PetSmart is a company that understands its customers and gives the tools and training to its employees to make an impact where it counts–with the customer.
We had been taking our shih-tzu dog, Lizzy, to PetSmart for grooming every 3 to 4 months consistently for several years. We have been rather pleased with their service, price and convenience and have seen no reason to change.
Last night we noticed that a couple of her nails did not get clipped during her last grooming visit at PetSmart and have curled under so far that they were now embedded into her paw. Painful for the dog I’m sure. So, we called our local PetSmart to find out if they had services to take care of this and to inquire about how or why a nail would not be clipped. The employee’s response on the phone shocked us. In fact, I wish more stores and businesses would shock us more.
They were empathetic, offered us reassurance and took ownership of the problem.
At the beginning of the call, the PetSmart employee had not yet established who we were. We were just another customer calling with a question or problem. After a quick explanation, the employee said if we had paid for a grooming with nail clipping then they would take care of the problem and pay for any antibiotics that may be necessary. They even have a veterinarian on site which reassured us further. The employee then asked our name and looked up our information. Sure enough, we had paid for the service and the nail clipping. They would take care of the nail issue and also offered us a free grooming session for the inconvenience.
At this point, we were pretty happy with the way PetSmart was handling the issue. They were empathetic, offered us reassurance and took ownership of the problem. PetSmart had all of our customer data in their CRM system. They knew the date of our last grooming, the details of the purchase and our past purchase history.
But having the data is not the shocking part that I referred to earlier. It was that PetSmart entrusted the front line employee with access to the data so that they can resolve the issue right then and there. There was no need to pass us off to someone else, call us back, make us come in for a consultation, or make us speak to a manager above them. No, it all occurred with the person we explained our situation to in the first place.
- Because the employee knew their service they took ownership of the service problem.
- Because the employee had access to the customer data, they were able to confirm the purchase over the phone without us proving the purchase in person.
- Because the employee was empowered to resolve the issue right then, we were reassured and satisfied with the resolution.
But it didn’t stop there. There was more “shock” in store for us. Remember, PetSmart offered a free grooming session for our inconvenience. Well, we mentioned that we were not really satisfied with the last couple of groomings. We understood that we could always have the grooming touched up, but the hassle to bring her back was not worth the time. You see, were were not dissatisfied with the grooming, but we were not fully satisfied either.
Again, PetSmart went back to the data and looked up who had groomed Lizzy more consistently in the past and assured us Lizzy would be scheduled with that employee in the future. Now we felt PetSmart really wanted our business.
PetSmart had the CRM tools in place and with access for the right employees to truly impact their customer relationship. PetSmart gets CRM. PetSmart made the customer feel like a king and for that, they made an immediate impact on building their brand loyalty with this customer.
Are there other companies you have dealt with that have shocked you?
I had certain expectations when I called PetSmart. And they overwhelmingly exceeded them.
Marketing Mind 