1130 – The Customer Is Number One: Tom talks Outstanding Customer Service

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

This episode of Screw the Commute focuses on what outstanding customer service looks like in real life, using Tom Antion’s recent eBay purchase as the example.
Tom bought a small telescope on eBay. It arrived quickly, but the shipping box had a large gash in it. After opening it, the telescope appeared mostly fine, but when he tried to use it, the image was blurry and a lens was rattling. He later realized the eyepiece was missing or broken, and the seller’s photos had already shown it that way, meaning the problem likely existed before shipping.
Tom contacted the seller through eBay so there would be a written record. The seller replied within about five minutes, after hours, apologized, and immediately offered to make it right. The seller first checked whether he had another telescope to send as a replacement. When he did not, he told Tom to keep the defective telescope and issued a full refund right away.
Tom uses this story to explain why great customer service is not about never making mistakes. Businesses will occasionally mess up. What matters is how quickly, honestly, and generously they respond when something goes wrong. In this case, the seller did several things right: responded immediately, apologized without blaming the customer or the shipping company, tried to replace the item, and then refunded the money without resistance.
The main lesson is that exceptional service can turn a problem into loyalty and positive word-of-mouth. Tom says customers may become even more loyal after a mistake if the company handles it beautifully. He contrasts this with companies that delay responses, ask for information already provided, or make refunds difficult.
Tom ends by encouraging business owners to respond fast, be apologetic, solve the problem, and issue refunds quickly when appropriate, even if it costs money in the short term. His point is that this kind of service builds reputation, trust, referrals, and long-term business.

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Episode 1130 – Outstanding Customer Service
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:22] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1130 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about outstanding customer service. I just got got some really great customer service I want to tell you about and then give you a recap on how you can be known as a great customer service company. All right, let's see. Hope you didn't miss episode 1129. That was Zoom scheduling. And it'll do a lot more than what you might think about by just having a scheduler. It does all kinds of cool stuff. So. 1129 anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com/then the episode number. Zoom scheduling was 1129. All right. Pick up a copy of my automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Version 3.0 is still the latest. And the only big difference is that the short keys that saved me millions, literally millions of keystrokes is now a browser extension instead of a downloadable program. So remember that when you're reading the book and check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingtraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by SCHEV.
[00:01:40] All right. Now again, I always like to do podcasts on things that are happening to me or I'm working on and so forth. So this just happened to me the other day. And if you followed me for a while, you know, I love Facebook Marketplace and eBay. And, you know, I'm a frugal McDougal kind of person that I like the thrill of the bargains. And I love that kind of stuff. My dad was very frugal as we were growing up. So I bought a telescope off of eBay.
[00:02:16] Okay. And it arrived in a very reasonable time. No problem there. And I noticed that there was a big gash in the side of the box that had arrived in. So before I even opened it, I took a picture of the box to show damage. And then I opened it up and it didn't appear to be any damage. In fact, it looked new and I think it was advertised as new, and it was a brand that I wasn't familiar with. So the pictures on eBay showed it as beautiful and no scratches or anything. But here's what happened. When I tried to look through it, everything was blurry and there was a little lens that was kind of rattling around in its housing. So when I researched a little bit more, I found that there was no eyepiece. The eyepiece was either broken off or missing or whatever. So so that's what happened. And as I researched it, I saw, well, it wasn't broken in transit. The seller put it in the pictures of it with no eyepiece, which I didn't know it was supposed to have an eyepiece, so it had to have been put in the box and shipped to me when it was still all blurry. So that was something that the seller should have checked. But I get it. I mean, this seller had 99.9% positive and hundreds of items for sale. Mostly vintage, so I'm sure some things might fall through the cracks where they didn't get checked and it looked like it was brand new.
[00:04:03] The case was brand new. The telescope looked brand new, but he might have gotten hoodwinked by whoever he bought it from and that it was the the eyepiece was missing. So it really wasn't broken in transit. And so I said, oh well, here we go. So I messaged the seller through eBay. You always want to do things through eBay so that there's a record of the what's going on. And then I kind of forgot about it because I figured, oh, well, maybe I'll hear back in a day or so. Five minutes later, I got a. And this was after hours. This is like in the evening or something. Five minutes later I get a message back. That's just unbelievable in itself, especially for eBay people, right? And what did I get back in five minutes? And this is after I said, hey, the thing is all blurry. It doesn't look like, you know, the eye piece even came with it or was broken when you shipped it and so forth. So I wasn't being belligerent. I was just telling him what happened. So after five minutes, which again is unbelievable, I get a message back that says, I'm so sorry. I'm here to help and make things right. And he said, I might have another one. Give me a little time and I will check and see if I can replace it for you. So I'm thinking, man, this is something five minutes he got back and he was wasn't the typical jerko that, you know, that gets all defensive and wants to mess with you.
[00:05:51] And he got back to me very quickly and he says, you know what? I don't have another one. So he told me to keep the broken one and he refunded me like on that text exchange immediately. I got all the money back. This was like $92 or something. Yeah, it wasn't any Celestron. That's 3000 bucks. It was just a little telescope. All right. This is not the kind of behavior you expect from eBay or Facebook Marketplace or any of these kind of places that I deal with. All right. So it kind of blew me away. And here's the thing. When about customer service and or companies in general, they're going to mess up. I have messed up in the past, not too much because I'm such a fanatic, but I have messed up in the past. And it's what you do about it that shows what kind of company you are. See, it's no wonder to me he's got a 99.9% positive rating on eBay, because if he treats everybody like this man, he deserves it. He deserves 110% positive. And I'm going to give you his eBay name here, and I'm going to encourage you to buy something from the guy because, I mean, he steals in a lot of vintage stuff. In fact, I wanted to buy something. I felt bad. I told him, I don't want to hurt small business people. Yeah. If you can get me another one. Replacement. Great. I don't want to see you get hurt financially over this because he was being so great.
[00:07:31] And this is the way I really feel about small business people. So he just said, like I said, just I'll refund you and don't bother sending it back. And his eBay handle is Dan A NIE Cal KELL. Dan, Danny. Cal. And if please go look him, look at him and buy something from the guy. I mean, I'm just really I don't know him personally. I just know that out of the clear blue, he just took care of his company. Like he like he's a champ or he's a Nordstrom would be embarrassed compared to this guy. All right. So so let's recap what happened here and what you should be doing in your business whenever possible. And the first one is he responded immediately. I mean, five minutes. This is and this wasn't a bot or something. This was him personally responding. I know that's not always possible. I can't always do that. But he did it. And out of the clear blue after hours even and I and it just amazes me. Some of these companies I used to consult with their voicemail would say, we'll get back to you within 48 hours. Like, you're fucking crazy. I could be dead in 48 hours. I'm definitely not dealing with you anymore. If you take 48 hours. I got some foreign company. Now I bought something with. And I send them an email. I ask for a refund and tell them all the details they needed, and they come right back and say, well, uh, I need this detail.
[00:09:19] It was right in the email that I'd sent him. They can't even read English. All right. So so that's not customer service. I'm getting ready to do a chargeback because I said I want a refund. They promised refunds immediately. And here's three emails back and forth asking me for information that was in the original email. So that's bullshit. All right. So I'm going to do a chargeback because they don't deserve to be taking money from people. But anyway, so recap. He responded immediately with an apologetic email. In other words, he didn't try to blame me or try to put it off on shipping or anything else. And he tried to to actually fulfill because I wanted the product in as a vintage thing. So you can't just buy a new one. And so he tried to get another one and then he refunded me immediately at has to be a big loss to him because he bought the product probably wholesale or at a yard sale or something and shipped it for 13 bucks was the shipping on it. And he had to eat all that because he gave me everything back without complaint. And so that's why I'm bragging about him on here. That's what companies that's what people will do about you when you go way overboard to do what you're supposed to do when you mess up. And in fact, customers become more loyal. I mean, I used to do this all the time for big companies and talk about this.
[00:10:51] The customer will become more loyal if you mess up and then take care of it beautifully, like this guy did. It's Dan, Danny Kell, DANDANIEKELL on eBay. So, uh, so anyway, if you, uh, have a company, those couple little things, just look at it, put it on an international podcast, top 1% podcast, because the guy just did that stuff compared to all his competitors. And I've been dealing with an eBay for 150 years. All right. Nobody has ever done as good as this guy say. So, uh, if you do this kind of stuff, respond immediately, apologetic email or phone call, that's that's good to try to take care of him. Uh, refund immediately, even if it's a loss to you. Because I'm hoping that this guy gets a bunch of business from the podcast here. And it's hard because he had a lot of stuff that just doesn't interest me. But but I would have bought more stuff from him. So if you do that stuff for your company, people will brag and tell others and it'll pay off big time for you, and you'll get a 99.9% or more positive rating in the things you do. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Check out my mentor program, greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning. All right. We'll catch you on the next episode. And DANDANIEKELL. Good job buddy.