Our Secret Ingredient For Creating Customer Service Miracles

On Friday evening an issue caught my attention. A customer had ordered flowers from a popular online flower delivery service and paid for delivery by Friday evening, but the flowers failed to arrive on time. We understand – it happens. The unfortunate part is the customer still needed his problem solved.

• Problem: Our new friend (“John”) needed flowers sent to a hospital, tonight.
• Solution: TBD

Immediately upon arriving home I began working to resolve John’s issue. There were two vital pieces of the “problem” puzzle I needed to find:

1. Flowers
2. A delivery method for aforementioned flowers

I called several florists near the hospital (knowing all had already closed). However, I used a little trick to instantly get through to someone at the store.

The person who answered was very polite. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get me any flowers that night, but offered to deliver some first thing in the morning. I saved this as a backup option.

After exhausting my first idea of calling all nearby florists, I decided to try to find our delivery method.

I visually scanned Google Maps for small businesses that offer delivery. Chinese food restaurants came to mind first and I called the first one I found.

I spoke to a nice woman at The Fortune Cookie, just a few blocks from the hospital. Even though The Fortune Cooke doesn’t deliver, she suggested two other nearby restaurants who do, including Arturo’s Tacos.

I called Arturo’s Tacos…

The gentleman who answered the phone and I talked for about five minutes. Not only did he agree to deliver the flowers, but he also helped me find them from a local grocer. The rest was “easy” (respectively speaking) and was only a matter of connecting the dots.

I contacted the grocer (Meijer) had Caleb hold two dozen roses under my name (pending approval from our user, John).

Then, I called the hospital to see what time they stop accepting deliveries. Mary Jo in the Family Birthing Unit (now you know the reason for the flowers) has a lovely personality and was extremely pleasant.

When I inquired as to the cut-off time for accepting deliveries, she immediately asked, “Well, what are you delivering?”

I laughed and explained the entire situation. She said, “Oh, we love flowers! I’m just starting my shift and I’m here until 7:00 a.m. You can send them my way any time!”

Problem = solved.

So, what is our secret ingredient for creating customer service miracles?

If you didn’t already figure it out from the image we used for this customer service blog post, it’s simple:

Love