Customer Service: The Expected is Ordinary. The Unexpected is Extraordinary

We don’t always get it right at Kona Impact. Occasionally we don’t treat our customers the way we like to be treated. Sometimes we lose an email in our inboxes, misplace a phone message or fail to provide the communication we should. No excuses. Not “buts”.
Most of the time we’re able to provide the level of service that makes our customers feel appreciated, valued and welcomed. This is not always easy when we work on up to 100 projects (many of them small) a month.
I don’t think we deserve an award for doing what we should. I always tell my daughter that she doesn’t deserve a cookie for doing what she should. Special rewards are for doing the extraordinary. (That said, a smile and a please will usually overcome my principles.)
exceptional customer service
Here are a few things we do that go beyond the ordinary:
Help Find the Best Fit – We send a good number of jobs to other companies these days. We used to take all jobs that we could do, but we were, perhaps, not the best provider in town. We now try to steer potential clients to the best provider of what they need, even if it isn’t us. Many callers are surprised when we tell them our competitor could do the job better, faster and less expensive than us.
Absolute Honesty – I was watching a show on travel scams the other day when they were doing a segment on ticket touts outside of the Vatican. They asked several of these touts if they would get a chance to meet the Pope. All answered, “yes.” Those, of course, are big lies. At Kona Impact we don’t tell clients that an exterior banner will last for years. It won’t. We don’t give teaser price quotes and then ask for more money later.  If a client has information we know to be incorrect, we give them the truth. I wouldn’t want a supplier lying to me, so we don’t do it to our clients.
Quick Turnaround—We more than doubled our work space a few years ago. The biggest benefit of the large space is that we can have ample inventory and we can work on many projects at once. I love answering the question, “How long will it take?” with “One or two days.” For those accustomed to long wait times, it is certainly unexpected. It’s even more satisfying to be able to turn some projects on the same day. One of our clients, a well-known TV show, would send us projects at 5 am from LA, and want to pick them up at 8 am. While it made for extremely challenging days, we never missed a deadline.
Delivery-Many of our clients are stuck in their office, restaurant or work bay all day. For these customers, we do our best to offer complimentary delivery for their orders. With a bit of planning, we can combine deliveries, customer visits, and, oftentimes, lunch.
Site Visits—I know of one sign shop in Kona and one in the Kohala area that charge $100+ to go look at a premises for a sign, even if they don’t get the job. Even then, it’s hard to get them out of their shops for anything but the biggest projects. Perhaps they are understaffed or working alone, but it seems to be predatory to ask to be paid just to make an estimate. I can understand why they do this, but I don’t agree with their reasoning.  I know from years of doing this, that site visits are essential to getting the customer the correct product, with the right materials and the right size.
The things that we should always be doing—good communication with clients, quality work, fair prices—do not make us exceptional. Doing these well are the base of any business, and if you don’t have them figured out, you won’t be in business very long. The unexpected—helping clients, even if it means  losing a job, absolute honesty, quick turnaround, delivery and site visits-are part of what I believe sets us apart.