This big transition has given us many, many opportunities to engage with customer service providers, good and bad. Heres a happy story: This weekend, while ordering a pizza for delivery, Pizza Hut's computer locked up. Mind you, we changed our order in the middle of reading out the credit card account number which sent the whole process into a tailspin. However, the man serving us apologized repeatedly and gave us a 50% discount on the extra pizza we were trying to order. He did a masterful job maintaining our loyalty despite some hiccups in the system.

Contrast that with my hair-pulling experience at Seattle Lighting. On Saturday, I drove downtown at 4:20 to order three light fixtures for our new house. Toward the end of the transaction, the sales clerk said, “You know, you're going to have to pick these up at our warehouse and it closes at 5:00 p.m. I'd better call them to tell them you're coming.” She assured me that it wasn't far, gave me a little map with directions and sent me on my way...right into a mass of traffic swarming out of the ball park after a Mariner's game.

My five-minute trip turned into 15 minutes so I called the store to let them know that I was probably going to be a few minutes late. I was astounded (correction: infuriated) to hear that the warehouse would close at 5:00 p.m. no matter what. “Can you call them and ask them to stay until 5:05,” I asked. “No, we can't do that. We don't know whether you'll show up or not.” I assured here that I planned to show up in 10 minutes. I was on the way. I had just purchased $450 worth of light fixtures that I was highly motivated to pick up now so I wouldn't have to make a second trip downtown. “We would have to pay someone overtime,” she responded.

Gee, I'm thinking that in the interest of maintaining customer loyalty, paying an employee for 10 minutes of over time might be a pretty good idea. As I fumed in my car, I remembered a recent survey conducted by the Customer Care Alliance, in which they reported that 70% of customers surveyed reported an incidence of customer rage (in which they were either very upset or extremely upset). Well, count me in that group!

As you have probably guessed, I lost this battle. And they lost a repeat customer. Despite having purchased many light fixtures there over the years, I have no intention of ever shopping there again. In the same survey, 84% of respondents said that they told at least one other person about their frustrating experience. And, I guess you can count me in that group too. I've told three family members, two friends, my dog and now you.

Check out our latest program, Blazing Service, chock full of strategies and skills to increase customer loyalty and avoid actions that alienate your organization's customers. Join me in promoting better living through better customer service!