We do a lot of business shopping for WV at Staples, and because of a mix-up in our account we had to contact their customer support department.

After filling out their form online, we received two automated email replies:

#1

“Thanks for contacting us! We appreciate that you’ve taken time out of your busy schedule to let us know how we’re doing. We will be happy to respond to your inquiries. Please allow up to 7 business days.

Thank you for your patience and as always, thanks for shopping Staples.

Thank you,

#2

Thank you for contacting Staples Rewards.

We are currently experiencing high contact volume; please expect a delay in our response.

Don’t forget to view our Frequently Asked Questions at http://www.StaplesRewards.com.

Haven’t visited us online before? Don’t forget to register your account to login and view your account status.

Thank you,

These two emails break some of the cardinal rules of delivering great online support:

• Never send two automated emails when 1 email would have sufficed.  People get enough email.
• 7 days response time is crazy long.  48 hours is the maximum anyone ever should allow
• We already are registered and actually sent this support email from inside our account. So, why are they asking us to do something we have already done?
• Never tell a customer that you are “too busy” with other support inquiries.  This is a business problem and does not matter to your customer.  The message you are sending is that other customers are more important than he/she is.

Remember, great customer service is a way of doing business.  Learn from Staples, and try not to repeat their errors.

Many of you who know me, know that I am a big TR (Theodore Roosevelt) fan.

I was rereading a book TR wrote about his adventures in Africa, and I was struck by a line he wrote, “The darker the night the bolder the lion.” This seemed to be an amazingly fitting line for our current economic climate.   We are in the midst of one of the worst economic climates in any of our lifetimes.  And many are predicting that it only will get worse.  My sense is that it is time to be bold.  Strategies in this climate need to be grand, yet economical at the same time (the definition of bold in its purest business form).   They require decisive action and doing things more quickly and nimbly than others in the marketplace can.

So, as you gear up to attack 2009, ask yourself, “What kind of lion am I?”  Are you one that will roar out of a terrible economy and command a market segment, or are you a follower left to get scraps, barely able to survive?  The answer is completely up to you.