World-Class Customer Service

Originally published at http://www.smartfurniture.com/whitepapers/customerservice.html

Our Mission is to treat every customer in every situation the way we would want to be treated if our roles were reversed. We recognize that this is the highest possible standard of service, and it can only be achieved if every single one of us governs ourselves according to this principle while always striving to do the right thing. (read testimonials) 

Need to get in touch with us? Call 888-467-6278 to speak with a representative or make a request to be contacted. 

The Golden Rule of Customer Service

Simply stated, the Golden Rule of Customer Service requires that everyone at Smart Furniture treat every customer the way they want to be treated when they are customers.

• We should strive to show the kind of courtesy, competence, integrity, responsiveness and respect that each of us would like to be shown.
• This policy should affect virtually every aspect of our business. It began with the founder putting a business phone by his bed every night to answer anytime a customer called, because he would want (though maybe not expect) the same.
• Another example of the Golden Rule is our Lifetime Warranty on the quality of Smart Furniture manufactured products. Rather than qualifying this warranty with pages and pages of fine print, we simply state that if any Smart Furniture manufactured product gets damaged, we will replace it for free (that's really it).
• There are countless other examples of how this policy impacts our relationship with our customers. From having a human being actually answering the phone when a customer calls to developing packaging that makes it simple for anyone to carry and unpack, the Golden Rule of Customer Service should be a source of pride for our team and hopefully will encourage our customers to think of us a little different than our competition.

Everyone at Smart Furniture, regardless of job title, is responsible for providing customer service, and customer service is inherent in all that we do. 

• From the first prototypes of the Signature Smart Furniture product which were designed to be tool-free and customizable to fit the customers' needs, our company is built around providing customers with solutions that satisfy their needs and make their lives easier.
• Whether it is reconfiguring products that our customers have designed themselves so that the customers will save money or spending hours on the phone with multiple freight companies to ensure that we fulfill our commitment to deliver our products in time for an important tradeshow or store opening, we will go beyond ordinary customer service to provide service that is truly extraordinary.
• Such a customer service ethic applies internally too. Each of us is here to help our other team members do their jobs. We should provide the same level of service to team members as we do customers.

We will always strive to do the right thing in every situation. 

• Our young company can't claim to have any particular expertise in ''doing the right thing.'' Sometimes we don't even know what the ''right'' thing is. And sometimes, even when we do, it requires such sacrifice that an easier or more instantly ''rewarding'' choice is tempting.
• ''Doing the right thing'' is certainly not about ''rewards.'' With that said, trying our best to do the right thing has yielded a potent long-term benefit to our culture. It comes down to one word: Trust. Obviously, earning the trust of customers and vendors is important. But first, we realize that the members of our team must trust each other, up and down and across the organization, from the office, to the showroom to the warehouse.
• That may sound like a small thing, but its effects have been powerful here at Smart Furniture. Trust has opened the door to a kind of diversity, freedom, and candor that none of us has experienced before in other workplaces. People volunteer when they don't understand something or make a mistake, or have an idea that may sound silly, because they trust each other, and they trust that we're all trying to improve, all the time, all together.
• It gives a greater meaning to our professional and personal pursuits. Professionally, of course, we want to help our customers and our fellow team members. Those customers and that team must trust that the folks at Smart Furniture will do their able best to do the right thing. That trust has a tendency to remove barriers - barriers to discussion, to self-improvement, and even, frankly, to sales.
• On a more personal and ultimately more important level, we can't control every aspect of our company's success; we cancontrol how we conduct ourselves individually, and as a team, toward others, because it matters.
• Even if Smart Furniture is around for 100 years, even though our business mission is very important to us, most of us will not spend our whole lives working here. But however long we are here, and whatever we accomplish, when we're done, the more meaningful measure of our legacy - of our effect on the people we worked with and served - will not be what we did, but how we did it.