My first real job out of college was a junior web designer job at Gateway Computer in southern California. It was 2005 and long after their heyday in the late 90′s and early 2000′s. The company was in a slow decline and every few months a few select coworkers of mine would be called off to an impromptu meeting and subsequently laid off. We usually had a lot of fun at work, but you could tell the company was a shell of its former self and the ship was slowly sinking.
I remember seeing the long gone founder, Ted Waitt, doing crazy things like posing as James Bond on ski boats in old magazine ads plastered on the wall. All the old paraphernalia showed a company having fun and loving what they were doing. The golden age of the company was different and I was very interested in learning about it. At some point I got to talking to one of the long time employees and she told me all sorts of stories from the past.
The Right Way to Do Customer Service
One story that sticks with me is what the employees that built computers were responsible for. They started with a pile of parts, assembled them, and boxed the final product. In each box, they put a handwritten note with their name and telephone number. The note told the customer that if they had any problems, feel free to reach out to them personally. All of the computer assemblers had individual telephones in their work area and would stop what they were doing to answer calls from their very own customers. Needless to say, Gateway customers became extremely devoted, maybe a little because of this unique take on customer service.
It Didn’t Last Forever
I can see how that sort of customer service isn’t the most scalable, but it’s ultimately sad that it had to change. Eventually personal computers margins dropped to next to nothing and Gateway moved their manufacturing business to China. Their unique customer service ended. Somewhere around that time the decline of the company started slowly and one of the great computer brands began to fade away. The pride in the product was gone and customers eventually noticed and reacted accordingly.
The lesson I take from this is believe in your product and personally stand behind it and its value. If you do that, then great customers won’t be too far behind and you’ll have a lot of fun in the process.
