I used to be in the consumer electronic business and I miss parts of the industry. So I recently started designing home theater systems on the side just to practice my skills (and because it is fun). A client needed a system placed in a specific location with defined space limits. So after determining what products I would recommend for my client, I then turned my attention toward finding an attractive piece of furniture to house everything.

Customer service is vital to the long-term success of a firm, but so many firms fail at this. Recently, I wrote four firms asking them to list which TV stands they had that would meet a specific set of dimensional requirements. I would prefer to have done this myself on their website, but not a one of them had a website that would allow me to enter a specific set of measurements and then give me a list. Instead, you could click on a variety of styles that were not well organized by dimensions. A task that should have taken 1-2 minutes would have taken quite a bit of time to do online. If I was going to spend that much time evaluating each site, I could literally build my own stand (which is an option I am considering).

So I sent Bell'O, StudioTech, Sanus, and Bush Furniture an email explaining my particular requirements and asked them to let me know what products that had that would meet my need. Presumably they should know their products and could have quickly narrowed down the list to a few options.

I was favorably impressed with both Sanus and Studio Tech. Each responded quickly with a list of products that were close to my needs. Unfortunately, neither had products that met my exact needs, but I will definitely consider them for future projects. Thank you Lyn and Cici.

I was not impressed with Bell'O or Bush Furniture. Neither of their customer service agents bothered to do any homework on their own products at all, they just sent me an email saying they would be happy to mail me a catalog. Bell'O was especially annoying, the anonymous agent referred me to their website (the same poorly designed website from which I had to use a form to contact them) instead of answering my question. Their poor service annoyed me to the point where I am leaning toward building my own solution even though I know Bush Furniture has at least one option that would work for my client.

Customer service is always important, but it is vital when the economy is doing poorly. It is an inexpensive and key way to differentiate your firm from the competition.

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