Going The Extra Mile

One of the more popular buzzwords that’s survived the 90s and is still wriggling its way through the single-synapse world of the middle manager’s brain is “go the extra mile”.

It’s touted in virtually every management meeting and memo. It’s recited in designer meetings, strategy meetings, business planning meetings, committee meetings, meetings about meetings… anywhere it can, it pops its head out and gives a little wave.

Of course, it’s usually all talk and no walk, like most buzzwords.

Actually going the extra mile – an extra effort to ensure your client is happy and satisfied – is a hard concept to implement. It’s easy for managers to talk about but they’re not the ones who actually do the work and make the extra effort. The poor, downtrodden, slaving peons have to do that and they know that the rewards for that effort will rain upon… their manager.

However, today I encountered one of the rare companies that still lives up to its reputation for excellent customer service and, indeed, for going the extra mile to make sure its clients are happy. Let me tell you a story…

Setting the scene

My good lady is a fan of the Guerlain perfume brand. She’s worn most of their perfumes at one time or another¹. Quite apart from the frightening expense of the brand outside its home country, there’s another difficulty: the British have rarely heard of Eau de Parfum and almost never Pur Parfum².

Incidentally, the Brits are also incredibly miserly with their samples. Go to a Marionnaud perfumerie in France and you’ll leave with half a dozen echantillons of scents and creams to try, even if you only bought the cheapest item in the shop. Here in Britain, you can spend a hundred quid on something and you’ll be lucky to get a single, cheap-ass sample of the most horrible-smelling putrescent liquid you’ve ever encountered.

La Petite Robe Noire

New perfumes are a rarity for the big brands. But back in 2010, we heard the news that Guerlain had released one: La Petite Robe Noire. As soon as I discovered this, I went hunting online. Of course, the name’s a pain in the proverbial body-part, since it’s also the title of millions of other pages but I eventually tracked it down – and it’s exclusive.

Many hours of phone calls, emails and research later, it turns out that the perfume is only available from certain, major Guerlain outlets. In real terms, finding one of those outlets was virtually impossible – the Guerlain site totally sucks³, their customer service reps try their best but aren’t much use and all the “in” crowd who’ve reviewed the perfume got theirs free in the post.

Finally, though, stubbornness won out – Harrods stocks it. Unfortunately, it’s not listed on their website. Hmm. How to order?

Customer Service

This is when I began to be amazed. Harrods customer service took the usual amount of time to answer my query (roughly 48 hours). I could phone the Guerlain counter direct and order over the phone. Excellent.

Unfortunately, when I called, it turned out that my card – being an Electron – doesn’t work over the phone. I’ve run into this before and still don’t understand it. Apparently, it’s a limitation imposed on retailers. Whatever.

The lady to whom I spoke (who was absolutely lovely and very funny, as well as helpful) suggested sending a cheque and doing everything by snail mail.

Unfortunately (yes, that word appears a lot here), I don’t use or even own a cheque book. I never need one. So I headed to the Post Office and paid for a postal order – it’s the same as a cheque (though it cost me about a tenner extra). I write a letter, send the PO and wait.

About ten days pass. I send another email and get a reply (from the same person) within a day. Harrods don’t accept postal orders. I don’t understand why this is the case (since, as both I and the lady who refunded the PO at the Post Office said, it’s the same thing).

The Extra Mile

However – and this is where the extra mile starts – in the same email, the gentleman who replied asks for my telephone number. He asks because he would like to have a Harrods Manager call me to discuss possible alternatives.

That’s right – they will call me.

Unfortunately (again), the gentleman in question went on holiday over the Easter period. When I tried to contact him again, I got an immediate Out of Office reply. Like all the most responsible people, he supplied an alternative contact.

So, yesterday afternoon, I contacted that person. I expected to wait a while and hear little of any use.

This morning, I received a call from the lady on the Guerlain counter. To my surprise, they’d come up with an alternative payment method – bank transfer. She provided the details and asked for my details in return. My immediate thought was “why do they need my details?”

As it turns out, they need the details because – and this is where I suspect many of you will be as dumbfounded as I – the only way to circumvent their automatic ordering system is to do everything by hand.

Yes, believe it or not, the staff at Harrods are going to manually watch out for my transfer arriving. When they see it, the Guerlain lady will – again manually – package and send the perfume in question, working from the details she noted when she telephoned.

Every trace of the transaction will have to be entered into their system by hand. And she’s even going to put some free samples in with my order “as an apology for such a difficult process”.

For me, this is definitive customer service: they made all the extra effort but they’re still sending little extra gifts because I should never have had to go to the trouble of waiting and re-contacting them.

Other businesses, take note: they’re considered the Best of British precisely because they live up to their reputation.

Top marks (and thank you), Harrods!

¹ Though not all at the same time, of course. Ewww.

² For the uninitiated, a perfume usually comes in three strengths – the weak Eau de Toilette, a stronger, longer-lasting Eau de Parfum and the incredibly concentrated Pur Parfum (the French drop the ‘Pur’ and just call it ‘Parfum’). While spraying on lots of EDT will generally mean you pong a bit, the Pur Parfum only needs a dab or two with the stopper to keep you smelling gorgeous all day.

³ It’s one of those artsy-fartsy “oh we’re so pretty” sites that take ages to load, have unreliable navigation methods and tell you virtually nothing of any use.