A Company’s moment to shine is not when everything is good, but when something goes wrong and you fix it.
You may have the best products and for most part, they work well, customers don’t even notice because good products just work as expected. If you were to ask them about your product they can tell you good things about it; if you ask, that is. Chances are, they will probably not tell anyone about your product because they don’t even think about it.

Ask them about your customer support and service, they probably don’t know because they have never had the opportunity to avail of it.

Your competitor has a half-decent product, and sometimes they have problems. Customers call them. They use this moment to shine, and get clients to talk about them all the time – online, social media, in social physical gatherings… they spread the word.

They sell more products than you because they have a built in sales force working for them.

Here’s an example:

Computer monitors are now a commodity. So, when I was looking for a second monitor for my laptop, I picked up the cheapest one at my local Bestbuy, made by a company I never heard about – AOC (they actually have a decent website).

I paid $86.69 including taxes on April 1st. It had good specs – 20″ LED HD.

Then right after July 2nd, something weird started happening. A block of text started popping up on the screen alternating between ‘D-SUB and DVI’ whatever that means. I thought it was the cable, or connector. I checked, those were fine. So, in desperation, instead of going to Bestbuy, I called the support phone number from AOC website.

To my surprise, a human being in the USA (Juan Pablo Guerrero) picked up the phone. In 2 minutes, as I described the issue, he said I’ll issue an RMA, sent me a form to fill out and right afterwards, sent me a pre-paid UPS mailing label. I shipped it out same day – July 11th.

The company received the defective monitor on 12th, and to my surprise, shipped out a new replacement monitor same day! A new replacement monitor even thought the 90 day period had passed.

This is what I mean by customer service. They probably had some defective monitors, parts, components, but for me, this company is a winner. I’m blogging about it here – spreading the word for them, and they didn’t pay me to do it.