Dan Janal | Publicity and PR Leads Blog

Customer service lessons from Princess Cruises

Yes, I am on vacation, but it is hard to tell that from all the email I am answering! At least I can’t use my phone since I’m on a cruise ship off the coast of Alaska in Yukon Country.

Here’s a great lesson from Princess. They have issued a “Customer Awareness Program” that they print in the welcoming book (about 3 inches thick, filled with just about every answer to every question you might have). Rule #10, the last rule, is quite intriguing: “We never say no. We say “I will be pleased to check.” We suggest alternatives. We call our supervisor or manager if we feel we cannot satisfy our passenger’s needs.”

Lots of companies have similar instructions to employees. But here’s the difference — on Princess, it works!

Here’s the case study.

Monday night was formal night. I brought my tux but forget to bring a shirt. Sure enough, they had a good supply of tuxedo shirts in the gift shop. A clerk came over to ask if she could help. I said, “Do you have a tape measure” so I could figure out the right size. She said she didn’t have one. So I said, “Then I guess you can’t help.” She said, “Well, I could use a strip of plastic to measure, or I could take the shirt to my room.” She mentioned a third way, but I was so amazed that she had two good solutions that I couldn’t keep up with her!

Now that’s customer service! She thought on her feet and she made a sale (and got some good PR for her company as well!)

Today’s chipping point: use the words in the Princess pledge. They are quite empowering for you and your employees and re-frame the entire customer service angle.

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In the old days, you had to die to get your face on a U.S. postage stamp.

What fun is that?

I mean, do you ever really know if your face will be on the stamp? You’re dead! No fun at all. Ogden Nash has no idea he’s on a stamp.

Now, stamps.com will put your face on a stamp for a small (well, not so small) service fee.

But you’ll be alive to see it and show it to your grandkids!

Now, lets get serious, fellow marketers.

You can use these stamps for your face if you are a speaker, or your book if you are an author, or your product if you’ve created a game or a widget.

You just can’t be on the UN’s Most Wanted List.

Even stamps.com has its standards!

Special thanks to author and PR LEADER BJ Gallagher for this tip. Stamps go live on May 15, 2005.

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Here’s another installment in what is likely to be a long series of Stupid Marketing Tricks.

I received an email the other day from a marketer, a person I’ve known for years through the National Speakers association. The subject line read: Oops, I made a mistake in the link.”

The message apologized for making a mistake by posting an incorrect link to a product she was selling.

Funny thing was, I don’t recall getting the first message with the bad link.

I am 100 percent convinced she thought she could get more people to open her message with an apology than with any other method.

Well, it worked to the point where I opened the message. But she lost her credibility with me forever with this little ploy.

Before you respond and say, “well maybe you didn’t get the first message,” read on.

This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten a message apologizing for a bad link. It seems like some “smart” marketer stumbled on this ploy and now his followers are adopting the bad example.

I don’t know about you, but I test my links before I send out messages — and yes, there are times when all the testing in the world won’t reveal a bad link. But I’m getting almost as many apology messages as I get messages from Pay Pal saying there’s an error on my account.

Frankly, I would be horrified to send a message to my entire list saying I am such a jerk for not testing my links beforehand.

Have direct marketers sunk so low as to have to pretend to be incompetent just to make a sale?

There are better ways to make a living, and better ways to be able to sleep at night.

I sent her a note asking her if it was truly a mistake or a clever marketing tactic.

It has been a week and I haven’t heard back from her.

If am lucky, maybe I never will!

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