How to win new customers and turn first time customers into loyal ones is very simple in theory, yet only achieved and maintained by very few in reality.

I believe the three pillars of excellent service that would want you to come back again for more and tell your family and friends about it when experienced to be genuine care, ownership and emotional intelligence.

We know the importance of excellent service and always talk to our employees about the meaning of genuine care, ownership, and understanding the needs of our customer, but too often forget the true power of it.

I expected to receive a UPS package via express from Germany last week, and it was rescheduled to be delivered the next day as of an outstanding balance. The shipment turned out to be more expensive than originally communicated (not a big deal, only frustrating having to wait for another day). The next morning I called customer service, gave my credit card details to take care of the outstanding balance, and had been reassured that it would be delivered that day.

Continuously checking the status of the package online, I found out in the late afternoon that the shipment was rescheduled again for the next day as of an outstanding balance. I called customer service again to be informed that the UPS driver could not have possibly  known that I made the payment as I only called in the morning and the driver was already on the road, and that while this is unfortunate for me, my only option is to pick up the package that evening between 7 and 9 pm at the UPS customer center. No need at this point to vent my frustration to the customer service agent, who obviously was not at fault, and I postponed my plans for the evening and made my way to the UPS center. At 7 pm sharp I was standing in the customer center in front of the clerk, who did not bother to make me feel welcome by smiling, and only managed to ask me what I wanted. When I gave him my tracking number, he responded that I should pick up the phone next to him, dial 6309 (yes, I remember vividly) and ask, if the driver came in already. Unfortunately this was not the case, and the clerk asked me to repeat this process of picking up his phone and dialing 6309 four times while waiting until 8 pm. This waiting time allowed me to experience how the clerk was able to upset every second customer stating that any delay or service breakdown was not his responsibility, and to forward any complaints to customer service by picking up the phone right next to him. After one hour I asked him again for my package and he inconvenienced himself to check again, only to tell me that it arrived now, but that this would not help me, because he cannot release it as of an outstanding balance.

Amazingly I managed to keep calm and carry on, retrieve my package at around 8.30 pm, and these 90 minutes of unbearable waiting time were worth every second, as it reminded me of how important these simple truths of service are:

1. If at any point any employee of UPS would have genuinely cared about their customer by showing empathy, I would have still experienced the frustrations of delay, miscommunication and waiting, but I would have felt as a valued customer who just happened to have a bad experience.
2. If anyone would have shown ownership, and tried to help beyond giving me a number to complain (and everyone seemed to remember this number by heart), I would have had a feeling of being valued and appreciated as a customer.
3. If the clerk at the counter would not have experienced himself as the victim of failure and incompetence around him, and tried face the challenge of dealing with upset customers and understanding that he does have an opportunity of turning it around, it would have changed everything. While it is most challenging and draining having to handle this volume of complaints and maintaining a positive attitude and mindset, don’t get yourself into the box of seeing yourself as the victim and everyone else around you as trying to make it difficult for you. Emotional intelligence is understanding that genuine care and respect of our feelings matters to us, and that only very few things cannot be fixed with empathy and a sincere apology.

While I did not experience this at work or while staying in a hotel, these three pillars of service are true for every service industry.

What do you think is important in providing service, and what could UPS do now to change my opinion as a customers?