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How a family-run business has made me a lifelong customer! (4 minute read)
You get a pass today. I started today's column on a different note, getting all the details just right. Which meant, of course, that it ran on and on. Then I accidentally deleted it. Soâ¦a shorter read today!
I wanted to share a new topic idea for your email newsletters that your readers will appreciate.
A project dear to my heart has been blocked for years. I ran into a few roadblocks on a new series of box shrine. I was using a silicon construction adhesive to join the boxes. It worked until it didn't, and I was at a loss of where to go next.
I came up with two different solutions: Mechanical connections (which was a whole nother can of worms, until I worked my way through them, too) and epoxy.
I bought a tube from a local hardware store. But it went south the first time I tried to use it, and in frustration I reached out to the company. I described what happened, asked if it were shelf-life related (yup, some glues and epoxies have a shelf-life.) And waited for a reply.
My experience with customer service regarding defective products hasn't been good.
I fill out all the forms online, then wait weeks for a response. IF I ever even get a response. (This is my usual experience, especially from companies too big to care very much.)
So I nearly dropped my teeth when the company care rep for J-B Weld responded the next day. In less than 24 hours. (They're in an earlier time zone, so it was impossible for them to respond any earlier.) The rep not only responded quickly, he sent me about a dozen tubes of epoxy, fresh from their factory line. Some were the same I'd purchased, but he added a variety of others for me to experiment with. For free.
He refused my offer to pay for them. And when I followed up a few weeks later, sharing my success with some the glues, but the same issue with others, he promised to send even more glue! Even after we realized part of the problem was the temperature in my studio (it's usually 48 degrees in the winter until my space heater gets going), he still made it his personal mission to help me get my project moving forward.
As you can imagine, I am now a life-long customer!
Why am I sharing this today?
The first reason is obvious: Good customer service is vital for any business, and small businesses often do it better than mega-businesses. As artists, we need to understand this, too. I'm not suggesting you overwhelm your collectors with free epoxy. I mean, art. But when something goes wrong, I do my best to make their experience as positive as possible. Listening carefully, sorting out the options, and making things right.
The second is just what I'm doing here: Sharing my powerfully-positive experience with you. Letting you know that, whatever your need for epoxy, this is a company who stands behind their products. They want to know if you have a problem, and they want to help you fix it.
And your experience is something you can share in your email newsletters.
A lot of artists subscribe to my blog and newsletter, and of course, to Fine Art Views. Sharing what manufacturers you can trust is a gift to them. For my collectors, they may benefit, too. But it also shows them I really get what great customer service looks like.
Sure, there will always be that rare client who we can never make happy. And I sincerely hope you don't buy some J-B Weld epoxy just so you can complain and ask for a box of more epoxy, free.
But they reached out to me, quickly, with full support. They believe in their products, and acted accordingly.
Just as we do the best work we can, and work to fix it if something goes wrong, with our own collectors.
And that's the third reason to share: Do we want our customers to complain about how we handled an issue? Or do we want them to sing our praises?
We can share our own story/stories about how we created the perfect experience with a customer, or we can share our own personal experience, like the one I had with J-B Weld.
So today, I'm giving a shout-out to Chris Fox at J-B Weld (thank you, Chris!), who figured out what the problem actually was, so I can move forward.
And you get yet another idea of what to share in your next email newsletter!
Your shares and comments are always welcomed!
Share this Fine Art Views article, or view more like it my blog at luannudell.wordpress.com.
If someone shared this article with you, and you'd like to read more in this series, visit my articles at FineArtViews.com.
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