Tag Archives: customer service

Going the extra inch

I think this idea came from Terry O’Reilly’s book, ‘This I know’, but I listened to it a couple years ago and am not 100% sure? The idea is to go the extra inch, rather than the extra mile.

The easiest place to see this in customer service. The cashier who takes a little extra care in bagging your items. The waiter who tops up your water glass before you need to ask. The hot dog vendor who asks if you’d like your bun toasted. The hotel front desk clerk who asks if you’d like a city map with local restaurants, or who remembers your name the next time you see them.

So many people talk about going the extra mile, but really it’s just an extra inch that can make the difference, (or for that matter the extra centimetre). It doesn’t often take much work or effort to make someone’s day, to provide better than average service, or to simply be accommodating to someone you love and care about.

A kind gesture, a simple change in tone, a thoughtful question, a smile. It’s not about going terribly far out of your own way, it’s simply going the extra inch.

What I find interesting is that it’s often easier to do this with strangers rather than those you are around daily. We seem to take advantage of our relationships and not make the extra inch of effort with people we spend time with every day. Instead, we are quicker to snap a response, or to be snide, or just impatient. We feel like the extra inch is actually an extra mile.

It’s not. In this way, life is a game of inches, and it’s much more fun when we are able to see this and just go that extra inch for those that can do the same for us more frequently, because we are around them more often.

Batteries not Included

It used to be that when you purchased an item, a major inconvenience would be that batteries weren’t included. Now there are whole other elements that can be inconvenient in many ways.

It starts before you even leave the store! For the last 3 times that I did a self-checkout, I’ve had inconvenient delays: Additional approval for an item; An in-store discount coupon not working; A machine freezing. – This is not a great ‘last experience’ before leaving a store!

‘Some assembly required’ used to mean clicking 3 pieces together, then came IKEA’s version of ‘assembly required’. If I add a measly $15 an hour for my assembly time, I can understand why the product costs so little. And my experience with IKEA assembly is embarrassingly slow.

Online sign-ups: Why do you need my postal code when you’ll never mail or send me something? How many questions are really necessary for me to get some simple services that you provide for me in a fully digital format? And why is a sign-up to your monthly newsletter a default button that I have to un-click?

And what about online customer support? “The usual wait time for customers calling at this time is 40 minutes.”

Really? So you know volume is high at this time, and informing me, rather than solving that problem with more support, is your answer?

We’ve come a long way in making technological advancements, but I sometimes find myself yearning for the days of ‘inconvenience’, when the one thing you had to do when you made a purchase was pick up your own batteries… which now often come with a product!