The flip side of customer service

Posted on | March 14, 2009 | No Comments

So a Yale student is suing U.S. Airways for $1 million over a “misplaced” Xbox 360.  Now we all know that there are a lot of hands on your checked bags in this era of security theater.  Now no one knows who stole this Xbox and U.S. Air has stated they’re not liable for checked electronics.  This  in and of itself is ridiculous, if I have to give you my bags I think I have a reasonable assurance you won’t boost my stuff.  However there are plenty of stops where the bags could have been pilfered.  The TSA inspects them as well and could have happily stolen it.

Where it gets a little ridiculous is the passenger suing for a million dollars.  I can buy a 360 for under $200 I think now.  I think someone should pay to replace it and I’m sure everyone he worked with was a dead end.  When you get to a big company no one wants to take personal ownership of an issue.  After all, I get paid weather you get your Xbox back or not.  But suing for a million dollars?  Isn’t that being a little unrealistic?  So if you recall, our customer bill of rights is growing.  Number two was that if you’ll work with us, we’ll work with you.  Suing the company for a million dollars isn’t working with them but sometimes with a mega-corp you have to get their attention.  It’s a swift kick in the shins.

The difference between us and U.S. Airways?  Well for one we have no fleet of massive commercial airliners.  Regardless of how hard we try to convince the local Gulf Stream dealer, they won’t just let us borrow one and paint our logo on it.  Doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying.  But seriously, the difference is a pride of ownership.  Everyone who works for Crowd Rent has a vested interest in seeing the company succeed.  We don’t do this for fun, we do it because we want to build something from nothing.  We have day jobs and for the first time, at this job, I was an employee owner.  I owned a small portion of a billion dollar company.  But it makes me work harder because I have a few thousand dollars in stock that would take a dive if the world found out we didn’t care about our customers.

We all have a financially and personally vested interest in seeing Crowd Rent and as a result our customers succeed.  So if you let us know something didn’t go as planned or how you would want it to we listen.  If you rented a drill and it didn’t work we can work with you and the owner.  It’s no big deal to refund the charge, you give the drill back, and go on about your business.  If you say that a non functioning drill cost you a bazillion dollars in lost revenue I’m going to say I’m sorry, maybe renting a drill for $5 wasn’t a prudent business move with a bazillion dollars on the line.  The moral of the story is this is a two-way street where the customer is most certainly right but the flip side is the business if often times wrong the bigger they get.

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