French retail chain Darty creates great Web 2.0 service

In 1973, some 35 years ago (!), the consumer goods retail chain “Darty” expressed what is still their mantra today: “Le Contrat de Confiance” or “The Trust Contract”. Their promise was that they would never let their customers down and each time one bought a hair dryer, a HiFi system or a refrigerator, one was actually given a booklet with the detail of their commitments (every French household has a collection of Darty booklets).

Darty is now part of the British retail group Kingfisher Plc, alongside B&Q, Castorama, Brico Depot and Hornbach -to name some of the best known sister companies. But they have maintained their obsession for Customer Satisfaction: they have relentlessly continued to communicate on this mantra. As a result, in France, the words “Contrat de Confiance” literally belong to Darty.

Well, they have recently taken the concept a step further, using today’s Web 2.0 technology : last time I bought something from a Darty store in Paris (and I don’t live in Paris, but in Rennes, Brittany, 200 miles away), I was presented with “another loyalty card” I thought to myself.

I shrugged my shoulders until the salesman explained to me that if I went to Darty’s web site, I could access my private area, which already contained the details of all the products I had bought from Darty in the last 5 years.

If I can’t find the user manual, it is there, waiting for me to download in PDF format, via a link under the photo of the product. If it breaks down, I don’t even need to look for the warranty or invoice…it’s all in the system. And of course, if I want to buy a new accessory, I can order it directly from their site. They have preselected everything that goes with my product.

Everything is just one click away…simple and friendly. I can’t wait to buy my next item from Darty…

Navman GPS repair, part 2…its back!

Well, I knew I could trust these guys, my GPS is repaired and back home. The whole thing barely took 2 weeks and it was delivered back by UPS. I’m impressed.

How my GPS found its way back to the Service organisation

My Navman F20 GPS broke down the other day (these things happen) and since it was only 6 months old, I contacted Navman’s European Support organisation to find out what I needed to do. After I gave them the serial number of the GPS, and described the problem -it can’t find its internal memory- I was told I would receive an eMail with instructions on how to return it for repair.

A few hours later, the eMail arrived, with a link to an Extranet that contained an image of the label I simply needed to print, stick on the box, and drop off at my nearest post office.

I printed out the label, pre-paid for a French Colissimo express service, which contained my address, the Navman RMA number and several bar codes for tracking purposes and simply dropped it off at the post office, kept the proof of deposit signed by the post office and left.

This whole procedure has been well thought out, is very reassuring for the customer and I am certain that the rest of the process has been optimised to reduce Navman’s costs to the strict minimum while ensuring a speedy repair.

I am now waiting to see how long the apparatus will take to come back, but the first part of my experience is very encouraging…watch this space…