to the brand. However, I believe that there is a list of good customer service stories you should read every day to see more returning customers for the brand.

Let’s dive deep to know what went right for the big brands and how they created the best customer service experience.

#1: Apple

Apple Inspirational Customer Service Stories
Source: apple.com

“To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.”

~ Steve Jobs

In 1976, Apple began its journey with an aim – to build outstanding tools that advance humankind. And ever since, the brand aims to adhere to the same motto.

What’s more, Apple ensures to take the voice of their customers into account when building designs of their new products. Clearly, the brand is hell-bent on delivering a product that matches the minuscule expectations of their customers. But this is just the beginning.

How Does Apple Build Good Customer Service Stories

Before Apple planned on opening its retail stores, the brand decided to send its managers to Ritz Carlton hospitality training. That’s because they wanted to ensure that their stores deliver the best customer service experience possible.

The training helps managers learn how to:

  • provide genuine care
  • provide comfort to all customers
  • understand the unexpressed needs of the customers

After the training, employees at Apple store made sure that customers are greeted with a warm smile and by their name to start the service experience on a personal note. What’s more, they emphasized on learning more about the customers with every visit.

Other than the personal touch, the stores also worked towards:

  • scheduling visits so that every visitor gets their fair share of time to resolve an issue
  • simplifying checkout process with mobile credit card readers
  • reducing customer wait time

Takeaways

Like Apple, if you want to take customer experience to the next level and create excellent customer service stories, it will be important to focus on:

  • customer expectations
  • customers’ wishes
  • Seamless experience (both in physical and online store)
  • to not make your customers wait when help is needed

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

With the right set of tools, you can implement the takeaways from Apple to your business. Here’s how to do it right.

  • Understanding Customer Wishes & Expectations
    It is important to conduct surveys among your customers to learn what they think about your performance, what expectations do they have from your brand, and whether you are fulfilling their wishes.

    You can send a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey to your customers to learn how loyal they are to your brand and understand the chances of them recommending your business to others.>> Wondering how NPS works and why businesses use it? Watch this video.Other than that, you can send them customer satisfaction and feedback questions to learn how satisfied your customers are with your brand and what do they expect you to change so you get to match their expectations. The biggest challenge for you could be thinking of questions to ask – don’t worry, we have you covered: 200+ Survey Question Examples For Your Feedback Forms.
  • Providing Seamless Experience

    If you were an offline store, you won’t find it difficult to engage with your customers because your entire body language communicates your emotions. However, it becomes a little tricky for online businesses. Luckily, with contemporary technology, you can translate the same experience for your online presnse. It might sound silly, but it’s very much doable. To build seamless customer experience, you need to use every possible channel of communication – remember you need to serve your customer where they are. Learn how to be omnipresent. For that, you need to have a strong online and offline presence via different channels. It includes phone, email, chat, social media, and in-store platform experience. To cut it short, you need to create an omnichannel presence for your business and at the same time ensure that customers get to reach you no matter the time and place.
  • Be Proactive

    When customers have a question, they reach out to the brand for support. But how many times does a brand make the effort to reach out to their customers or even to people interested in the products proactively? Well, that can be changed.

    Add a live chat to your website to make an effort to reach customers proactively. See how ProProfs Chat can be added to your website in 5 minutes to help you know your customers better.

Read More - Steps to Add Live Chat to Your Website in Just 10 Minutes

#2: Tesla

Customers like being heard. And when heard by the company owner himself, the customer satisfaction rate goes up to the next level.

Tesla is known for giving their customers the satisfaction that a solution is on its way. Even when it is related to the service provided by their own store.

How Does Tesla Build Good Customer Service Stories

In 2017, a customer named Bobby Gupta visited the Tesla store and ended up meeting a pushy sales rep. He went on to tweet about his experience keeping Musk in the loop and said how terrible his experience became as he met a pushy sales guy at the store while shopping for a model.

The same day Elon Musk answered his tweet with a response like this:

Tesla Build Good Customer Service Stories

Well, that’s not the only instance of Musk coming to his customer’s rescue. There was another customer named Loic Le Meur who tweeted about how frustrated he became with a local supercharger and how they were hogged up by fully charged cars. To that Elon Musk replied in a matter of two hours.

Tesla Build Good Customer Service Stories

Takeaways

Tesla is definitely one of the best examples of good customer service stories in the market. The brand has a lot to offer when it comes to building delightful customer experience for customers. However, a few takeaways that really add value to any business for me include:

  • Let your customer know that their opinions and feedback are heard
  • Leaders get to learn a lot when speaking to customers directly
  • Customers help you improve products and services 
  • Becoming omnipresent for customers

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

To build a great customer service experience for your customers, it is important that you understand the methods you can choose to implement the takeaways. Here’s an insight on doing it correctly.

  • Capture Customer Feedback & Improve Products

    Your job doesn’t end at gathering customer feedback on how they like your products, you need to dig deep. Using a survey maker tool, you can understand what customers want to change in your products. But, it is way more important that you keep them informed about how you plan to implement their feedback to improve your products and services further.

    For this, you can:

     

    • Start an email campaign. Once you receive feedback from customers, let them know how the procedure takes place of implementing their suggestions to improve the product further.
    • Send a handwritten mail. We live in a digital age where it is hard to come across handwritten mails. But that’s how you can add a personal touch for your customers. By sending one along with a voucher or discount coupon, you can let customers know that their feedback is valuable to your brand and you’d like them to come up with more feedback in the future.

  •  Talk to Customers Using Omnichannel PlatformsMaking yourself omnipresent is just one side of the coin. Try answering your customers’ questions too. It doesn’t have to be immediate, but when you see your customers reaching out to your brand on a social media platform or dropping an email, how about reaching out to them with a personalized approach and letting them know about the solution.

Related Read: How to Establish The Ultimate Omni-Channel Customer Support System


#3: Amazon

The eCommerce giant not only excels at providing customers their desired products at the right time but also ensures that their problems are dealt with in the funniest manner possible.

Amazon has been working towards building a dominance by providing products at the lowest prices possible in the market. However, sales are not the only aim they work towards. For them, its about building long-term relations with their customers.

“We’re not competitor obsessed, we’re customer obsessed.”

~ Jeff Bezos

With the customer-first mindset, Jeff Bezos makes sure that the needs of the customers are taken into account. For that, he even goes to the extent of testing the support services himself.

How Does Amazon Build Good Customer Service Stories

According to an article published by Business Insider, we get to know how serious Jeff Bezos is to ensure that every customer gets the best experience at every visit.

Years ago there was a meeting of 30 Amazon executives where Bezos asked about how many times does the call support team puts a call on hold. That’s because the sales started to pick up in the holiday season. So, Bill Price (former Global VP of Customer Service) responded without any proof that it takes less than a minute. At that moment, Bezos decided to confirm this himself.

Turns out, 30 executives along with Bezos had to wait for four and a half minutes to finally hear from an executive at the other end. And when the call was connected, Bezos disconnected the call by saying, “I’m just calling to check”.

Besides this incident, there was an amazing support chat that shows how considerate the Amazon support team is when it comes to resolving customer queries.

amazon resolving customer queries

This Amazon rep took the customer experience to another level. And if you are a Marvel Universe fan, then you’ll love the conversation above. The rep introduced himself as Thor and the customer joined in to enact as Thor’s father, Odin. The act came to an end once the chat was ending with a resolution. Goes on to show that the support team is creative and understands the interests of the brand’s audience.

Takeaways 

There are a lot of things that business owners can learn from Amazon and its customer experience stories. Some of them include:

  • Serve customers the way they want a brand to serve them
  • Understand customers better and provide them with a personalized experience
  • Always think of being customer-obsessed

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

To ensure your customers enjoy their experience with your brand, here’s how I would recommend you to go about implementing the takeaways from this great customer service story.

  • Know Your Customers

    To be customer-obsessed and serve them the way they expect a brand to serve them, requires in-depth knowledge on them and their activities with the brand. For this, you can use a live chat to capture data like name, number, email address and chat transcripts, and later save them in your customer relationship management (CRM) tool. This allows you to study customers, their pain points, journey with the brand so far, and what do they expect from your services.

  • Personalize Support

    Now, you can use live chat to personalize support experience for customers. But what do you plan to do when they reach you through an email?

    How about adding a ticketing software to your business to tackle all their emails through a single view dashboard?

    Use help desk software to provide an in-depth solution while adding a personal touch to every email to keep them engaged with the brand.

>> Watch how to set up your help desk in minutes with this tutorial video.

#4: Disney

With personalized support experience, you can encourage customers to return every time they wish to seek a solution rather than pushing them away to your competitors.
Customer Service Story of Disney

Source: qminder.com

“Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”

~ Walter E. Disney

Disney understood it way back that customer experience needs to be high-end so that customers are encouraged to come back again. That’s why Disney ends up with 150 million visitors in a year due to their great efforts at providing the best customer experience.

How Does Disney Build Good Customer Service Stories

Keith Sharon and his wife took their kids to Disneyland over the holidays. Keith’s youngest son is autistic and can easily get affected by loud noises. Now for a family like that, a visit to such a cheerfully noisy place can be quite discouraging. But that’s where Disney came to their rescue.

Keith even said, “In the past, we’ve had to leave Disneyland before noon because the stimulation was too much”. But this time around, the experience was completely different.

During their last visit, their son noticed a purple balloon that he really wanted as it was his favorite color. Mickey Mouse was standing inside with the balloon in hand. Keith said to his son that if he behaved, he would be rewarded with the balloon at the end of the day.

Because of this promise made, the entire family got to enjoy various rides that they couldn’t during their previous trip. As the day came to an end, the parents decided to get their son the purple balloon he really wanted. Nancy was frantic and asked the cast members of Disneyland if there was a purple balloon available, only to know that the team had none.

The cast members could see how frantic she was and that’s when they called their fellow members to create a moment of happiness. One of them went behind a door only to reappear with a purple balloon in hand.

Keith shared,

Nancy hugged the two Cast Members because she didn’t know what else to say. To us, that balloon, that day, that ending … will always be priceless.

Takeaway

Disney is the true example of how you need to understand the pain points of the customers and provide an instant resolution to build a delightful experience.

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

Understanding customer pain points is essential for any business to improve further. Question is, how do you figure their issues in the first place?

Well, you can either use a survey, chat with them online, or provide them a source on their arrival to your website that helps them find answers to their problems instantly. By that I mean, adding a knowledge repository to your website.

How do you do that?

Well, you can create a help section that consists of necessary articles. Creating one for your website will allow you to answer frequently asked questions.

>> Watch how to create a knowledge base for your website!

But that’s not all. Another way to make help accessible is by integrating the knowledge base to your live chat tool. Like in ProProfs Chat, you can integrate the knowledge base software, and make support more instant and accessible. You get to learn what articles were read by customers to find an answer. More than that, you get to reduce your chat tickets by up to 80%. Check out more benefits of the integration here!

#5: Sephora

Warm and personalized welcome is sometimes all a customer seeks when approaching a brand. Keeping this in mind, Sephora has ensured that no customer gets to leave without these two things from their store.

sephora customer service story

Source: thestorefront.com

Mary Beth Laughton, Sephora’s EVP of Omni Retail as part of a podcast that discusses what exactly should brand keep in mind if they wish to win at customer experience.

How Does Sephora Build Good Customer Service Stories

Now, Sephora has not only made its customer experience at the physical store delightful but also made sure that they can be approached the same way online. That’s why they are known for creating some of the best good customer service stories in retail.

Sephora Build Good Customer Service Stories

Source: blog.smile.io

Sephora offers virtual artist to its customers in both physical and online stores.  All customers have to do is stand in front of the screen and click the type of product they are looking for that matches their skin tone. This also prompts the customers to know about their products even better. Such an approach is a creative way to build a purchasing intent within the customers.

There is a reason why people love visiting the store. They get the opportunity to get free makeovers. The company saw it as an opportunity to engage with customers and assist them to find what they really need to add in their beauty regime. Once the beauty advisor completes the makeover, they inform the customer about the products used. This approach builds a sense of urgency in the customers to purchase the product instantly.

With this, if you thought that they only work towards building a sales opportunity for their store, then think again. 

Mary Beth also talks about how online returns increased at one point. But their brand didn’t take this as a negative outcome. Looking at the returns, the brand made it feasible for the customers to return the product at any retail store. This strategy prompted customers to return their products to the store rather than submitting a request online. And this lead to:

  • Engaging actively with the customers
  • Letting them know what other options are available
  • Building a sense of purchase intent again
  • Improving their services then and there to build better experiences

Takeaways

Sephora is one of the best examples to make others in the market understand that there is no harm in going the extra mile. So for amazing customer service stories, you need to

  • Engage with customers actively to know what they want and create a sense of purchase intent
  • Build a personalized experience by giving the customers a hands-on experience of the product
  • Equip yourself with the latest technology to build a custom experience for customers

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

Did you know that upselling your products are simple when using a live chat? Learn more ways of how the above-mentioned takeaways can be implemented with the use of live chat and more below.

  • Engage, Learn, & Create Upsell Opportunities

    With ProProfs Live Chat, you can understand visitor’s behavior using monitoring window, engage proactively with chat greetings, learn their purchase intent, and provide them product suggestions to simplify your sales funnel further. The tool itself helps you sell more, and boost customer engagement with the brand and its intent.
  • Build Excellent Customer Experience

    It is not easy to build an amazing customer experience at your website in one shot. You need multiple tools to help you build one. Some of these include a knowledge base, live chat, help desk, and survey maker.

#6: Southwest Airlines

Customers expect empathy from the brands they approach. But, what happens when someone does it in the most unexpected manner?

Southwest Airlines is known for the best services, however, there is one incident that really sets them apart from other airlines in the business.

How Does Southwest Airlines Build Good Customer Service Stories

Southwest Airlines Good Customer Service Stories

A passenger named Peggy Uhle got to experience the most unexpected airline services with Southwest Airlines. She was on a flight from Chicago to Columbus which was taxiing on the runway.

All of a sudden the flight turned back to the gate and Peggy was asked to get off from the plane. She was confused and didn’t know how to react. The authorities directed her to the customer service office and she was asked to give her husband a call.

Peggy’s husband informed her how their son had fallen into a coma after suffering a brain injury. She was a distraught mother who had to quickly make travel arrangements and reach her son as soon as possible. Except, Southwest Airlines came to her rescue.

They informed her how they already booked her a non-stop flight to Denver that would help her reach her son soon. But they didn’t stop at that.

Southwest Airlines even asked her to wait in their private waiting area, got her luggage, helped Peggy to board the flight first, and packed her lunch that she could have after she lands in Denver. This did overwhelm Peggy and she went on to say “My luggage was delivered to where I was staying, and I even received a call from Southwest asking how my son was doing”.

Takeaways

This story moved many people, and at the same time their expectations went up to another level because of how empathetic the airlines was when they came across such a sensitive case. What you can learn from the airlines is:

  • Be empathetic towards your customers
  • Add the personal touch by doing things that customers do not expect
  • Reach out to the customers before they do
  • Build a point for communication with your customers

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

Here are a few simple ways to implement the takeaways to your business effectively.

  • Etiquettes for Customer Service

    You need to think from your customers’ perspective. That’s why you need to be calm and empathetic no matter how their temperament is while approaching you for their problems. You can read, learn and share chat etiquettes for operators via this blog.
  • Reach & Personalize Brand Experience With Chat

    Chat is not just a tool anymore that you add on your website to give an impression to the visitors that they’ve got help. It’s a medium for your brand to reach out before the customers do and help them resolve their queries.

    How you do that?

    Well, for that you need to monitor their behavior on the website. See if they’ve been on a page for quite long. If yes, then send them a chat greeting. Let them know that you’ve seen them on a particular page for long and you’d like to know if they are confused or have doubts related to your brand. This personal approach will give them the impression that your brand cares and want to help them instantly. In short, a perfect way to personalize the brand experience for online customers.

#7: FedEx

Fedex Customer Service Stories

A customer expects a delivery service to be fast and responsive. Well, FedEx has been meeting these customer expectations for quite a long time.

The FedEx team is known to track online buzz around their brand name and monitors the engagement they received through certain posts. Once they learn completely about their customers who engaged or spoke about the brand actively online, the team reaches out to them with a personal approach. FedEx employees also provide support in a very genuine and personalized way, always using the customer’s first name to engage better.

How Does FedEx Build Good Customer Service Stories

A loyal customer, named Nicole Snow, owns a small business in Maine called Darn Good Yarn. With limited shipping options as she is based in a remote area, Nicole faced a lot of trouble in running her home business. Having limited shipping options was not the only hassle. There were extreme weather compounds that affected her business in general.

Nicole decided to reach FedEx via their social media handle, asking for assistance to set-up her supply chain. The team was fast to reach Nicole and help her out. This sounds like an ordinary situation.

Hang on, there’s more to come.

A year later FedEx decides to run a grant contest for small business owners and the winner would receive $25,000. And guess what, Nicole ends up winning the contest.

Not only did Nicole get to build a strong relationship with the brand, but also got to expand her business into new areas. Now, wherever she goes, Nicole tells her customer experience story with FedEx to everyone.

Takeaways

So what do you take away from this customer success story?

  • Always make yourself available on all online platforms. This gives your customers the option to reach out to your brand no matter what.
  • Be strong to execute experiments to learn about your customers better.
  • Learn to be creative so your customers can relate to you and approach your brand every time in case of need.
  • No matter what business status your customers hold, always make sure that they receive excellent support from your team.

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

You may ask how to execute experiments in the first place. Well, let’s see how you can do that and implement other takeaways to your business.

  • Plan & Execute

    No matter what marketing or support strategy you have in place, a tool is still needed to help you execute them effectively in the first place. For that, I’d recommend you to get a project management software.

    With a PM tool, you can plan a marketing and support project from start to finish. Plus, you get to see which team member executes which stage and how they’ve progressed so far with the tool. You can also keep other members or stakeholders in the loop to ensure that no stage is left incomplete.

>> Check out why your business would need a project management tool here:

  • Add a Creative Aspect to Support

    You need to encourage your customers that it is okay to reach your brand for support. That’s only going to happen if you make it public. For example, a customer came for support. You provided that customer timely resolution and asked them to share the experience. But hold on.

    You need to take the experience to the next level. How? Provide them incentives. They approached you for support. Except, they do not leave with just a resolution. Adding an incentive will prompt them further to readily spread their positive experience with your brand. That means you wouldn’t need the nudge to make them spread the word. Your service will help your customers speak volumes.

    What’s more? When your customers get to know that getting help from your brand also comes with incentives, they’d approach you every time they are stuck with a problem. In short, you get to boost brand loyalty among customers.

#8: Netflix

There was a time when customers just asked for discounts from a brand, but not anymore.

Now, customers want customized discount packages that suffice their needs and at the same time help them meet the ends. Netflix is one brand that helps customers exercise such practice freely before they reach them out.

How Does Netflix Build Good Customer Service Stories

Netflix is known for providing customized suggestions to its customers with every visit. That’s because the brand analyzes the search history and previously watched content to deliver personalized suggestions. Based on the type of content the customers watch, the brand plans on building content and web TV series accordingly. 

This way, Netflix tries its best to build long-term relationships with its customers.

That’s not it.

Netflix Build Good Customer Service Stories

Source: omoto.io

There is a reason why Netflix is the leader in the world of streaming and has over 130 billion subscribers worldwide. 

The company made it to the news when it decided to cancel the availability of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. from its streaming services. Subscribers started to threaten them that they’ll cancel their subscription. Except, the company decided to not take this lightly and focus on delivering the best possible customer success story.

Netflix paid $100 million to WarnerMedia to continue their license for another year and help its customers stream their beloved show.

Takeaways

With this episode, Netflix ends up teaching others a lot. Let’s take a look below.

  • Always act promptly on customer feedback
  • Execute content personalization at every level (product design, online marketing and so on)
  • Learn to make decisions that help you build a better customer experience

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

Well, Netflix helps you learn what it means to “go an extra mile” for your customers. And, we’ll explain how your brand can do the same below.

Prompt is The New Service

Acting upon the feedback collected from your customers isn’t enough. And, we all know that already. To implement feedback, you need to be fast. That’s because “prompt is a new service”. You wouldn’t like to see your customers leaving your services just because your company doesn’t support one of their requests. Act fast on a request.

To speed the process, you can add the feature or service request in a project tool. You get to see how it progresses in its implementation and by when can the feature request can be implemented. With the use of project management software, you can estimate by when the update will be ready and keep your customers informed about the progress. This way they won’t leave your brand just because they can’t see a solution coming their way.

#9: Lego

Customer experience Stories of Lego

It is said that Lego faced a huge competition from video games, VHS, and computers in the 1990s. This created a lot of challenges for the company. Some of these included:

  • Increase in the cost of advertising, thus making it tough for them to market their effectively
  • Less number of mom and dad toys were made during this period, thus leading to lesser sales

What’s more, the company went into the denial mode that they won’t be affected by the modern threats and that their traditional methods will help them make sales alone.

But soon the brand revamped. They came up with their new robotic lego in 1997, which became a hit. Plus, they changed their website and made it customer friendly. 

How Does Lego Build Good Customer Service Stories

A child can feel devastated after losing his favorite toy. It was true in the case of Lego fan Luka Apps. He went against his father’s wishes and spent all the money he was gifted during Christmas to buy a Ninjago (Lego Ninja).

But during a trip, Luka lost the Lego toy. So, he decided to write a letter to the company itself.

Lego Build Good Customer Service Stories

Lego was thrilled to receive this letter from their fan and decided to respond in the most interesting way possible. Support rep Richard told Luka that he had a word with Sensei Wu, and this is what he said:

Lego Build Good Customer Service Stories

Takeaway

What Lego helps us to learn here is, you need to be thoughtful about your customer’s sentiments and come up with creative responses that keep them hooked with the brand.

How to Implement the Takeaways to Your Business?

A creative sense is always needed when talking to your customers. But most of all, your support service should keep them hooked to the brand.

So in case, your customer sends you an email that requires your assistance, always ensure that you keep the conversation: 

  • Humble 
  • Creative
  • Empathetic
  • Understanding

Other than that, use a help desk system to make sure you:

  • Keep the conversation going
  • Keep customers engaged with the brand
  • Provide timely response for their questions or worries
  • Build a step-by-step customer experience

If you thought that was creative, you’ll be super impressed with the next set of customer service stories.

Brilliant Yet Funny Customer Service Stories

Inspirational customer service stories can help you work towards improving your services for future interaction with customers. But who said you can’t learn how to improve your services through funny customer service stories.

Let’s explore a few below!

#1. Tesco

Tesco customer, Wes Metcalfe, complained at their social media handle about how he found a worm packed with a cucumber in his order. But see this is how the customer actually brought the issue into notice.

Tesco Funny Customer Service Stories

Sometimes companies can take such complaints in a negative way. However, Tesco managed the customer’s complaint in a hilarious manner, making it a good customer service example:

Tesco good customer service example

The conversation did not end at this exchange. Both the customer and the brand went on with their humorous engagement for quite long. In fact, their exchange was liked more than 80,000 times on Facebook. You can read the rest of the conversation here!

The interaction ended with Wes asking for a gift card and being promised that he’ll get it shortly – again in a humorous way!

Takeaway

Tesco gives you the best takeaway – if customers come up with something, just go with the flow. It’ll be great for your online presence and the customers will be more than willing to interact with your business further.

#2. Zappos

eCommerce business owners tend to see a lot of customer emails. And, Zappos is no exception.

A customer wrote an email to the support team at Zappos, letting them know that the shoes he purchased fell apart shortly after their purchase. In their response, this is what the Zappos team decided to send:

Zappos customer stories example

Source: reddit.com

Paul, the customer support rep at Zappos, made sure that there is never a dull moment for the brand and its customers. Plus, he wasn’t afraid to show how his personality really is and dealt with the issue in his style.

Takeaway

Being a little wacky while answering to the customers is okay (at times). Let your support reps know that it’s okay to deal with customers while keeping their personality traits intact. Know this – customers like honesty and the brand being authentic when seeking assistance for their problems.


Now that we’ve gone through some of the most memorable customer success stories, it is time we answer some of the frequently asked questions.

Q. How should I provide amazing customer service?

Providing amazing customer service depends primarily on how prompt you are at being available for your customers. Use a live chat to make sure that customers get to reach out to your brand whenever they need assistance.

Q. How should I provide remarkable customer service?

Always be ready to answer questions at all times. Plus, try to get new technologies like live chat, knowledge base, and help desk to ensure that no question goes unanswered.

Q. How should my support operators handle unreasonable customers?

You can read a blog here on how your operators can handle unreasonable customers and make sure that they are satisfied with your customer service.

Q. What is a memorable customer service experience?

When your customers are not just satisfied with your product, but also your team’s efforts on building a delightful experience.

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About the author

Jared is a customer support expert. He has been published in CrazyEgg, CoSchedule, and CXL. As a customer support executive at ProProfs, he has been instrumental in developing a complete customer support system that more than doubled customer satisfaction. You can connect and engage with Jared on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn