Making Customers Happy

As I experienced L.L.Bean, I noticed that everything about the contacts I had with that company reflected comfort and making customers happy. Everything. From the website to the stores, every customer touch reflects customer comfort and satisfaction. It is as if every step in the customer process had been reviewed.

L.L.Bean has indeed taken every step of the customer process, tested it, and created a process that is consistent with what it wants to provide. The process of selling clothes and items has been converted into a total customer service experience.

I have to admit that I was more than a little impressed with L.L.Bean. I also have to admit that I couldn’t resist the urge to keep calling its customer service department over and over. Could it answer my calls with such courtesy each time?

I called the customer service line during the middle of the next day. Priscilla answered the call on the first ring. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and she politely said okay. I got Karen, who was just as gracious. I told her I was researching information for my book, and she said she would do whatever she could to help me.

We had a brief conversation during which she told me, among other things, that one problem that the call center had was that it had so many people who will call just to talk because the people are so nice!

I also discovered that the service reps at L.L.Bean are empowered to make decisions regarding service. They use their own judgment in areas such as refunds and returns without worrying about being corrected.

I spoke to the community relations manager for L.L.Bean. She shared with me the story of L.L. Bean starting his company by designing a special boot for hunting. He sent out a flyer that promised satisfaction with his new boot. He got off to a pretty good start for a new business and sold 100 pairs of boots with his satisfaction guarantee. He got requests for money back from 90 of those customers. It seems that the design that Bean was so sure of had some flaws—the boots fell apart quickly. Bean was left with a choice: Give up or go forward.

Although it almost put him out of business, Bean kept going. He had made a promise, and he was going to stand behind it. He borrowed money, corrected the problem, sold more boots, and kept his satisfaction guarantee. It was because of this guarantee that his business grew and prospered. Bean never lost sight of his commitment to quality, and that foundation forms the principles that the L.L.Bean company values today.