Monday, May 11, 2009

Alcatraz Cruises knows how to make its customers smile


I love to talk about when I received great customer service. Here is another story about a company that understands the value of great customer relations.


After probably six previous visits to San Francisco, my wife and I decided to finally take in the highly rated Alcatraz tour.

I located the official Alcatraz tour website on the Internet and placed an order for four tickets to be used on May 7th. After I paid for the tickets I realized that a mistake was made since I meant to order for May 6th because we were leaving to go home the morning of May 7th.

I the phone number easily seen on the company website. I was greeted by a very friendly fellow. "No problem," he said. After a few short minutes I was told my tickets would be waiting for me at the dock on May 6th. And they were. The tour turned out to be the highlight of our trip. I encourage everyone to take the time to visit Alcatraz.

But here is where the real customer service comes in.

When I got home I saw an email from the company. I think we can learn a lot from this nice followup. I wrote the company rep Denise Rasmussen shown in the original email and thanked her for the nice letter. After Denise wrote back I asked if she would tell me a little about how her company uses email to grow their business. This is the answer I received from Denise:

<>/

Hi Greg - how nice of you to take the time to write! I'm delighted that you enjoyed your visit to Alcatraz. Of course you are welcome to use my post-cruise email on your blog. You will make our electronic marketing people very happy indeed!

This email is automatically generated on the day after a customer visits Alcatraz. It's a great way to get instant feedback, both positive and negative, from our customers. All customer emails that come back to us as a result of this email are handled during the same day, or if it's late on a Friday, than we contact the customer on Monday morning.

What I'm basically saying is that sending the letter is only one part of our plan; responding with either a thank you for the compliment, or a fix for the problem, is even more important.

I wouldn't suggest anyone offer a customer response program like this if they aren't prepared to address return emails promptly.

Again, thanks for taking the time to write to me. I hope you'll come back again one day soon and visit Alcatraz again.

Kind regards,

Denise

Denise M. Rasmussen

Director of Sales and Marketing | Alcatraz Cruises, LLC | Pier 33, Alcatraz Landing, San Francisco, Ca 94111 | Ph: 415.559.3122 F: 415.986.1721 | DRasmussen@AlcatrazCruises.com

Alcatraz Island: An Inescapable Experience |
www.alcatrazcruises.com

< /snip>

Words of wisdom for us all. Thanks, Denise!

Photo by Spideog

Greg Cryns

The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion

No comments:

Post a Comment