LL Bean and Trusted Advisors
Charles Green has a wonderful post on his Trusted Advisors blog about LL Bean: Urban Myth Or Rural Superstition. Pulled from The Consumerist, it tells a story of the Maine Outfitter's legendary customer service. Guy's wife orders 3 monogrammed shirts for him for Christmas. Oops. Wrong size. She calls to place the order again with the right size and admits her error. The LL Bean clerk refuses to take the order and insists that she return the shirts so they can replace them with the right sized shirts. "But their monogramed, so you won't be able to resell them. And it was my fault," she said. LL Bean's reply? "I understand that, but we want to make sure are customers are 100% satisfied with their orders." Wow.
The Trusted Advisors post provides some other examples of exemplary service, including David Maister's promise of 100% satisfaction, promising any unsatisfied customer the option of paying what the customer thought his service was worth. My friends at Summit Law Group include a similar promise on their invoices. With Summit's blessing, we at Valorem Law Group have included "Value Adjustment Line" on every invoice. Our hope is that our commitment to satisfaction will one day earn us the "legendary" adjective applied to LL Bean.
As an aside, many people have asked if we're crazy. They can't believe we would provide clients the unquestioned right to make any adjustment to our invoices they think appropriate. As we have thought through the process, we can't believe everyone doesn't offer the same option. We provide a service. We believe we provide outstanding quality and value. Why would we not stand beyond what we do? We hope clients and prospects ask all of their service providers if they are confident enough to offer the Valorem promise. The commitment to client satisfaction should not end just before the invoice is mailed.
Last night I had an IT guy who runs his own business come to my home to upgrade two of my computers. This is repeat business, as he provides excellent service. I have never asked what his prices are, because I don't need to. I know that I will be satisfied with the work, and the price will be fair.
When he was done, I asked him "how much do I owe you?". He replied that he would only charge me the minimum of $100. If he had give me the option of paying based on value, I would have written the check for at least $150. He saved me time and money, and he is a trusted advisor that I invite into my home. That adds an immense amount of value to the transaction.
I am very impressed with your "value adjustment line", and am wondering if you would ever provide some statistics about how it is working.
I would also be interested in the kind of feedback you get through actual adjustments to the bills. I would imagine that there's not a better ALERT than if your bill gets written down. Do you have either statistics or anecdotes you could share about how this works?
I had a VERY similar experience at LL Bean when I was younger (I grew up in Eastern Maine). I had a winder jacket that was probably 5 years old (well worn), but when I went to the LL Bean outlet store to buy a new one they insisted they would replace the jacket since the zipper went bad. Well, they didn't carry that particular jacket anymore, but they pulled the price history for this jacket and gave me cash for the jacket to buy a new one.
It really still makes me giggle when I tell my fellow legal administrators that Summit has a value adjustment line. Even though some have known me for years, they still can't believe it.