Welcome back to Branded: your comprehensive guide to creative branding.

In this episode, we thought we’d shift gears and dive into an essential topic that's foundational to every successful business: exceptional customer service. We decided to make this a solo-ish episode, just the two of us, Sara and Larry, sharing insights and a personal story that underscores the impact of outstanding customer service on your brand.

Larry shares a recent experience that combines humor and a valuable lesson on customer service. After accidentally ordering 200 business cards with template guidelines, Larry reached out to Moo.com for help, despite knowing the mistake was his. What followed was an exemplary customer service interaction that not only resolved the issue but reinforced Larry's loyalty to the Moo brand. We also discuss how great customer service creates brand evangelists – loyal fans who are eager to spread the word about your brand.

We hope this episode inspires you to reflect on your own customer service practices and consider ways to elevate them to create impactful experiences for your customers.

Key takeaways:

1. The Power of Exceptional Customer Service: Larry's story about Moo.com reprinting his business cards despite his mistake illustrates the profound impact of going above and beyond for customers. This kind of service not only resolves immediate issues but also generates long-term loyalty and positive word-of-mouth.
2. Building Brand Evangelists: Sara points out that memorable customer service experiences encourage customers to become brand evangelists. These enthusiastic supporters will not only return but will also recommend your business to others, significantly amplifying your reach and reputation.
3. The Importance of Personal Touches: We discuss Moo.com's interaction on social media, where they provided personalized responses instead of generic comments. This attention to detail makes customers feel valued and understood, which is critical for building strong customer relationships.
4. Handling Mistakes with Grace: Larry's anecdote emphasizes the importance of admitting and learning from mistakes in a customer-centric manner. Acknowledging errors and making sincere efforts to rectify them can turn a potential negative into a compelling positive experience.
5. Consistency in Customer Service Across Channels: Ensuring that your customer service is consistent and exceptional across all platforms—whether it’s in-person, on the phone, or on social media—is crucial. This consistency builds trust and reliability, which are key components of a strong brand.

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Branded. We'll see you next week, and as always, we hope you're inspired to take your customer service to the next level, because your brand depends on it!

What is happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.

And I'm Sara Lohse. And this is Branded, your comprehensive guide to creative branding.

And on this solo ish episode of the podcast, you know, we've been going through and interviewing folks, but Sara and I felt, you know what? We need to do something together.

We needed some bonding time.

We did. We just needed some solo time to chat and reconnect with our audience on a very personal level. So that's what we're looking to do today. And in all honesty, that kind of brings us to the topic of the episode. I had an interesting experience this past week, and we thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about exceptional customer service and how it impacts your brand.

I think we just really need to focus, though, on how stupid this mistake was.

Wasn't that stupid. It wasn't that stupid.

What did you do? It was tell everyone what you did.

And you know, the worst part is that I was showing you what I ordered and it was on the image when I showed you.

Yeah, I saw it, but I thought I was like, oh, okay, that's weird. They like, keep the grids on, even in the proof.

I thought that same thing, and I looked at the proof.

So anyways, tell everyone what you did.

Yeah. Well, here's the thing, man. I've been going to a ton of networking events here in Dallas, the metroplex, and it's a mix of folks. Summer are gen xers, some are even boomers, some are Gen Z ers, some are millennials. And depending on where I go, there's different. We'll call them expectations in these rooms. Some expect you to have a digital business card, some expect you to have a LinkedIn, some expect you to have, gasp, business cards. And after going to these events, I thought, man, because what I do is I typically, I don't typically, I always just have my phone as my wallpaper.

On my phone, it's a QR code to my LinkedIn. But the more I'm out there shaking hands, kissing babies, the more I'm getting asked for business cards. So I broke down and I said, I just need to get some business cards. And unlike my co host and business partner here, Miss Sara, I have to have the cat daddiest cards in the world. So I went over to my favorite card provider, and based on the responses I got from everybody on my social media post, they love them equally. I went to moo.com, hashtag sponsor us. Well, it's funny because they actually commented on my Facebook post. So that was that was interesting there.

But anyways, so what I did was I looked at my cards that I had on there, and, you know, it's great because you can just click reorder and order your old cards. But so much had changed since the last time I, the last set of cards I had didn't have Larry Roberts.com on there. It was still using some different colors for the background. And so I took the opportunity to redesign everything. And I designed this really cat daddy looking card. And I ordered the Lux version of the mood cards, which is those super thick ones with a nice little color stripe in between the fibers. And I got the red stripes. I thought that'd be kind of cool with the red hat, and uploaded them.

And I ordered the order. And I ordered. I went a little overboard this time, too, because typically I order, like, 100. Well, this time I was so proud of these cards that I ordered 200. So. And, you know, it's a little pricey ordering that the their lux cards. And for 200, I think it came out to $167. So it's a little pricey.

But, man, the cards make an impression when people, you know, when you hand it to them, they're like, damn, that is a card right there. And I love that reaction. So anyways, I ordered the cards, and I was so excited and so proud. And I ordered expedited shipping, which I think was an extra $20 and maybe even 25 because there's an event next week, and I wanted to make sure I had the cards in time for the event. And they arrived, what, two days ago? I think maybe two days ago, something like that. And I was so stoked when I got them off the front porch and opened them up and whipped them out and went. And I looked at the card, and the back looked amazing, but the front still had all of the template guidelines, and it even said, us standard sized business card. And then it had instructions on how to use the template overlaid on my glorious new business cards that I had just ordered.

And again, they were $167, and I ordered instructions.

Did it say remove before printing?

Look, I'm a man. I don't read instructions, okay? So that's probably one of the biggest problems. But keep in mind, too, that I ordered not one, but 200. So now I had 200 business cards.

How many cards did you order?

200.

Oh, okay.

Not one, but two.

Gotcha.

2200.

Make sure I got it right.

Yeah. So now I have 200 business cards that have. Have, like, bleed markers on the edges. And again, just tons of extra text on top of the cards. So, again, I was taken aback as soon as I opened them. I was super stoked when they got there. And then I shed a little tear after I realized my very hardcore mistake there. And so I thought, you know what? I've got to try.

I know this is my mistake. I know I messed up. I went and reopened the Photoshop file and looked, and sure enough, the guidelines, that's. That layer was still checked. So I was like, man, golly, this sucks. So I jumped on Moo's website, found their phone number, and jumped on. And the guy that answered the phone, super nice, super cordial. And look, I just laid into it.

I was like, look, bro, I know this is on me, 100% on me, but I just got the cards, and they're all messed up. I know it's my fault, but is there anything you can do to help me out? And he was like, well, go ahead and give me your account number. Let me see what we're working with here. And I said, please keep in mind, too, you look at my account, you'll see I'm like, a decade long moo customer. I've ordered from you guys for years and years and years. I said, please keep that in mind as you decide whether or not you can help me. And that. That's just that.

That's that old man coming in. Right? Remember, I've been with you forever. So it took you.

Any idea who I think I am?

Yeah. No. Was it that? It was. I've been giving you guys money for a very long time. I should be a preferred customer. And I even felt cheesy saying it, but I just really wanted some help here.

You went a little Karen.

What's that? A little Karen.

Little Karen.

It was. It was a. Yeah, it was. There was a little Karen in there. And also, you know, a whole lot of embarrassment because I had to, you know, admit that this was all on me, and I stressed that. I said, look, bro, I'm about to tell you something that is totally my mistake. But he looked at it, and he goes, oh, my gosh. Yeah, I see exactly what you did.

And I totally get it. And you know what? We will be more than happy to reprint your lux business cards, all 200 of them, again, for you, and expedite the shipping so you still have them in time for your event next week. And I was like, oh, my God, that's the coolest thing ever. So I was blown away. Moo. You know, they came through. Yeah. Kind of rhymed it on purpose, but they did.

They came through in a clinch. And, man, it was just awesome. And, you know, it just left me with just this elated feeling of experiencing customer service on an entirely different level. Even though I goofed, they still went out of their way to make it right for the customer. So that was a story that I had to share. And I put it out on LinkedIn, I put it out on Facebook, and like I say, they even move and came back and I wrote this post, said, I'm a move fan for life. And they came back and said, we're so happy to help and so glad to have you as a move fan for life. So not only did they hook me up, they realized my social media post, they commented on it, and it wasn't just a generic response, because they literally referenced the terminology I used in the post.

It wasn't just a rubber stamp reply on a social media post. They. They just, every step of the way, they just demonstrated a level of customer service that you don't see these days.

I feel like anytime I have one of those really great customer service experiences, it makes me want to give them more money.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's kind of. I mean, that's kind of the point.

Yeah.

You know, and it was interesting, too, because on the social media posts that I put out there, both on LinkedIn and on Facebook, man, people were just raving everybody that commented, oh, I love moo. Ha ha. That's funny what you did, but I love moo, too. They're so cool. They always take care of me. They're always great. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Every post was making fun of me and praising moo simultaneously.

I feel like when I set my financial goals, my goal is to graduate from Walmart to target and from office Mex to moo for my business. Like, I want to reach that level of wealth. Yeah, I'm not there yet. Disposable income.

Yeah, no, it feels good.

I get my box of, like, 500 for $1.50 or whatever it is. And with that, but that really, you remember those kinds of experiences, and that's how you create those fans for life. It's how you create those brand evangelists. And it's such an important piece when you're building a brand, is getting that reputation, and I'm not sure if I even offer that, and I hate that about myself because it's just my way. My brain works. I don't answer emails.

What do you mean you don't answer emails? I know. You don't answer text.

I don't answer text. And I don't answer emails. I'll get an email. It's from. It'll be from a client and they'll tell me, like, all of this stuff is in the drive or whatever, and all I have to say is, got it or something. And I don't. I just do the work that needs to be done and just ignore it. And then they come back with, like, did you get this email? Oh, yeah, I got it.

Everything's done. You're good to go. I just don't remember. I'll either respond in my head or I'll just go straight into doing whatever the task is. And I just never respond to the emails.

Well, I mean, you know, I'm fired. Some of us are just arrogant like that, you know, we don't. We can't be bothered by replying to emails or texts or what, instant messages or anything. It's just, pshaw. Don't have time for it.

Seriously. Like, who do y'all think you are? My time is precious. No, but I really. I need to get better at that. I honestly do.

We all do.

My best customer service company, chewy, the.

Dog food or pet food company that.

Yes, the pet company. Everyone at Chewy is invited to Thanksgiving. They are the best human beings that company. Anytime you have to return something, it's no question. If it's like, an entire bag of food, they don't take anything back. They just say, donate it to a shelter. Amazing. I love that.

Yeah.

And then it's just replaced. Like, no questions asked. I've ordered a forgotten to cancel auto ships and gotten food that Harvey doesn't like anymore. They just refunded and I donated. Um, I think that time I dropped it on the side of the road for a. There's a homeless camp with a couple dogs. I've got. I've done the wrong medicine, like, the wrong weights, forgot that he had gotten fat.

And they're like, yeah, no, that's fine. Just don't even bother sending it back. We'll send you out a new one. They once, there was, like, one thing I was like, $4 that I wanted to return to, and they refunded an entire $200 order for a $4 product. I was like, I only meant this one thing.

Yeah.

And they refunded everything I had ordered.

Wow.

And then they send my dog's birthday cards. They sent me a hand painted portrait of my dog.

Wow.

Hand painted. Like, you could see the brushstrokes.

Yeah.

I can't say I didn't ask for it because I kind of did. I knew they were doing that for random people and I tweeted at them like how do I get randomly selected for a portrait of my dog? And they dm me saying what's your email address associated with your account? So I don't know if I was super randomly selected, but I got my portrait.

That's all that matters. Is that the one that hangs in the living room of Harvey there? Is that the one?

No. So the one hanging in the living room like in my stairwell? That was actually one of my best friends, Talon.

Oh that's right.

She actually did that one as a digital portrait. And now that I just adopted Kevin, he's going to get his for Christmas. So he's working on one for him. This one. It's the little square one on the little canvas that sits on my bookshelf.

Okay, I don't recall that.

I think it's of the same photo. So they look the same, but one's like hand painted and then one is like digital art.

Oh that's cool. That's super cool. But yeah, it's just an example of, you know, those small, and if it's a smaller photo, I mean that kind of is relevant too. It's the small things you can do sometimes to really stretch that customer service experience for your clients is obviously a direct reflection on your brand. You know, I mean we look at Amazon, I order stuff all the time from Amazon and have to send it back and I send it back and there's typically no questions asked and I get a full refund. And it's amazing. I mean if I'm trying on clothes because I don't like going out in public shopping. So it's one of those things where I'll order clothes, try them on, go that doesn't quite fit right and then just ship it back.

It's like Amazon is my personal, what are those called? Dressing rooms. So that type of thing is what keeps me going back.

That one I'm not so sure about because I don't think it's anything on Amazon that's going to come out of the actual retailers pocket and because takes money from everybody.

It doesn't come out of my pocket. How's that?

That's true.

It's like kids who go to college on scholarship, they don't care. They're just there getting education for free. They don't care where it comes from, they don't care if it's subsidized by the government and our taxes that they're going to school on. They're cool with that. And I'm the same way with Amazon. So if I can use Amazon to get free stuff, or at least free opportunities to try stuff on and send it back, I'm all about it. So to me, it's Amazon providing that customer service.

I guess I just hate giving them credit for stuff, but this isn't customer service.

I love how some brands get a bad reputation for just being too successful. Yes, we're too successful, so people hate it.

Yes, exactly.

That's, that, that's just blows my mind. It's got to be a generational thing. Yeah, it blows my mind for somebody to have success. Envy to the point I have such a brand.

Seriously, though, I have no idea. Yes, me, this is a very common thing, cognitive dissonance about Amazon, too, because like, on a purely, like, principal level, I hate them, but I also order from them every day.

Oh, there you go.

So I appreciate the honesty. Yeah, no, in this situation, I have the moral backbone of a marshmallow peep, but it's fine. But this is so not necessarily customer service, but just like how we treat other people. I just have the story and I just need to share it.

Cool.

There's. I think it was like a football team. It was a college football team, and they only have a set number of scholarships they can give to their athletes. And they ran out and one of their students could, like, one of the players could not get a scholarship because they were out of scholarships and he was selling plasma to afford his tuition. Wow. While playing for the school. And one of the scholarship kids went to his parents, discussed, like, if they can afford it without the scholarship and everything, and went to his coach and said, take away my scholarship and give it to him.

Dude, that's amazing. That, that's an amazing story.

My heart. Yeah, I would support his business a hundred percent.

And, you know, and I think that's what puts some of these, these companies in the position to provide the level of service that they provide. It can be very, very difficult for brand new entrepreneurs who's just building a brand to provide. We'll say that level of customer service, sometimes we just can't afford to take that financial hit. And that's, that's totally understandable. But there's still opportunities for us to provide customer service at an exceptional level, even if you take the monetary side of things out of the equation. And I think that we lose sight of that sometimes because it can be super frustrating if you're a consultant or a coach and you have clients that are on retainer and they seem to take advantage of every opportunity they have to, to work with you. They're sending you emails at 02:00 in the morning or sending you texts all day every day, including twice on Sunday. And it just gets super frustrating.

And there is an opportunity to hopefully, you know, divorce those types of clients. But in the meantime, if we're under a contract or under an extended agreement or we've, they purchased a level of service from us, even if it gets frustrating, we still have to keep in mind that throughout all that frustration, our brand is still at the forefront of that interaction.

Yeah, I had one experience that I was just, I kind of just said effort and I don't care what they think about my brand, but I had a client that they just were terrible and they, we had an agreement of when I would like, I was paid monthly as a retainer and it'd be paid at the beginning of the month and they were just withholding payment.

Yeah.

Because they wanted to see specific results and those results were not possible to get yet. It was like I told them, there's a six month minimum for a reason. You're not going to see this result in month two. And they just refused. I was still doing the work because I didn't want the projects to fall behind because customer service and like, I want to do what I said I was going to do. Yeah, they refused to pay.

Yeah. I mean, that's a different story if they're refusing to pay you.

Yeah.

I'm not saying that our brand is dependent on working for free. No one should work for free. And yeah, if they're not paying their invoices, uh, you know, they, they can take a long walk off, short period, in my personal opinion. But, uh, you know, I'm talking about those scenarios where people were paying.

Oh, yeah.

You know, they're committing to their, they're, they're keeping up their end of the bargain, but they're just really just taking advantage. You know, those are the kind of, kind of clients I'm talking about there.

I like, I pride myself on being very kind, very polite, like when I'm talking to clients and very personable and it's like one on one. I want them to be like my friends and I'm never very confrontational in the professional space. I had to, I had to confront.

I had to confrontation and to confront.

I had to confrontational. But it was like, it was really just more of their customer service, their, like the experience with their brand of, this is what we, this is how we treat people.

Yeah.

And I think part of it was being a solopreneur, being someone that it's just me and I'm just little girl in my twenties running this little company and probably seems really easy to take advantage of and people will take advantage of things like that. So they were not expecting me to say that my lawyer has already looked over everything and is ready to pursue if necessary. And they also didn't know that by my lawyer. I met my best friend's husband, who I pay and spoiling my niece. But that's not important. They don't know that.

Yeah, no, but really go to work.

Like, oh. But he had looked over everything and he was like, I think I venmoed him like, a penny. And I said, now you're on retainer. It really, like, it shows if you're. That's how you're treating people who are working for you, how are you treating other people?

Yeah.

And I lost all respect for that company. I'm pretty sure they've, like, gone under and they have.

I'm pretty sure we.

Do we call them out? Do we call them out?

We don't call them out. No, that's. That's. No, we don't call them out because I think they're. I think they're defunct. I think they defaulted and they probably.

Probably. I think they rhyme with Gastagar.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a. That's a good clue. That's a good clue, man. Sounds like a wizard from Harry Potter, right?

Like Lord of the Rings.

Well, we got. We got way off base here on this one.

Customer service.

Sorry, rhymes with Gastagar.

Y'all can kiss my ass.

Hey, whoa, whoa. Kiss my astagar. So, yeah, anyways, yes, but really, when.

You have that good customer service, you start to gain that reputation, you start to get those clients who are going to be those repeat customers and it's going to almost always increase your revenue because of that. And you have to kind of look at it more big picture, too, because if you're offering refunds on things like that's money out of your pocket, that's decreasing. But the effect that it's going to have more in the long run is what's important. And it can be tough, though, because when you are a small business, if you pay me something now and then, you ask for that money back in like a month, that money's gone, that has been spent. Like, we don't all have this big cash reserve that we can just sit on in case we need to pay someone back. So it can be really tough, but it's part of what you just have to do, and you have to just eat it.

Yeah, I get it, man. Not everybody can use their dollar 200 with a business cards to wrap their g wagon. I mean, it's just not something that everybody can do. I mean, it's a luxury that I enjoy, but I get where most people, you know, he drives a Ford by g wagon. I mean, Ford Edge. But, but, but, yeah, man, I think that's that. I wanted to share that story because I think there's a lot to learn from it. One, make sure that if you're designing your business cards and you're using Photoshop, turn off the template guideline layer before you upload the image.

That's always a plus.

Proofread before your print. Double check before your print.

Yeah, it's just weird because I know, I know, I know. I looked at it, and for some reason, in my people little mind, it went, yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's right.

What is the saying in, like, construction? It's measure twice, cut once.

Yeah, yeah.

Here it's like, check twice, print once.

And I know. I checked multiple times and still printed twice. I went, yeah, cool, that'll work.

When you showed it to me, though, I was really confused about it. I was like, what's up with all the lines? I guess.

Yeah. Well, thanks for saying something.

I don't, I haven't used Moo. I actually used them years ago, but I didn't remember. I thought maybe that's just like, how they do their proofs. I don't know.

Thanks, partner.

I think I just had more faith in you than you deserved.

Yeah. In that instance, yes.

Like, you would never.

Oh, but he would. Oh, but he did.

Never underestimate. Never overestimate it.

Well, once again, thanks to move. For all their support and their amazing customer service, hopefully you got some value out of this episode and put a little thought into your own level of customer service that you provide, because your brand depends on it. So with that, I'm Larry Roberts.

And I'm Sara Lohse. And if you're waiting on an email response from me, I am so sorry. You're not gonna get it.

Not gonna happen.

We'll talk to you next week.