The Immeasurable Value of Caring for Your Customers

If you’ve ever had a pet, especially one who was a close companion, then you understand.

Doogie was my buddy - an affectionate “dog” cat who was by my side for the last 15 years of life’s ups, downs, and in-betweens. He was a bridge between a past life and all the ones I’ve had since. He was a 1.5-year-old, skittish rescue who picked me at the shelter and didn’t give me a choice but to take him home.

I didn’t have a pet growing up, so everything about Doogie was new to me, including the feelings I’m having now. He ate too much, he destroyed power cords and shoelaces, he made a mess (and a smell), he hid in dangerous places, and he kept us up at night. But he also entertained us, delighted us, comforted us, and loved us.

And we loved him.

Three years ago, when we found out he had kidney disease, I was in denial about what that really meant. But his prescription food diet (thanks, Royal Canin) helped make sure we got a few more, high quality of life years together.

Two weeks ago, when it became clear that we needed to help Doogie move past his pain (while we moved into ours), I had no idea the grief, the love I still had left to share, would hit me so hard.

I lost it many times, but I’ll only tell you about two.

First, as I started reconciling in the aftermath, I found myself chatting with Chewy to see if I could get a refund for the hundreds of dollars of food that we no longer needed.

Compassionately, they refunded our money for ALL of the food. Further, they said there was no need to return it. Rather, they suggested donating it to a local shelter.

In gratitude, I lost it.

Whoever it was, real person or conversational AI, that gesture lifted my spirits when I needed it most.

Second, later that weekend, we found flowers outside our front door. My wife and I guessed that they were probably from one of our moms because they’re both so considerate about these kinds of things (and not many people knew at this point).

We got inside, opened the card, and were shocked to find out the flowers were from…Chewy.

Chewy had found out maybe the day before and worked with a local vendor to get us the flowers immediately.

We were blown away. And, of course, I lost it again.

Some of you are probably already aware that Chewy does things like this for its customers, but I was not. I had generally known of their great customer experience, and, certainly, I was satisfied enough with Doogie’s prescription food subscription.

But this touched me, blew me away, and, as they are probably well aware, made me a customer for life (whenever we decide to get another pet).

As someone who helps human health care organizations think about how to connect their strategies to what people really need (care, attention, empathy, connection, kindness, etc.), I couldn’t help but think that I’ll soon be asking my clients to consider, “How might you deliver customer value the way that Chewy does?”

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Hi, I’m Joel Worthington, and I help service-oriented, intrapreneurial leaders harness the power of collaboration and subject matter expertise to elevate the value of cross-disciplinary teams and partners.

Email me at joel@jwcollaborative.com to connect about #collaboration #codesign #humancentereddesign #facilitation #coaching and #coachsulting